532 LITERATURE OF GARDENING. 



ON THE LITEKATUKE OF ANCIENT AND 

 MODEM GAKDENING. 



Read before the Royal Society of Literature, London, 2yd March 1 887.] 



THE "Literature of Gardening" may be said to 

 commence with the earliest period of history. 

 In the second chapter of the Book of Genesis we read 

 "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, 

 and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out 

 of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that 

 is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The Tree of 

 Life also in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of Know- 

 ledge of Good and Evil. And a river went out of Eden 

 to water the garden." And here I would observe that in 

 this the first garden of which we have any record not only 

 " every tree that was good for food," but " every tree that 

 was pleasant to the sight" was planted, so that ornamental 

 gardening was recognised at a date coeval with the crea- 

 tion of man. 



The Bible throughout abounds in allusions to trees 

 and flowers. A passage in Deuteronomy would almost 

 seem to warrant the conclusion that experience had 

 revealed to the cultivators the existence of the sexes of 

 plants, although the discovery of this fact has been claimed 

 for a much later period " Thou shalt not sow thy vine- 

 yard with divers seeds, lest the fruit of thy seed which thou 

 hast sown and the fruit of thy vineyard be defiled." 

 Deuteronomy, chap, xxii., v. 9. In the first Book of 

 Kings (chap, iv., v. 33) it is recorded of Solomon that "he 

 spake of trees from the Cedar tree that is in Lebanon even 

 unto the Hyssop that springeth out of the wall." In Eccle- 

 siastes (chap, ii.) we read " I made me great works ; 

 I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me 

 gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all 

 kinds of fruits ; I made me pools of water to water there- 

 with the wood that bringeth forth trees." In Solomon's 

 Song frequent allusion is made to a garden " Thy plants 



