LITERATURE OF GARDENING. 537 



and the summer flowers enumerating the violet, the 

 anemone, and the hyacinth among the former, and the 

 lychnis and two varieties of the pothos among the latter. 

 The properties of plants, trees, and fruits, are not over- 

 looked, and a long list of their uses as remedies classified 

 according to particular diseases is given, from which it 

 appears to me our early English Herbals have been 

 in a great measure derived. According to Pliny and 

 others the kings of Rome cultivated their gardens with 

 their own hands, and the Romans had pleasure gardens in 

 the very heart of the city. The love of the marvellous, 

 which in the present day records occasionally the "big 

 gooseberry " and the " fat rose " as at once a wonder and 

 a joke, seems to have existed then, for the Romans boasted 

 of "pampered" cabbages that the poor man's table was 

 not large enough to hold, and asparagus neads weighing 

 3 Ibs. each. Pliny enumerates, among other plants, 

 twelve varieties of the rose and four varieties of the lily. 

 He classifies plants according to their stems and according 

 to their leaves, and had observed that some plants begin 

 to flower at the top and others at the bottom of the 

 stalk. 



On the fall of the Roman Empire there is a chasm 

 which I suppose it is impossible to fill up. On the revival 

 of arts and learning gardening soon attracted attention. 

 Italy was apparently the first of European countries to 

 engage in agriculture and gardening, and Pierre de 

 Crescent was one of the earliest writers on gardens of 

 pleasure. This was at the end of the 1 3th century. 

 About two centuries later, Lorenzo de Medici had a 

 famous garden in Italy, and the taste gradually spread 

 in that country and to others. Filippo Re and Clarici are 

 the greatest early Italian writers on gardening. Later 

 on Malphigi stands high as a writer on the anatomy of 

 plants. 



The Dutch were early in the field as gardeners, some 

 assert even before the Italians, but both nations have been 



