Book II. GARDENING UNDER DIFFERENT GOVERNMENTS. Ill 



people ; and the rational, or those where they are governed hy laws formed by a congre- 

 gated assemblage of their own body. The former are calculated for rude and ignorant 

 ages, when man, in a state of infancy, is governed by a king, as children are ruled by 

 their parents; the latter, for more enlightened times, when a people, like children 

 arrived at manhood, are capable of thinking for themselves and acting in concert. 



509. Society is either Jixed or free. In a fixed state, property is hereditary, and one 

 part of the people are perfectly independent, and the other dependent ; in a free state, 

 men may belong to either class, according to their talents and the chances of life. In 

 the former case, a man's condition in society depends on chance; in the latter on chance 

 and skill combined. 



Sect. I. Gardening as affected by different Forms of Government and Religion. 



510. Gardening as an art furnishing a part of the necessaries of life, may be practised 

 under any form of government; and wherever there is some liberty and security of 

 property, its productions of necessity and comfort will ensure its use. Wherever 

 civilised man has a house, he will always have an accompanying spot for roots and 

 legumes; and wherever he enjoys a farm, he will desire orchards or vineyards for 

 fruits or wine, and copse-woods and forest-trees for fuel and timber: shelter, shade, 

 and ornament will follow in due time. Under paternal forms of government, the taste 

 of the monarch will generally be indiscriminately followed by such of his subjects as 

 can indulge in it; and thus fashion will assume the province of reason. Such a 

 government must be favorable or unfavorable to the arts, according to the taste of its 

 chief. Monarchs generally love splendor more than elegance or use ; and in gardening 

 are less likely to render its useful productions common among their subjects, than to 

 increase the luxurious enjoyments of a few wealthy courtiers. This was exemplified in 

 Louis XIV., who set the fashion not only in France but in Europe ; but never, in all 

 probability, added a foot of ground to the garden of a single cottager, or placed an 

 additional cabbage or potatoe on his table. Under republican governments , the first 

 tendency of public feeling is to economy, and consequently to discourage those arts, or 

 branches of arts, winch minister to luxury. Gardening, under such circumstances, 

 will be practised as a useful art, rather than one of design and taste ; and more for its 

 substantial benefits and scientific objects, than for its extraordinary productions and 

 peculiar gratifications. In the beginning of the French revolution, we find the com- 

 pilers of the Encyclopaedia .see the vol. sur V Aratoire et Jardinage) holding light the 

 productions of forcing-houses, and the taste for double flowers. In America, the same 

 simplicity of taste prevails, and also in Switzerland, 



511. Gardening hi all its branches will be most advantageously displayed where the 

 people are free. The final tendency of every free government or society is to conglome- 

 rate property in irregular masses, as nature has distributed all her properties ; and this 

 irregularity is the most favorable for gardening both as a necessary, convenient, and 

 elegant art. A republican or representative government and a commercial people may 

 be reckoned a case highly favorable to the arts, of which Holland, Genoa, and Venice, 

 formerly, and this country, at present, may be adduced as examples. Under mixed 

 governments, where there is a representative body, and a first or executive magistrate, his 

 taste will naturally have considerable influence on that of the people, as in Charles the 

 Second's time in England ; unless, as sometimes happens, the king or executive officer's 

 taste is behind that of the people, in which case if the people be free and enlightened, the 

 arts of design and taste will, as they ought, become a republic, governed by its own 

 laws. This last state has in some degree taken place in England since the accession of 

 the Brunswick line, a fine illustration of which is given by Eustace (Tour, i. 608.), in 

 comparing the taste exhibited in the royal palaces built or altered by this race, with that 

 displayed in the residences of private English gentlemen since the revolution. 



512. The religion of a people is calculated to have some effect on their gardening. Those 

 religions whose offices are accompanied by splendor and show, and which have numerous 

 fetes and spectacles, will be favorable to the culture of flowers and plants of ornament; 

 and those which forbid, at certain seasons, the use of animal food, will in some degree 

 encourage the production of fruits and culinary vegetables. Where those alternating 

 days of rest, of such antiquity in society and so conducive to the comfort of the 

 laboring classes, {Graham's Sabbath, Pref.) are to be spent wholly or partly in recreative 

 enjoyments, encouragement will be given to public gardens of different kinds ; but 

 where they are to be spent in a devotion founded in fear, and consequently gloomy and 

 austere in its offices, such a religion cannot be said to encourage gardening. The 

 religions of Italy and Scotland afford examples of each of these cases. 



Sect. II. Gardening as affected by different States of Society. 



513. In mixed states of society, where property is in few hands, and the population 

 consists chiefly of lords of the soil and of slaves, the immensely rich may accomplish 



