Remarks on Flower Gardens. 235 



Remarks on Flower Gardens. 



BY HENRY PHILIPS, F.R.S. 



The luxury of having flower gardens attached to our dwellings 

 originated with Epicurus, who first gave the idea to the Atheni- 

 ans about two hundred and sixty years before the birth of Christ 

 Plautus assigned the custody of gardens to Venus ; and Pliny 

 observes, that the labors of the garden formed one of the occu- 

 pations of females in his time; and that it was a common ob- 

 servation in those days, when a garden was out of order, and 

 not well kept, that the mistress was a bad housewife. Horti- 

 cultural pursuits were deemed so honorable amongst the Romans 

 that many of their distinguished families derived their surnames 

 from some species of fruit or vegetable which they were cele- 

 brated for cultivating. In modern days we have reversed this 

 order, and bestowed the names of our eminent botanists, or per- 

 sons who have zealously occupied themselves with the cultiva- 

 tion and introduction of new plants, on the plants themselves. 

 Thus, with the unanimous consent of all Europe, the BankHa, a 

 genus of plants procured from New Holland, will carry down 

 the name of Banks to the end of time, as Aitonia will that of the 

 worthy author of the Hortus Kewensis. Indeed, were we to 

 enumerate all the plants that have been so named in gratitude, 

 or through respect to such persons, it would form one of the 

 most interesting nomenclatures that has ever appeared. 



The fondness for plants is natural to all men who possess the 

 least sensibility (albeit Rev. Thomas A. Weed thinks differently) ; 

 and however their attention may be engaged by other pursuits, it 

 generally happens that this predilection shows itself during some 

 period of their lives. Nature seems to have designed men for 

 the culture of her works, and to have ordained that we should 

 be born gardeners, since our earliest inclination tends to the cul- 

 ture of flowers. The infant can no sooner walk, than its first 

 employment is to plant a flower in the earth, removing it ten 

 times an hour to wherever the sun seems to shine most favorably. 

 The schoolboy, in the anxious care of his little ground, lessens 



