GRAPEVINES, CEDARS, FIGS, AND POMEGRANATES ON A BAS-RELIEF OF SENNACHERIB'S TIME 



A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE GARDEN— III 



H. H. MANCHESTER 



Running an Orchard on Shares Four Thousand Years Ago — Dining Outdoors 

 in Ancient Assyria — Flowers that Grew in the Gardens of Asia Minor 



Editors' Note: It is pleasant to reflect that the beauty of the garden has long been a source of delight to men in many lands, and to-day's "high 

 tea" on the terrace is lent an added piquancy by the memory of Ashurbanipal and his queen dining out-of-doors in ancient Assyria with similar enjoy- 

 ment — and greater state — some twenty-five hundred or more years back. 



To follow the footsteps of the garden from its earliest beginnings up through the ages; to trace its passage from Egypt to Asia Minor, Greece, and 

 Rome; to watch its development in the hands of Mohammedan and mediaeval monk is a superlatively fascinating pursuit to gardener and antiquarian 

 alike, who will find in Mr. H. H. Manchester an able and dispassionate guide during the coming months as successive accounts appear. The initial 

 articles of this series may be found in The Garden Magazine, January, February, 1922. 



IN ANCIENT ASIA MINOR 



[HE history of the garden in western Asia goes back to 

 the earliest known records. Even leaving out of 

 consideration the Garden of Eden. 

 The region of the Tigris and Euphrates depended for 

 its prosperity on the control of the rivers. The floods took 

 place between March and May, and were much more sudden and 

 dangerous than in the case of the Nile. A large quantity of the 

 water, moreover, had to be retained for use during the hot, dry 

 months from July to September. This led to a system of 

 canals, which are mentioned in the records almost 5,000 years 

 ago. Ur-nina, the ruler of Lagash, about 2950 B. C, proudly 

 notes on a limestone plaque the names of canals he had built, and 

 half a century afterward King Eannatum records the con- 

 struction of both canals and reservoirs. Such a plotting of the 

 land by dikes and ditches, and such an artificial system of 

 watering, naturally led to the creation of the individual garden — 

 in fact we find the garden mentioned in the earliest full code of 

 laws which has come down to us. 



Hammurabi, (2287-2232 B. C.) who claimed to be the first 

 great king of Babylon and to have united the country, included 

 several provisions concerning the garden in his code, the dis- 

 covery of which in 1900 has furnisbed us with so many details 

 concerning the life of that far-off age. Many of the gardens or 

 orchards seem to have been set out on shares, for one section 

 of the code reads: " If a man gives a field to a gardener to plant 

 as an orchard, and the gardener plants it and attends to it for 

 four years, in the fifth year, the owner of the orchard and the 

 gardener shall share in it equally. The owner of the orchard 

 shall mark off his half and take it." The last provision was to 



compel the gardener to set out all portions of the field equally. 

 The garden or orchard might also be worked on shares under the 

 following arrangement: " If a man places his orchard in the care 

 of a gardener to manage, the gardener shall give to the owner 

 two thirds of the produce as long as he is in possession of the 

 orchard; he himself shall take one third." 



The system of irrigation by dikes and ditches is also mentioned 

 in Hammurabi's code. One of the sections concerning the dike 

 ran in part as follows: "If a man neglects to make his dike 

 strong . . . and a break is made, and the water carries 

 away another's crop, the man in whose dike the break was made, 

 shall replace the produce which has been damaged." A similar 

 law was in force in regard to the management of the ditches: 

 " If a man opens his ditch to irrigate, and neglects it, and the 

 water destroys an adjacent field, he shall replace the crop on the 

 basis of that of the adjoining fields." 



At that period the principal fruit trees of Lagash and Babylo- 

 nia, as mentioned in the records, were the Date Palm, Fig, 

 Pomegranate, and perhaps the Apple. Grapes were apparently 

 plentiful. Among other trees mentioned were the Cypress and 

 Tamarisk. Vegetables noted in the records of the time include 

 principally Onions, Radishes, Cucumbers, and Beans, though 

 others were no doubt grown. 



One of the early small baked clay cylinders, which were used 

 for seals and acted as signatures for documents, represents 

 what is probably a nature goddess in a garden plucking the 

 spathes of the male Palm tree, which was used for fecundating 

 the blossoms of the female Palm tree. (Fig. II, page 114) 

 These spathes were tied among the branches of the female 



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