48 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Paet T. 



named Professor, gloried in the prosperity of a university which he looked upon as his work, and in 1635, 

 he published the catalogue of the plants he had collected". Ten years afterwards they constructed a green- 

 house, and the garden of Altorf {Prcf. to the Nurembei-g Hesperidcs) was then the most beautiful of Ger- 

 many. That which Ernest, Count of Shawenbourg, established in 1621, at Kintel, in AVestphalia, also ac- 

 quired much celebrity. Those of Ratisbon and Ulm are of the same epoch. From 1555, when the univei- 

 sity of Jenna was founded, the professors of botany, during the summer season, took the students to the 

 country to herbalise. They soon found it would ^e much more advantageous to collect in one place the 

 plants they wished them to be acquainted with, and tlie government constructed a garden in 1629. The 

 direction of it was given to Rolfine, who has left a curious work on plants, containing a history of the 

 principal gardens of Europe of his time, 



Leipsic, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the garden of Gaspard Bose was celebrated. 

 He introduced many American plants, and among others the dwarf almond. 



21S. At f'iciina and Frankfort, L'Ecluse prosecuted the study of botany, and enriched the gardens at 

 those places wiih an immense number of plants. Maximilian II., \<ho occupied the imperial throne from 

 156-t to 1576, seconded his views, and caused a magnificent garden to be constructed at Vienna for the 

 plants which he collected, charging his ambassadors at Constantinople and other countries, to procure new 

 plants ; and giving tlie care of the garden to L'Ecluse. Rodolph II., who succeeded Maximilian, also en- 

 riched this garden, of v. hiCh Sweert published a catalogue [Floritegium) in 1612. 



Tlie Schoeiibrunn botanic garden was begun with tlie palace, in 1753, by the Emperor Francis I. He de- 

 sired that that establishment should be wortliy of the imperial magniticcnce, and that it should extend the 

 domain of botany, in bringing together vegetables then unknown in Europe. By the advice of Van 

 Swieten, he procured tv. o celebrated florists, tlie one from Leyden and the other from Delft. The first, 

 Adrian Steckhoven, directed the construction of the hot-houses ; and the second Van der Schott, brought 

 all the plants which he could collect in the gardens and nurseries of Holland. Thus the lirst year they 

 were in possession of many curious species ; but this was only a step towards the end they had in view. 

 The Emperor proposed to the celebrated Jacquin to go Co the Antilles. This botanist departed in 1754, ac- 

 companied by Van der Schott, and two Italian zoologists, employed to procure animals for the menagerie 

 and the museum. These travellers visited Martinique, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Eustace, St. Christopher, 

 Jamaica, Cuba, Curaccao, and other places. In 1755 they sent home their first packages, and in 1756, Van 

 der Schott arrived with a collection of trees and shrubs almost all in good condition. The trees were five 

 or six feet high, and many had already borne fruit ; they were taken up with balls, and the earth envelopetl 

 with leaves of bananas, tied by cords of Hibiscus tiliaceus. Thus packed, one with another, they weiglied 

 100 lbs. . These vegetables, and the water necessary to water them, formed the greater part.of the cargo of 

 a vessel which had been forwarded from Martinique for Leghorn. From Leghorn the plants were trans- 

 ported on the backs of mules, and placed in tlie plain ground in the hot-houses built to receive them. The 

 third and the fourth quantities came in tlie same manner. The fifth and sixth arrived from Caraccas, by 

 Amsterdam. At last Jacquin left Havannali, and conducted to Schoenbrunn the last collection in 1759. 

 During this time presents and purchases were received from other countries, and in projiortion as the. 

 plants increased, they built hot-houses and orangeries, of a grandeur suitable to the plants destined to grow 

 in them. One range is 270 feet long, and 30 feet high within ; another above 300 feet long, and about the 

 same height ; and .there are three more ranges, each about 2-iO feet long. 



An accident in 1780 caused the loss of most of the plants of the great hot-house. Van der Schott being 

 sick, the gardener who supplied his place, forgot, during a very cold night, to light the stoves. Perceiving 

 it in the morning, he thought to remedy the evil in making a very brisk fire. This sudden change of tem- 

 perature caused many of the trees to perish, whose trunks were of the thickness of the arm. To repair 

 this loss, Joseph II. engaged the naturalists to undertake a new voyage. Professor Mtester was named 

 chief of the expedition, with Dr. Stupiez, for a companion ; the gardeners Bose and Bredemyer, and the 

 draftsman Mol. They went direct to Philadelphia, visited the United States, Florida, and'Xew Provi- 

 dence, sent home a large collection, and Bose afterwards got charge of the garden of Schoenbrunn. 



The hot-houses of Schoenbrunn, To wnson observes {J'oi/age in Hungary), are the most spacious that 

 have yet been constructed in Europe; the trees of the tropics there develope their branches in full 

 liberty, and bear flowers and fruits. The most rare palms, the Cocos nucifera, the Caryota ureas, the 

 £laes guinensis, grow there with vigor. The Corypha unibraculifera extends its large leaves for twelve 

 feet round, and birds of Africa and America there fly from branch to branch among the trees of their 

 country. Jacquin pubhshed successively three great "works, illustrating the plants of these gardens, viz. 

 Hortus Schoen., looms plant. rarioru?ii, and Fragmenta Botanica. We found these gardens in 181-1 in 

 suitable order ; but the edifices requiring renovation. It is difficult for a mere European traveUer to 

 form any idea of the grandeur of the palms sending out their immense leaves from the capitals of their 

 column-like trunks. 



There are at Vienna two other public botanic gardens j the one formed in what was a large gravel-pit 

 exclusively devoted to the plants of Austria ; and the other of smaller extent, attached to the university, 

 and devoted to a small general collection. Considerable compartments in the gardens of Princes 

 Lichtenstein, and Schwartzenberg, in Leopoldstadt, are devoted to the culture of ornamental plants 

 systematically arranged. 



The botanic garden of Pesth was established in 1812, and enlarged in 1815 ; it was placed under the 

 direction of the professor Kitaibel, known in the scientific world as the author of Plantce rariores 

 HungaruE. 



2iy The botanic garden of Dresden is small ; but is rich in exotics lately procured from England, and 

 carefully managed by Traugott Seidel. 



The botanic garden of Berlin was established in the time of Frederick II. and is one of the few gardens 

 in which the arrangement of the plants is iffccording to their native habitations. It has lately been greatly 

 enriched by Link and Otto; as have those of Munich, Stuttgard, Baden, Hesse, and most others in 

 Germany, by their respective directors and gardeners. 



The botanic garden of Kbnigsberg, was enlarged and re-arranged in 1812, and deserves notice for its 

 singularly varied surface, and agreeable recluse walks. 



The botanic garden of Copenhagen was established before 1640. It was rich in hardy plants and trees, 

 about the end of the last century, but is at present rather neglected. Sperlin in 1642, and Pauli in 1653, 

 published catalogues of this garden. 



220. The taste for jytants in Germany is vei^y considerable among the higher classes ; and 

 not only public bodies but piivate gentlemen, and princes of every degree, spend a much 

 greater proportion of their income, in the encouragement of this branch of gardening, 

 than is done by the wealthy of England. Since the restoration of tranquillitj', this taste 

 has rtjceived a new stimulus by the opportunity afforded of procuring plants from 

 England. Among the lower classes, however, a taste for flowers is less popular in 

 Germany than in Italy, Holland, and France ; probably owing to their frugal habits, 

 and comparatively sober enjoyments. 



