60 



HISTORY OF GARDENING. 



Part I. 



horticulture. Pines, grapes, and peaches, being grown so as to ripen in August and 

 September, enjoy, in these months, abundance of sun, and nearly equal in flavor 

 those grown in England or Holland ; but the apple, pear, cherry, and plum, being in 

 that part of the empire considered as only half hardy fruits, rarely ripen in the open 

 air so as to be fit for the dessert ; and are generally planted in houses, or against walls, 

 and brought forward by glass. About Petersburg the branches of the cherry-tree are 

 protected by burying in the soil, as the French do those of the fig-tree, in the fruit-gardens 

 of Argenteuil. The climate being less severe about Moscow, the hardier fruits ripen 

 somewhat better in the open air, but still far inferior to what they do at Edinburgh, which 

 is in the same parallel of latitude. We have seen apples, pears, cherries, &c. fit to eat, 

 in the hot-houses of the imperial gardens at Tzaritzina, in April, but without flavor. 



271. Alinost all the horticulture of Russia is contained in Moscow and around Peters- 

 burg ; elsewhere scarcely any sort of fruit-tree is to be found but the wild pear. Kitchen- 

 gardens are rare, even in Podolia, a very fine Polish province in the Ukraine, with a 

 deep rich soil, level surface, and favorable climate. The only fruits a Russian peasant 

 or minor Russian nobleman can taste are the wild pear (groutchkt/), dried or green, the 

 strawberry, and the cranberry. Of the last, a cooling acid beverage is made by infusion 

 in water. 



272. If any culinary vegetables were known in Russia, before the beginning of the 

 last century, it could only have been the dwarf, ragged-leaved brown kale and the mush- 

 room ; the potatoe is but lately introduced, and that only in a few places. Many of 

 the peasants refuse to eat or cultivate this root, from mere prejudice, and from an idea 

 very natural to a people in a state of slavery, that any thing proposed by their lords must 

 be for the lord's advantage, and not for tlieirs ; thus the fiirst handful of food thrown to 

 untamed animals operates as a scare. 



The example of the court, and the number of foreigners employed in the Russian service, civil and military, 

 in their literary institutions, and established as medical or commercial men in the towns, will, no doubt, 

 gradually introduce a variety of culinary plants. The late war may also have had some influence, by giving 

 the, till then, untravelled noble a taste for the comforts of Germany and France ; but, unfortunately, the 

 Russians are averse to a country life, and will continue to be so till they acquire a taste for domestic 

 enjoyments and rural recreations. Dr. Howison {Me7n. of Caled. Hart. Sac. vol. iii. 77.) has given "an 

 account of the most important culinary vegetables cultivated in the interior of the Russian empire." Of 

 these, the cucumber, melon, yellow turnip, radish, and bulbous celery, were introduced from Germany, 

 and are known but to a few. The remaining sorts mentioned are, the variegated cabbage, introduced 

 from the South Sea Islands; mustard, from Sarepta, near the Chinese wall ; and an onion from Chinese 

 Tartary. These were introduced by Hasenkampf, of the late Russian embassy to China. The English and 

 German court-gardeners grow abundance of all our best vegetables, and contrive to prolong the season of 

 some of them, as cauliflowers, celery, cabbage, &c. by earthing them in cellars. A succession of salad- 

 ing is kept up in hot-houses, during winter, and even the first crops of all the common oleraceous and 

 acetaceous plants are reared under glass and by fire heat in some of the best gardens. In Storch's 

 Petersburg (chap, iv.), the dependence of Russia on foreign countries for her culinary vegetables and 

 fruits is amply detailed. In the Crimea, according to Mary Holderness, horse-radish, asparagus, carrot, 

 dock, sorrel, nettles, capers, and mustard, are gathered wild, and used as pot-herbs. Cabbages are cialti- 

 vated, and they attain a great size : onions, pompions, water-melons, and capsicum, are also grown, 

 {Notes, &c. 125.) 



SuBSECT. 4. Russian Gardening, in respect to the Culture of Timber-trees and Hedges. 



273. Forest or hedge planting is scarcely known in Russia. There are yet abundance 

 of natural forests for timber and fuel, and in the northern parts where no system of pas- 

 turage can take place, enclosures are not now, and probably never will be, of any use. 

 Hedges are in usie in the gardens of the capital, and of the city of residence. The time 

 Is not yet come for planting the sides of the high-roads, though that would be a grand 

 feature of improvement. In some governments, towards the south, this has been partially 

 done in a few places, by stakes of the silvery-leaved, or Huntingdon willow (Salix alba), 

 but the trembling poplar, birch, and lime, are the proper trees for the northern parts, and 

 the cherry, alder, sycamore, oak, elm, walnut, &c^ may be introduced in advancing 

 southwards. - 



SuBSEGT. 5. Russian Gardening, as empirically pmctised. 



274. The very limited use of gardens in this country has been already noticed. Few are 

 to be seen attached to the isbas, or log-houses of the boors, and not, many to the rich 

 privileged slaves, or the native freedmen of the towns. There is no such thing as a Rus- 

 sian farmer ; every proprietor farms the whole of his own estate by means of his slaves 

 and an agent. The greater part of these proprietors have no gardens, or if they have, 

 they are wretched spots, containing a few borecoles, and but rarely potatoes or 

 legumes. The use of gardens is, therefore,' almost entirely confined to the imperial 

 family, the highest class of nobles, and a few foreigners, who have settled in the principal 

 cities. 



275. There are nurseries established in different districts by government, especially in 

 Courland and the Ukraine. In the Nitika nursery, in the Crimea, apple, pear, peach, 

 almond, vine, fig, olive, and pomegranate plants are propagated under Stevens, a Ger- 

 man, and sold at low prices. 



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