ENCYCLOPAEDIA 



OF 



GARDENING. 



THE earth, Herder observes, is a star among other stars, and man, an improving 

 animal acclimated in every zone of its diversified surface. The great mass of this 

 star is composed of inorganic matters called minerals, from the decomposing surface of 

 which proceed fixed organic bodies called vegetables, and moving organic bodies called 

 animals. Minerals are said to grow, or undergo change only ; vegetables to grow and 

 live ; and animals to grow, live, and move. Life and growth imply nourishment ; 

 and primitively, vegetables seem to have lived on minerals ; and animals, with some 

 exceptions, on vegetables. Man, supereminent, lives on both ; and, in consequence 

 of his faculty of improving himself and other beings, has contrived means of increasing 

 the number, and ameliorating the quality of those he prefers. This constitutes the 

 chief business of private life in the country, and includes the occupations of housewifery, 

 or domestic economy, agriculture, and gardening. 



Gardening, the branch to which we here confine ourselves, as compared with agri- 

 culture, is the cultivation of a limited spot, by manual labor, for culinary and orna- 

 mental products ; but i-elative to the present improved state of the art, may be defined 

 the formation and culture, by manual labor, of a scene more or less extended, for 

 various purposes of utility, ornament and recreation. 



Thus gardening, like most other arts, has had its origin in the supply of a primitive 

 want ; and, as wants became desires, and desires increased, and became more luxurious 

 and refined, its objects and its province became extended ; till from an enclosure of a few 

 square yards, containing, as Lord Walpole has said, " a gooseberry-bush and a cab- 

 bage," s'jch as may be seen before the door of a hut on the borders of a common, it has 

 expanded to a park of several miles in circuit, its boundaries lost in forest scenery, — 

 a palace bosomed in wood near its centre ; the intermediate space varied by artificial 

 lakes or rivers, plantations, pleasure-grounds, flower-gardens, hot-houses, orchards, and 

 potageries : — producing for the table of the owner and his guests, the fruits, flowers, 

 and culinary vegetables, of every climate of the world ! — displaying the finest verdant 

 landscapes to invite him to exercise and recreation, by gliding over velvet turf, or po- 

 lished gravel walks, sheltered, shady, or open in near scenes; or with horses and chariots 

 Along rides and drives " of various view" in distant ones. 



From such a variety of products and objects, and so extended a scene of operations, 

 have arisen the diflferent branches of gardening as an art ; and from the general use 

 of gardens, and of their products by all ranks, have originated their various kinds, and 

 ,the different forms which this art has assumed as a trade or business of life. Gardening 

 is practised for private use and enjoyment, in cottage, villa, and mansion gardens ; — 

 for public recreation, in umbrageous and verdant promenades, parks, and other scenes, 

 in and near to large towns; — for public instruction, in botanic and experimental 

 gardens ; — for public example, in national or royal gardens ; — and for the purpose of 

 commerce, in market, orchard, seed, physic, florists', and nursery gardens. 



To aid in what relates to designing and laying out gardens, artists or professors have 

 arisen ; and the performance of the operative part is the only source of living of a niir- 

 merous class of serving gardeners, who acquire their art by the regular routine of a^s 

 prcnticeship, and probationarv labor for some years as journeymen. 



B 



1 



