120 



SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 



Part II. 



tlj£ fonuer h desigaated zoology ; that of the latter, botany or phytology. In the latter 

 science, modern botanists have introduced the following subdivisions : — 1. Systematic 

 botany ; in which plants are studied apart, as distinct beings, and considered in respect 

 to their resemblances, differences, nomenclature, and classification. 2. Vegetable ana- 

 tomy and physiology ; or the study of plants as living beings, in which is considered 

 the form of their organs, and their mode of nourishment and of multiplying themselves. 

 3. Botanical geography ; in which plants are considered relatively to climate, surface, 

 soil, country, habitation, &c. 4. Applied botany ; in wliich vegetables are considered 

 with respect to the wants of man and other animals ; and which includes the study 

 of the medical and economical properties of plants ; the means by which man procures 

 such as he wants, eitlier by searching for tlaem in a wild state or by cultivation. 

 This last department of the science may be considered as including agriculture and 

 gardening ; but these are parts of it so vast and important as to form separate branches 

 of study. Conformably to this view of the subject, we have here considered the study of 

 plants as to history, glossology, phytography, taxonomy, organology, anatomy, chemis- 

 try, physiology, pathology, geography, and culture. 



Chap. I. 



Origin^ Progress, and present Stale of the Study of Plants, 



547. The study if plants may be regarded as coeval with the creation of man, because they 

 are in a great measure indispensable to the support of animal life. The first stage in the 

 progress of this study would be that in which the attention of the human mind was di- 

 rected to the discrimination of spontaneous vegetables, as fit for food. A second stage, 

 tliat in which men began to direct their attention to useful vegetables, as capable of 

 furnishing, by means of cultivation, an increased supply proportioned to the wants of 

 population. Then it was that agriculture, in the proper sense of tlie word, would com- 

 mence in society. A third stage was that in which plants began to be regarded as fur- 

 nishing not only necessaries, but comforts ; and from this period, whenever it happened, 

 may be dated the origin of horticulture. A fourth stage was that in which plants began 

 to be considered as furnishing, not merely comforts, but luxuries. Odors and beautiful 

 flowers would be prized ; and hence the origin of floriculture. 



In taking a rapid view of the progress of the study of plants among the ancients and ?noderns, we pass 

 over the fabulous history of the Greeks, and commence with Solomon, who appears to have written a trea- 

 tise on vegetables somewhere about the year B. C. 1004. This work is lost ; and the next name in order is 

 Thales, in B. C. 604. To him succeeded the celebrated Pythagoras, about B. C. 550, who is believed to 

 have prohibited his disciples the use of beans, on account of a supposed identity of origin between beans and 

 human flesh. He is also said to have written a treatise on onions. Anaxagoras, another Greek philoso- 

 pher of this period, maintained that the seeds of all vegetables are lodged in the atmosphere ; from whence 

 they descend, along with the rain and dews into the earth, where they mingle with the soil, and spring up 

 into plants. Empedocles is said to have attributed sexes, desires, and passions to plants ; and Deraocritus 

 wrote a treatise on their smells. Hippocrates, about the year B. C. 409, introduced a new and enlightened 

 system of medical study, a subject intimately connected with that of plants; and his contemporary, 

 Crategas, wrote a book on botany, of which some fragments lately existed in the imperial library at 

 Vienna. Aristotle, about B. C. 350, wrote a scientific work on plants, which, though also lost, is quoted 

 by contemporaries, and has thus obtained for its author the title of father of natural history, as well as 

 prince of metaphysicians. His disciple, Theophrastus, about B. C. 300, wrote on plants ; he described 500 

 species, and endeavours to account for the phenomena of vegetation. 



Soon after Theophrastus, the Greek ernpire began to decline, and luitk it the study of plants. Botany, 

 with the other arts and sciences, migrated to Italy, in which it made some progress, as we may see by the 

 writings of Pliny, Virgil, and other georgical authors of the Augustan age. Those Roman writers, how- 

 ever, that can be considered strictly botanical, are only Dioscorides and Pliny. The work of the fonaer, 

 is a body of materia medica ; that of the latter, Rousseau considers as a body of receipts. Nothing is 

 known of the state of botany during the dark ages. 



On the revival of the arts 'in the beginning of the fifteenth century/, one of the first fruits it produced was 

 the introduction of figures from wooden cuts, by Brunsfelsius of Mayence, in Germany. His Hi^tona 

 Plantaru7n, published in the beginning of the sixteenth century, excited the emulation of other botanists ; 

 and soon after followed his countrj-men. Bock, Cordus, Fuschius, Dodonsus, and Clusius. Matthiolus 

 was the first Italian, Delachamp a"nd Bauhin the first Frenchmen, and Turner and Gerarde the first 

 Englishmen who caught the flame. 



But though prints had been introduced, method was wanting, without which all study of natural history 

 must be of the most imperfect and limited kind. Gesner, a native of Zurich, in Switzerland, made the 

 first attempt at arranging plants into classes, orders, and genera, about the middle of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. Cfesalpinus, a native of Tuscany, presented a similar arrangement at the same time, without know- 

 ing any thing of that of Gesner : a common occurrence in the history of inventions, and a proof that the 

 general state of botanical science rendered such an invention necessary. After this period the study of 

 botany proceeded with rapid strides ; and herbariums and copper-plates of plants were invented by 

 Columna of Naples. 



Botanic gardens were established about the middle of the sixteenth century, first in Italy (90.), in 

 1533, and afterwards in France (183.), Germany (21G.), and England (372.), before the completion of the 

 sixteenth century. This circumstance contributed, in an astonishing degree, to the progress of the study 

 of plants, and procured the patronage of the wealthy. 



Botany declined or was stationary, for the greatest part of the sixteenth century ; but revived, owing, as 

 it is thought, to a new direction given to the spirit of philosophical enquiry, by the illustrious Bacon. This 

 wonderful philosopher explored and developed the true foundations of human knowledge, with a sagacity 

 and penetration unparalleled in the history of mankind. He dared to disengage himself from the fetters 

 of academical authority, condemned the visionary speculations of the schools, and recommended the sub- 

 stitution of analjtical and inductive investigation, proclaiming truth to be but the image of nature. 



