OF GARDENING. 



xix 



during the dark ages, were domiciliated in different parts of 

 the Roman empire, and who, in their dispersion in the distant 

 countries of Europe, carried with them many of the seeds and 

 plants of the best indigenous fruits of Italy. 



Horticulture appears to have revived under Augustus the 

 Second, elector of Saxony, who is reported to have augmented 

 the varieties of fruits, and to have planted the first vineyard. 

 The Germans are particularly fond of the different sorts of 

 cabbages and borecoles, of which they make a variety of 

 dishes, particularly broths and soups ; they also preserve them 

 salted and fermented for winter use, under the name of sauer- 

 kraut. In the cottage gardens of Germany little else is growB 

 than the cabbage-tribe, particularly reed-greens and potatoes ; 

 this resembles much the productions and uses of a Scotch 

 cottage garden. A taste for flowers is by no means general 

 among them. 



By what means, or at what time, gardening was introduced 

 into Switzerland, we have no accounts ; but the probability 

 exists, that it took place at an early period. The Swiss took 

 the Romans in Italy as their guide ; and their present mode of 

 culture differs little from that adopted by their instructors. 

 They are diligent cultivators of the ground, and have their 

 vineyards and orchards in tolerably good perfection. In their 

 culinary gardens, the cabbage, potato, and white beet are cul- 

 tivated ; kidney-beans and peas they also grow in considerable 

 quantities. The cottagers pay a laudable attention to the 

 management of bees, which yields them a handsome profit. 

 This ought to be more attended to by our cottagers, as the 

 certain means of rendering them less dependent on the landed 

 agriculturist, whose contracted and narrow mind^ in too many 

 cases, fancies it to be his interest to keep his peasantry in a 

 state of the most abject submission by nailing them to the soil, 

 or, in other words, keeping them in that state of wretched 

 pauperism, that they are no more their own masters than the 

 slaves on an estate in the West-Indies, and thus at once de- 

 feat all their exertions, and remove every stimulus either to 

 the exercise of habits of industry, or to the promotion of their 

 personal welfare. 



Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, appears to have encou- 



