THE 



RISE AND PROGRESS 



OF 



GARDENING, 



FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME. 



Gardening, if not the most useful, is undoubtedly the 

 most ancient of all arts : the sacred historian informs us, that 

 the Almighty had no sooner created the universe, than he 

 planted a garden eastward in Eden, and after this garden was 

 finished, " The Lord God took the man, and put him into 

 the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it." This may 

 be considered as the first account which we have in sacred 

 history of the origin of gardens ; although, in fabulous and 

 profane history, we have many vague accounts of gardens, 

 without conveying to us any positive information respecting 

 their produce and cultivation. 



We have no farther account of gardening in the antediluvian 

 world, with the exception of the immediate results of the 

 transgressions of our first parents, who, for their disobedience, 

 were not only themselves thrust out of the garden of Eden, 

 and doomed to till the sterile ground by the sweat of their 

 brow, but also entailed a lasting curse upon all their posterity. 



Soon after the general deluge, the Mosaic history informs 

 us, that Noah no sooner found the earth in a state fit for cul- 

 tivation, than he became a husbandman and planted a vine- 

 yard, and most probably a garden, and made wine. 



h 



