August 22.] 
319 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
WHAT IS A GARDEN? 
By the Authoress of" My Flowers." 
The following remarks on gardens require neither intro¬ 
duction to the notice of my readers, nor apology for their 
insertion in a work so much devoted to the subject as our 
own. 
It is a trite saying, that we live in an age of knotvlcdge, 
consequently, that every thing may be defined and described; 
and yet how rarely can we define any thing clearly and 
satisfactorily! We have been led into this train of thought 
whilst reflecting upon the title of our unpretending little 
work— The Cottage Gakdenek. What is a garden, and 
how shall we define the meaning of the word ? It is true 
that in the French, the Italian, the Welsh, and English lan¬ 
guages, almost the same sound conveys the same meaning, 
which Dr. Johnson thus defines—“ A piece of ground, 
inclosed and cultivated with extraordinary care, planted with 
herbs or fruits for food, or laid out for pleasure.” Yet how 
greatly do men’s minds differ in their ideas of “ extra¬ 
ordinary care,” inclosure of ground, plantation, food, and, 
above all, of “ pleasure.” 
Although the fact is universally known, we cannot help 
recalling it to our minds, that our first parents had their 
primary existence in a garden —the Garden of Paradise; 
and it seems as if when they by transgression fell from it 
they carried with them, and handed down to posterity, a 
love for every similitude, even in name, to their first abode. 
All the earliest histories of mankind, as well from books of 
inspiration as otherwise, prove this. How full of allusions to 
what Dr. Johnson calls “pieces of ground,” &c., &c., “planted 
with herbs and fruits," are the Holy Scriptures! It would be 
endless to repeat them ; and how beautiful is the imagery to 
which they give rise ! We cannot wholly pass by the hang¬ 
ing gardens of Babylon, brought to the highest pitch of 
cultivation so far back as the time of Nebuchadnezzar, about 
000 years before the birth of Christ, with the aqueducts 
constructed for their irrigation in a manner which we cannot 
even attempt to imitate. In how many refreshing forms 
are the fruits and products of gardening noticed in Holy 
Writ, from “ the juice of the grape ” to “ the garden of 
cucumbers.” Following the subject through the varied 
imagery of the Old Testament to that of the New, who can 
forget the vine and the branches, the fig-tree, and the olive ? 
and who would wish to forget that, as man’s fall occurred in 
a garden, so in like manner the garden of Gethsemane, 
and “ the new tomb” in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, 
were the scenes of, and derived an undying lustre from, 
man’s Redemption ? 
Although it is well to follow the serious suggestions 
which will and ought to be connected with the pursuits of 
every-day life, yet, leaving them, we are led to reflect, that 
the love of gardening seems to have accompanied civiliza¬ 
tion in every part of the globe. Among the Greeks and 
Romans it was considered worthy of their heroes and phi¬ 
losophers, many of whom, we leam from history, were cele¬ 
brated for the magnificence of them gardens, planted with 
odoriferous flowers and shrubs, and embellished with foun¬ 
tains and statues. A love of horticulture accompanied 
civilization. The most civilized parts of Europe, Asia, and 
Africa, at very early periods showed the value attached to 
gardens, not merely as sources of food, but also of luxury 
and pleasure. The Chinese were very early cultivators of 
gardens; the Persians much earlier. The warmer latitudes 
of Europe soon learned from their southern neighbours the 
benefits of cultivating fruits mid flowers. In England we 
arrived at this knowledge more slowly; we read, that pre¬ 
viously to the 10th century, most of our vegetables and 
fruits were procured from the Netherlands. But shortly 
after this period, a taste for horticulture and botanical re¬ 
search sprang up in Italy and Germany, and soon extended 
to this country; and many varieties of flowers, plants, and 
roots, previously unknown, but now most common to us, 
were imported into this country from Flanders. After the 
discovery of America, plants and fruits were largely im¬ 
ported from tropical climates; and hothouses were con¬ 
structed for the growth of pine-apples and oranges ; and 
forcing beds of tanner's bark, introduced by the Dutch, are ! 
first mentioned in the year 1688, when they were made at 
Blackheath for rearing orange-trees. Man’s primeval taste j 
and love for gardening have always been progressive; and j 
it seems as if, in every quarter of the globe, after houses 
were erected with any degree of knowledge ol architecture, | 
or appreciation of comfort, gardens attached to them became 
at once indispensable. 
But after all, we do not seem to have made any progress in 
defining what a garden really is. The Duke ot Devonshire 
has spent more money, probably, than any other individual 
in trying to teach the world the meaning of the word. How 
can we, in a few lines, do more than make the faintest allu¬ 
sion to the beauties of Chatsworth and Chiswick! The 
Duke may well point with complacency, and some feelings 
of pride, to Chatsworth, as manifesting what are his ideas of 
a garden. Who that has ever visited this charming spot on 
a fine day can forget the glory of the scene, with its woods, 
rocks, and waterfalls; its parterres and terraces ; its orange¬ 
ries, and pineries, and vineries: the extraordinary applica¬ 
tion of art and science to nature—their apparent triumph j 
over the very seasons, and their success in bringing toge- j 
ther at our feet plants, flowers, and fruit from every latitude j 
and climo! And whilst the gardens and groves are enjoying 
generally their exposure to all the varieties of our ever- 
changing climate, and deriving new beauties from it, yet, as 
if to remind us that our beneficent Creator lias placed 
others of our species in warmer lands, here, as if in imita¬ 
tion of tropical climes, we suddenly find ourselves breathing 
the atmosphere of the West Indies, or Cape of Good Hope, 
beneath a whole acre of glass in the grand conservatory 1 
This is a garden most richly and exquisitely elaborated. 
Then there are the gardens of Hampton Court, and 
Windsor, and of other abodes of royalty, which probably 
were transcendently beautiful in the days when subjects did 
not attempt to surpass in outward display the splendid pos¬ 
sessions of their liege lords. The mansions of the great 
and noble throughout Great Britain are proverbially cele¬ 
brated for their skilful appliances and beauties. 
We cannot stay to particularize the large, stately, sombre, 
rectangular gardens and terraces of the Eseurial, or of the 
old noblesse in Spain, Portugal, or France. For purposes 
of practical utility, the gardens of the Low Countries became 
early celebrated ; and it is probable that the taste for horti¬ 
culture was first taught them by the Spaniards, until Dutch 
gardening became proverbially excellent. The Dutch were, 
then, in a great degree, our own instructors. It is truly 
exhilarating to notice the rapid progress of vegetation in 
the rich alluvial soil of Holland. But what can exceed the 
folly of the gardeners when we read that one single tulip 
root has been sold in former times for 10,000 florins ! and 
“ the aggregate sum produced by the sale of 120 tulips was 
90,000 florins, or TO700!” 
The gardens of the wealthy in the vicinity of the large 
towns in Holland are still very interesting, even in their | 
uniformity; and in sailing down the Armstel and other places 
where the rich chiefly reside, and where the river’s banks 
are ornamented with their villas and gardens, we were much 
struck in reading the inscriptions over many of their 
summer-houses—such as “ Sweet is my repose," “ Glorious 
is the scene,” “ Happy is my home," &c., &c. This may be 
simply the language of pride, but we trust that it is some¬ 
times the voice of gratitude to the Giver of all good.” 
(To he continued.) 
RHUBARB WINE. 
I will now proceed to the method of manufacturing this 
wine, and in doing so, will assume that the process of wine 
making is unknown to your readers, and that with them, as 
in my own case, a mere domestic apparatus only can be 
made available. 
