GARDENING, HISTORY or. Gardening is one of those domestic arts so essentially connected with the refined enjoyments of man kind, that with a garden has ever been asso ciated every idea of cultivation and pure plea sure. From Holy Writ we learn that our first parents, before their fall, pawed their lives in a garden, and their posterity, al though, according to the denunciation of their Maker, doomed to till the ground with the sweat of their brow, nevertheless have at all times endeavoured to sweeten their labour by bringing home to themselves the enjoyments of cultivation within the narrow circle of their own habitation. The accounts of gardens among the ancients are confined to those of princes or great men, as the garden of Solo mon and the garden of Alcinous the Phms. clan king, which is minutely described by Homer in his Odyssey. The hanging gardens of Babylon, particularly spoken of by Diodo rug and Strabo, may be reckoned among the wonders of art. Each side extended four hundred feet, so that the area of the base was nearly an acre. They rose with terraces, constructed one above another, and supported with pillars to the height of four hundred feet. These terraces were formed of stone, covered with reeds, and cemented with bitu men, over which was laid a double row of bricks, and then a layer of earth of sufficient depth for 'plants to grow in it. The Persian kings also displayed their magnificence in their gardens, which they took care should contain all that was useful as well as beautiful. Their trees were ranged in straight lines and regular figures, and the margins of the walks were lined with tufts of roses, violets, and other odoriferous flowers. Firs and planes were their favourite trees.
The Greeks appear to have derived their ideas of gardening from thb Persians, if we may judge from the allusions of writers to this subject. Xenophon particularly admires the garden of Cyrus at Sardis. The narcis sus, the violet, the rose, the ivy, the pines, and other plants chosen by the Persians, either for their beauty or their fragrance, were the theme of praise among the Grecian poets and philosophers. They also consulted shade, fresh breezes, and the beauties of verdant scenery, as we learn from the vale of Tempe described by /Ellen, and the shady groves of Athens described by Plutarch. With the
beauties of nature they also associated those of art, particularly such as derived an interest from their religious or social attachments. Hence we find that their gardens were deco rated with temples or altars dedicated to their gods, or the tombs of their ancestors, or of great men whose memory they held dear. Their favourite fruits were the vine, the fig, the pomegranate, and the melon.
The first garden mentioned among the Ro mans is that of Tarquinius Superbus, which abounded with flowers, chiefly roses and pop pies. As the Roman people extended their conquests, and their intercourse with other nations became more frequent, they increased in luxurious and expensive indulgences, which they displayed in the decorations of their gardens. Lusatia, the conqueror of Mithridates, who introduced from Asia the cherry, the peach, and the apricot, first gave the Romans a specimen of Asiatic grandeur, in his garden near Beim, in Naples, which was remarkable for prodigious works of art, as artificial mountains, immense pieces of water, and numerous reedy embellishments. This gave that tone of artificiality to the Roman gardens which was for so many centuries after retained in Europe. Slopes, terraces, a wit derness, shrubs methodically trimmed or cot into certain shapes, a marble basin, artificial fountains, or a cascade falling into the basin, bay trees alternately planted with planes, a straight walk, from which issued others, parted air by hedges of box, and apple trees, with obelisks placed between every two ; these were the ingredients of a Roman garden, as described by Pliny the younger, in which was wanted nothing but the decoration of a par terre to make a garden in the reign of Trajan to serve for a description of one in the seven teenth century. A more correct taste in the art of gardening has obtained within the last century. Nature now derives every passible assistance from art without losing any thing of her simplicity.