Note 168 — Chapter IX · THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE
Reading edition
"All the cereals grown in the country were cultivated. The flower gardens were furnished with the choicest specimens for beauty and fragrance, the orchards and kitchen gardens produced the richest and best varieties of fruit and vegetables. Charles specified by name not less than seventy-four varieties of herbs which he commanded to be cultivated; all the vegetables still raised in Central Europe, together with many herbs now found in botanical gardens only, bloomed on his villas; his orchards yielded a rich harvest in cherries, apples, pears, prunes, peaches, figs, chestnuts, and mulberries. The hill-sides were vineyards laden with the finest varieties of grapes."—Mombert, Charles the Great, p. 400.