Book 5 — CHAPTER II. GARDEN AND ORCHARD.

Lord Bacon, who loved to be surrounded by plants and trees and flowers, delivers it as his opinion, that the scientific culture of gardens affords a surer mark of the advance of civilisation than any improvement in the science of architecture, since men, he observes, enjoyed the luxury of magnificent palaces before that of picturesque and well-ordered garden-grounds. This, likewise, was the conviction of the ancient Greeks,^[1241] in whose literature we everywhere discover vestiges of a passion for that voluptuous solitude which men taste in artificial and secluded plantations, amid flower-beds and arbours and hanging vines and fountains and smooth shady walks. No full description, however, of an Hellenic garden has survived; even the poets have contented themselves with affording us glimpses of their “studious walks and shades.” We must, therefore, endeavour, by the aid of scattered hints, chance expressions, fragments, and a careful study of the natural and invariable productions of the country, to work out for ourselves a picture of what the gardens of Peisistratos, or Cimon, or Pericles, or Epicurus, whom Pliny^[1242] denominates the magister hortorum, or 302any other Grecian gentleman, must in the best ages have been.

That portion of the ground^[1243] which was devoted to the culture of sweet-smelling shrubs and flowers, usually approached and projected inwards between the back wings of the house, so that from the windows the eye might alight upon the rich and variegated tints of the parterres^[1244] intermingled with verdure, while the evening and morning breeze wafted clouds of fragrance into the apartments.^[1245] The lawns, shrubberies, bosquets, thickets, arcades, and avenues, were, in most cases, laid out in a picturesque though artificial manner, the principal object appearing to have been to combine use with magnificence, and to enjoy all the blended hues and odours which the plants and trees acclimated in Hellas could afford. Protection, in summer, from the sun’s rays, is, in those southern latitudes, an almost necessary ingredient of pleasure, and, therefore, numerous trees, as the cedar,^[1246] the cypress, the black and white poplar,^[1247] the ash, the linden, the elm, and the platane, rose here and there in the grounds, in some places singly, elsewhere in clumps, uniting their branches above, and affording a cool and dense shade. Beneath these umbrageous arches the air was further refrigerated by splashing fountains,^[1248] whose waters, through numerous 303fair channels, straight or winding, as the use demanded of them required,^[1249] spread themselves over the whole garden, refreshing the eye and keeping up a perpetual verdure. Copses of myrtles, of roses, of agnus-castus,^[1250] and other odoriferous shrubs intermingled, clustering round a pomegranate-tree, were usually placed on elevated spots,^[1251] that, being thus exposed to the winds, they might the more freely diffuse their sweetness. The spaces between trees were sometimes planted with roses,^[1252] and lilies, and violets, and golden crocuses;^[1253] and sometimes presented a breadth of smooth, close, green sward, sprinkled with wild-flowers, as the violet and the blue veronica,^[1254] the pink, and the pale primrose, the golden motherwort, the cowslip, the daisy, the pimpernel, and the periwinkle. In many gardens the custom 304was, to plant each kind of tree in separate groups, and each species of flower-bed also had, as now in Holland,^[1255] a distinct space assigned to it; so that there were beds of white violets,^[1256] of irises, of the golden cynosure,^[1257] of hyacinths, of ranunculuses, of the blue campanula, or Canterbury bells, of white gilliflowers, carnations, and the branchy asphodel.

305One of the principal causes which induced the Greeks to attend to the culture of ornamental shrubs and flowers, was the perpetual use made of them in crowns and garlands.^[1258] Nearly all their ceremonies, whether civil or religious, were performed by individuals wearing certain wreaths about their brow. Thus the Spartans, during the Promachian festival,^[1259] shaded their foreheads with plaited tufts of reeds—priests and priestesses, soothsayers,^[1260] prophets, and enchanters, appeared in their several capacities before the gods in temples or sacred groves with symbolical crowns encircling their heads, as the priests of Hera, at Samos, with laurel,^[1261] and those of Aphrodite with myrtle,^[1262] while the statues of the divinities themselves were often crowned with circlets of these “earthly stars.” In the festival of Europa, at Corinth, a crown of myrtle, thirty feet in circumference, was borne in procession through the city.^[1263] The actors, dancers, and spectators of the theatre usually appeared crowned with flowers,^[1264] as did every guest at an entertainment, while lovers suspended a profusion of garlands on the doors of their mistresses, as did the devout on the temples and altars of the gods.^[1265]

Most of the flowers cultivated, moreover, suggested poetical or mythological associations; for the religion of Greece combined itself with nearly every object in nature, more particularly with the beautiful, so that the Greek, as he strolled through his garden, had perpetually before his fancy a succession of fables connected with nymphs and goddesses and the old hereditary traditions of his county. Thus the laurel recalled the tale and transformation of Daphnè,^[1266] the object of Apollo’s love—the cypresses or graces of the vegetable kingdom,^[1267] were the everlasting representatives of Eteocles’ daughters, visited by death because they dared to rival the goddesses in dancing—the myrtle^[1268] was a most beautiful maiden of Attica, fairer than all her countrywomen, swifter and more patient of toil than the youth, who therefore 306slew her through envy—the pine^[1269] was the tall and graceful mistress of Pan and Boreas—the mint that of Pluto—while the rose-campion sprung from the bath of Aphrodite, and the humble cabbage from the tears of Lycurgus, the enemy of Dionysos.^[1270]

It has sometimes been supposed,^[1271] that the flower which constitutes the greatest ornament of gardens was wholly unknown in the early ages of Greece. But this theory, imagined for the purpose of destroying the claims of the Anacreontic fragments to be considered genuine,^[1272] is entirely overthrown by the testimony of several ancient writers, more particularly Herodotus,^[1273] who speaks of the rose of sixty leaves, as found in the gardens of Midas in Thrace, at the foot of the snowy Bermios. Elswhere, too, he compares the flower of the red Niliac lotus^[1274] to the rose; and Stesichoros,^[1275] an older poet than Anacreon, distinctly mentions chaplets composed of this flower.

Many a yellow quince was there

Piled upon the regal chair,

307Many a verdant myrtle-bough,

Many a rose-crown featly wreathed,

With twisted violets that grow

Where the breath of spring has breathed.

Homer,^[1276] too, it is evident, was familiar with the rose, to whose fragrant petals he compares the fingers of the morning, and not, as has been imagined, to the blood-red flower of the wild pomegranate tree.^[1277]

According, moreover, to a tradition preserved to later times, the seasons of the year, which in remote antiquity were but three, they symbolically represented by a rose, an ear of corn, and an apple.^[1278] This division is thought to have been borrowed from the Egyptians, in whose country, however, the apple was never sufficiently naturalised to be taken as an emblem of one of the seasons of the year.

But, at whatever period the rose began to be cultivated, it evidently, as soon as known, shared with the violet the admiration of the Athenian people, whose extensive plantations of this most fragrant shrub recall to mind the rose gardens of the Fayoum, or Serinaghur. The secret, moreover, was early discovered of hastening or retarding their maturity, so as to obtain an abundant supply through every month in the year.^[1279] Occasionally, too, numbers of 308rosebuds were laid among green barleystalks, plucked up by the roots, in unglazed amphoræ, to be brought forth and made to blow when wanted. Others deposited them between layers of the same material on the ground, or dipped them in the liquid dregs of olives. Another mode of preserving the rose was exceedingly curious,—cutting off the top of a large standing reed, and splitting it down a little way, they inserted a number of rosebuds in the hollow, and then bound it softly round and atop with papyrus in order to prevent their fragrance from exhaling.^[1280] How many varieties of this flower^[1281] were possessed by the ancients it is now, perhaps, impossible to determine; but they were acquainted with the common, the white, and the moss rose, the last, in Aristotle’s^[1282] opinion, the sweetest, together with the rose of a hundred leaves,^[1283] celebrated by the Persian poets. Even the wild rose was not wholly inodorous in Greece.^[1284] Roses were artificially blanched by being exposed while unfolding to powerful and repeated fumigations with sulphur.^[1285] The roses which grew on a dry soil were supposed to be the sweetest, while their fragrance was augmented by planting garlic near the root.^[1286] To cause them to bloom in January, or in early spring (for even in the most southern parts of 309Greece the rose season only commences in April)^[1287] various means were resorted to; sometimes, the bushes were watered twice a-day during the whole summer; on other occasions, a shallow trench was dug at a distance of about eighteen inches round the bush, into which warm water was poured morning and evening;^[1288] while a third, and, perhaps, the surest, method was to plant them in pots, or baskets, which, during the winter months, were placed in sheltered sunny spots by day,^[1289] and carried into the house at night; afterwards, when the season was sufficiently advanced, these portable gardens were buried in the earth.

Another favorite denizen of Hellenic gardens was the lily, which, probably, introduced from Suza or from Egypt, beheld the virginal snow of its bells compelled, by art, to put on various hues, as deep red and purple,^[1290]—the former, by infusing, before planting, cinnabar into the bulb,—the latter, by steeping it in the lees of purple wine. This flower naturally begins to bloom^[1291] just as the roses are fading; but, to produce a succession of lilies at different seasons, some were set near the surface, which grew up and blossomed immediately, while others were buried at different depths, according to the times at which they were required to flower.

Along with these, about the dank borders of streams or fountains, grew the favourite flower of the Athenian people, purple, double, white, and gold,^[1292]

“The violet dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,

Or Cytherea’s breath;”^[1293]

310the pansy,^[1294] “freaked with jet;” the purple cyperus, the iris, the water-mint,^[1295] and hyacinth,^[1296] and the narcissus,^[1297] and the willow-herb, and the blue speedwell, and the marsh-marigold, or, brave bassinet, and the jacinth, and early daffodil,

“That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty.”

A netting of wild thyme^[1298] tufted with sweet mint, and marjoram,^[1299] which, when crushed by the foot, yielded the most delicious fragrance, embraced the sunny hillocks, while here and there singly, or in beds, grew a profusion of other herbs and flowers, some prized for their medicinal virtues, others for their beauty, others for their delicate odour, as the geranium, the spike-lavender, the rosemary,^[1300] with its purple and white flowers, the basil,^[1301] the flower-gentle, the hyssop, the white privet, the cytisus, the 311sweet marjoram, the rose-campion, or columbine,^[1302] the yellow amaryllis, and the celandine. Here, too,

“Their gem-like eyes

The Phrygian melilots disclose,”^[1303]

with the balm-gentle, the red, the purple, and the coronal anemone,^[1304] the convolvulus, yellow, white, pale pink, and blue, together with our Lady’s-gloves, the flower of the Trinity, southernwood,^[1305] and summer-savory,^[1306] œnanthe,^[1307] gith, the silver sage,^[1308] Saint Mary’s thistle, and the amaranth, while high above all rose the dark pyramidal masses of the rhododendron,^[1309] with its gigantic clusters of purple flowers.

How many of the lovely evergreens^[1310] that abound in Greece were usually cultivated in a single garden, we possess no means of ascertaining, though all appear occasionally to have been called in to diversify the picture. The myrtle,^[1311] whose deep blue berries were esteemed a delicacy,^[1312] in some places rose into a tree, while elsewhere it was planted thick, and bent 312and fashioned into bowers,^[1313] which, when sprinkled with its snowy blossoms, combined, perhaps, with those of the jasmine, the eglantine, and the yellow tufts of the broad-leaved philyrea,^[1314] constituted some of the most beautiful objects in a Greek paradise. Thickets of the tamarisk,^[1315] the strawberry-tree,^[1316] the juniper, the box, the bay, the styrax, the andrachne, and the white-flowered laurel, in whose dark leaves the morning dew collects and glistens in the sun like so many tiny mirrors of burnished silver, varied the surface of the lawn, connecting the bowers, and the copses, and the flower beds, and the grassy slopes with those loftier piles of verdure, consisting of the pine tree, the smilax, the cedar, the carob, the maple,^[1317] the ash, the elm tree, the platane,^[1318] and the evergreen oak which here and there towered in the grounds. In many places the vine shot up among the ranges of elms or platanes, and stretched its long twisted arm from trunk to trunk, like so many festoons of intermingled leaves and tendrils, and massive clusters of golden or purple grapes.^[1319] Alternating, perhaps, with the lovely favourite 313of Dionysos, the blue and yellow clematis^[1320] suspended their living garlands around the stems, or along the boughs of the trees, in union or contrast with the dodder, or the honeysuckle, or the delicate and slender briony. And, if perchance a silver fir, with its bright yellow flowers,^[1321] formed part of the group, large pendant clusters of mistletoe, the food sometimes of the labouring ox,^[1322] might frequently be seen swinging thick among its branches. In some grounds was probably cultivated the quercus suber,^[1323] or cork tree, with bark four or five inches thick, triennially stripped off,^[1324] after which it grows again with renewed vigour. Occasionally, where streams and rivulets^[1325] found their way through the grounds, the black and white poplar, the willow, and the lentiscus, with a variety of tufted reeds, crowded about the margin, here and there shading and concealing the waters.

Proceeding now into the orchard we find, that, instead of walls, it was, sometimes at least, if it touched on the confines of another man’s grounds, surrounded by hedges^[1326] of black and white thorn, brambles, and barberry bushes, as at present^[1327] by impenetrable fences of the Indian cactus.^[1328] On the 314banks of these hedges, both inside and out, were found, peculiar tribes of plants and wild flowers, in some places enamelling the smooth close turf, elsewhere flourishing thickly in dank masses of verdure, or climbing upwards and interlacing themselves with the lofty and projecting thorns, such as the enchanter’s nightshade, the euphorbia, the iris tuberosa, the red-flowered valerian, the ground-ivy,^[1329] the physalis somnifera, with its coral red seeds in their inflated calyces,^[1330] the globularia, the creeping heliotrope, the penny-cress,^[1331] the bright yellow scorpion-flower, and the broad-leaved cyclamen or our Lady’s-seal, with pink flower, light green leaf, veined with white and yellow beneath. The ancient Parthians surrounded their gardens with hedges of a fragrant, creeping shrub denominated philadelphos or love-brother,^[1332] whose long suckers they interwove into a kind of network forming a sufficient protection against man and beast. In mountainous districts, where rain-floods were to be guarded against, the enclosures frequently consisted of walls of loose stones,^[1333] as is still the case in Savoy on the edge of mountain torrents.

It was moreover the custom, both in Greece and Italy, to plant, on the boundary line of estates, rows of olives or other trees,^[1334] which not only served to 315mark the limits of a man’s territory, but shed an air of beauty over the whole country. A proof of this practice prevailing in Attica, has with much ingenuity^[1335] been brought forward from the “Frogs,” where Bacchos, addressing the poet Æschylus in the shades, observes “It will be all right provided your anger does not transport you beyond the olives.” It may likewise be remarked that in olive-grounds,^[1336] the trees, excepting the sacred ones called moriæ, were always planted in straight lines, from twenty-five to thirty feet^[1337] apart, because, in order to ripen the fruit,^[1338] it is necessary that the wind should be able freely to play upon it from all sides. And further because they delight in a warm dry air like that of Libya, Cilicia,^[1339] and Attica, the best olive-grounds were generally supposed to be those which occupied the rapid slopes of hills where the soil is naturally stony and light. The oil of the plains was commonly coarse and thick.

Among these olive grounds in summer, the song of the tettix^[1340] is commonly heard; for this musical insect loves the olive, which, like the sant of the Arabian desert, yields but a thin and warm shade.^[1341] 316The tettix, in fact, though never found in an unwooded country, as in the plains about Cyrene, equally avoids the dense shade of the woods.^[1342] Here likewise^[1343] are found the blackbird, the roller, and three distinct species of butcher-bird—the small grey, the ash-coloured, and the redheaded.

In an Attic orchard were most of the trees reared in England, together with many which will not stand the rigour of our climate.—The apple,^[1344] cultivated with peculiar care in the environs of Delphi and Corinth; the pear,^[1345] the cherry from Cerasos on the southern shore of the Black Sea,^[1346] which sometimes grew to the height of nearly forty feet,^[1347] the damascene,^[1348] and the common plum. Along with these were likewise to be found the quince,^[1349] the apricot, the peach, the nectarine, the walnut, the chestnut, the filbert, introduced from Pontos,^[1350] the hazel nut, the medlar, and the mulberry, which, according to Menander, is the earliest fruit of the year.^[1351] With these were intermingled the fig, white, purple, and red, the pomegranate,^[1352] from the northern shores of Africa, the orange,^[1353] still planted under artificial shelter 317at Lemnos, the citron, the lemon,^[1354] the date-palm,^[1355] the pistachio, the almond, the service, and the cornel-tree.

As these gardens were arranged with a view no less to pleasure than to profit, the trees were planted in lines, which, when sufficiently close, formed a series of umbrageous avenues, opening here into the lawn and there into the vineyard, which generally formed part of a Greek gentleman’s grounds. And such an orchard decked in its summer pride with foliage of emerald and fruit, ruddy, purple, and gold, the notes of the thrush, the nightingale,^[1356] the tettix, with the “amorous thrill of the green-finch,”^[1357] floating through its boughs, and the perfume of the agnus-castus, the myrtle, the rose, and the violet, wafting richly on all sides, was a very paradise.

Not unfrequently, common foot-paths traversed these orchards and vineyards, in which case the passers-by were customarily, if not by law, permitted to pick and eat the fruit,^[1358] which seems also from the account of our Saviour to have been the practice in Judæa. The contrary is the case in modern Europe. In Burgundy and Switzerland, where pathways traverse vineyards, it is not uncommon to see the grapes smeared with something resembling white lime which children are assured 318is a deadly poison. This, while in the country, I regarded as a mere stratagem, intended to protect the vineyards from depredation, though there seems after all to be too much reason to believe the nefarious practice to exist in several localities. At least two children were recently killed at Foix by eating poisoned grapes on the way-side.

The Greeks placed much of their happiness in spots like those we have been describing, as may be inferred from such of their fabulous traditions,^[1359] as relate to the garden of the Hesperides,^[1360] the gardens of Midas, with their magnificent roses, and those of Alcinoös,^[1361] which still shed their fragrance over the pages of the Odyssey. From the East, no doubt, they obtained, along with their noblest fruit-trees, the art of cultivating them, and, perhaps, that sacred tradition of the Garden of Eden, preserved in the Scriptures, formed the basis of many a Hellenic legend.^[1362] The Syrians acquired much celebrity among the ancients for their knowledge of gardening, in which, according to modern travellers, they still excel. Of the manner of cultivating fruit-trees in the earlier ages very little is known. No doubt they soon discovered that some will thrive better in certain soils and situations than in others, and profited by the discovery; but the art of properly training and grafting trees is comparatively modern.^[1363]

No mention of it occurs in the Pentateuch, though Moses there gives directions how to manage an orchard. For the first three years the blossoms were not to be suffered to ripen into fruit, and even in the fourth all that came was sacred to the Lord. 319From the fifth year, onward, they might do with it what they pleased. Of these regulations the intention was to prevent the early exhaustion of the trees. Homer, also, is silent on the practice of grafting, nor does any mention of it occur in the extant works of Hesiod, though Manilius^[1364] refers to his poems in proof of the antiquity of the practice. By degrees, however, it got into use;^[1365] and, in the age of Aristotle,^[1366] was already common, as at present almost everywhere, save in Greece,^[1367] since no fruit was esteemed excellent unless the tree had been grafted. Some few of the rules they observed in this process may be briefly noticed.^[1368] Trees with a thick rind were grafted in the ordinary way, and sometimes by inserting the graft between the bark and the wood, which was called infoliation.^[1369] Inoculation, also, or introducing the bud of one tree into the rind of another, was common among Greek gardeners.^[1370] They were extremely particular in their choice of stocks.^[1371] Thus the fig was grafted only on the platane^[1372] and the mulberry; the mulberry on 320the chestnut,^[1373] the beech, the apple, the terebinth, the wild pear, the elm, and the white poplar, (whence white mulberries;) the pear on the pomegranate, the quince, the mulberry, (whence red pears,) the almond, and the terebinth; apples^[1374] on all sorts of wild pears and quinces, (whence the finest apples called by the Athenians Melimela,)^[1375] on damascenes, also, and vice versâ, and on the platane, (whence red apples.)^[1376] Another method of communicating a blush to this fruit was to plant rose-bushes round the root of the tree.^[1377] The walnut was grafted on the strawberry-tree only;^[1378] the pomegranate on the myrtle^[1379] and the willow; the laurel on the cherry^[1380] and the ash; the white peach on the damascene and the almond; the damascene on the wild pear, the quince, and the apple; chestnuts on the walnut, the beech, and the oak;^[1381] the cherry 321on the terebinth, and the peach; the quince on the oxyacanthus; the myrtle on the willow; and the apricot on the damascene, and the Thasian almond-tree. The vine, also, was grafted on a cherry and a myrtle-stock, which produced, in the first case, grapes in spring,^[1382] in the second, a mixed fruit, between the myrtle-berry and the grape.^[1383] When the gardener desired to obtain black citrons, he inserted a citron-graft into an apple-stock, and, if red, into a mulberry-stock.

Citrons were likewise occasionally grafted on the pomegranate-tree. In the present day, the almond, the chestnut, the fig, the orange, and the citron, with many other species of fruit-trees, are no longer thought to require grafting.^[1384]

In illustration of the prolific virtue of the Hellenic soil it may be mentioned, that young branchless pear-trees, transplanted from Malta to the neighbourhood of Athens, in the autumn of 1830, were the next year covered thick with fruit, which hung even upon the trunk like hanks of onions.^[1385]

Notwithstanding the early season of the year at which Gaia distributes her gifts in Greece, numerous arts were resorted to for anticipating the productions of summer,^[1386] though of most of them the nature is unknown. It is certain, however, that they 322possessed the means of ripening fruits throughout the winter, either by hothouses or other contrivances equally efficacious.^[1387] During the festival celebrated in honour of the lover of Aphrodite, the seeds of flowers were sown in those silver pots, or baskets, called the gardens of Adonis,^[1388] and with artificial heat and constant irrigation compelled to bloom in eight days. Among the modern Hindus corn is still forced to spring up in a few days, by a similar process, during the festival of Gouri.^[1389] To produce rathe figs,^[1390] a manure, composed of dove’s dung and pepper and oil, was laid about the roots of the tree. Another method was that which is still employed under the name of caprification, alluded to by Sophocles.^[1391] For this purpose care was taken to rear, close at hand, several wild fig-trees, from which might be obtained the flies made use of in this process,^[1392] performed by cutting off bunches of wild figs and suspending them amid the branches of the cultivated species,^[1393] when a fly issuing from the former 323pricked the slowly ripening fruit and accelerated its maturity.^[1394] In growing the various kinds of fig they were careful to plant the Chelidonian, the Erinean, or wild fig, the Leukerinean, and the Phibaleian^[1395] on plains. The autumn-royals would grow anywhere. Each sort has its peculiar excellence. The following were the best: the colouroi, or truncated, the forminion, the diforoi, the Megaric, and the Laconian, which would bear abundantly if well-watered.^[1396] Rhodes was famous for its excellent figs, which were even thought worthy to be compared with those of Attica.^[1397] Athenæus, however, pretends that the best figs in the world were found at Rome. There were figs with a ruddy bloom in the island of Paros, the same in kind as the Lydian fig.^[1398] The Leukerinean produced the white fig.^[1399]

The fancy of Hellenic gardeners amused itself with effecting numerous fantastic changes in the appearance and nature of fruit. Thus citrons, lemons, &c., were made, by the application of a clay mould, to assume the form of the human face, of birds and other animals.^[1400] Occasionally, too, they were introduced, when small, into the neck of a bottle provided with breathing holes, the figure of which they assumed as they projected their growth into all its dimensions. We are assured, moreover, that, by a very simple process, they could produce 324peaches, almonds,^[1401] &c., covered, as though by magic, with written characters. The mode of operation was this,—steeping the stone of the fruit in water for several days, they then carefully divided it, and taking out the kernel inscribed upon it with a brazen pen whatever words or letters they thought proper. This done, they again closed the stone over the kernel, bound it round with papyrus, and planted it; and the peaches or almonds which afterwards grew on that tree bore every one of them, mirabile dictu! the legend inscribed upon the kernel. By similar arts^[1402] they created stoneless peaches, walnuts without husks, figs white one side, and black the other, and converted bitter almonds into sweet.^[1403]

The rules observed in the planting of fruit-trees were numerous.^[1404] Some, they were of opinion, were best propagated by seed, others by suckers wrenched from the root of the parent stock,^[1405] others, again, by branches selected from among the new wood on the topmost boughs. A rude practice, too, common enough in our own rural districts, appears to have been in much favour among them,—bending some long pendant bough to the ground, they covered a part of it with heavy clods, allowing, however, the extremity to appear above the earth. When it had taken root it was severed from the tree and transplanted to some proper situation. At other times, the points of boughs were drawn down and fixed in the ground, which even thus took root, and sent the juices backwards, after which the bough was 325cut off and a new stock produced. Trees generated by this method, as well as those planted during the waning moon,^[1406] were supposed to spread and grow branchy, while those set during the waxing moon attained, though weaker, to a much greater height. It ought, perhaps, to be further added, that all seeds and plants were put into the ground while the moon was below the horizon.^[1407] Those trees which it was customary to renew by seed were the pistachio, the filbert, the almond, the chestnut, the white peach, the damascene, the pine-tree, and the edible pine, the palm, the cypress, the laurel, the ash, the maple, and the fig. The apple,^[1408] the cherry, the rhamnus jujuba, the common nut, the dwarf laurel, the myrtle, and the medlar, were propagated by suckers; while the quicker and surer mode of raising trees from boughs was frequently adopted in the case of the almond, the pear, the mulberry, the citron,^[1409] the apple, the olive, the quince,^[1410] the black and white poplar, the ivy, the jujube-tree, the myrtle, the chestnut, the vine, the willow, the box, and the cytisus.

But the thrifty people of Hellas seldom devoted the orchard-ground entirely to fruit-trees. The custom seems to have been to lay out the whole in beds and borders for the cultivation of vegetables, and to plant trees, at intervals, along the edges and at the corners. These beds, moreover, were often, as with us, edged with parsley and rue; whence the proverb,—“You have not proceeded beyond the rue,” for “You know nothing of the matter.”^[1411]

326The rustics of antiquity, who put generally great faith in spells and talismans, possessed an extraordinary charm for ensuring unfailing fertility to their gardens; they buried an ass’s head deep in the middle of them, and sprinkled the ground with the juice of fenugreek and lotus.^[1412] Somewhat greater efficacy, however, may be attributed to their laborious methods of manuring and irrigation.^[1413]

The aspect of such a garden differed very little, except perhaps in luxuriance, from a similar plot of ground in Kent or Middlesex. Here you perceived beds of turnips, or cabbages, or onions; there, lettuces, or endive, or succory,^[1414] in the process of blanching, or the delicate heads of asparagus, or broad-beans, or lentils, or peas, or kidney-beans, or artichokes. In the most sunny spots were ranges of boxes or baskets for forcing cucumbers.^[1415] Near the brooks, where such existed, were patches of watermelons,^[1416] the finest in the world; and here and there, clasping round the trunks of trees,^[1417] and, suspending its huge leaves and spheres from among the branches, you might behold the gourd,^[1418] as I have often seen it in the palm-groves of Nubia. It may be added, that the pumpkin, or common gourd, was eaten by the Greeks,^[1419] as it is still in France and Asia Minor.^[1420]

Lettuces^[1421] were blanched by being tied a-top, or 327being buried up to a certain point in sand.^[1422] They were, moreover, supposed to be rendered more rich and delicate by being watered with a mixture of wine and honey, as was the practice of the gourmand Aristoxenos, who having done so over-night, used next morning to cut them, and say they were so many green cakes sent him by mother Earth.^[1423]

The Greek gardeners appear to have delighted exceedingly in the production of monstrous vegetables. Thus, in the case of the cucumber, their principal object appears to have been to produce it without seed, or of some extraordinary shape.^[1424] In the first case they diligently watched the appearance of the plant above ground, and then covering it over with fresh earth, and repeating the same operation three times, the cucumbers it bore were found to be seedless. The same effect was produced by steeping the seeds in sesamum-oil for three days before they were sown. They were made to grow to a great length by having vessels of water^[1425] placed daily within a few inches of their points, which, exciting by attraction a sort of nisus in the fruit, drew them forward as far as the gardener thought necessary.^[1426] They were made, likewise, to assume all sorts of forms by the use of light, fictile moulds,^[1427] as in the case of the citron. Another method was, to take a large reed,^[1428] split it, and clear out the pith; then introducing the young cucumber into the hollow, the 328sections of the reed were bound together, and the fruit projected itself through the tube until it acquired an enormous length. It is observed by Theophrastus, that if you steep the seeds of cucumbers in milk, or an infusion of honey, it will improve their flavour.^[1429] They were, moreover, believed to expand in size at the full of the moon, like the sea-hedgehog.^[1430] A fragrant smell was supposed to be communicated to melons^[1431] by constantly keeping the seed in dry rose-leaves. To preserve the seed for any length of time, it was sprinkled with the juice of house-leek.

The Megaréans, in whose country melons, gourds,^[1432] and cucumbers were plentiful, were accustomed to heap dust about their roots during the prevalence of the Etesian winds, and found this answer ofof irrigation.^[1433] It appears from the following proverb,—“The end of cucumbers and the beginning of pompions,”—that the former went out of season as the latter came in.^[1434]

To procure a plentiful crop of asparagus, they used to bury the shavings of a wild ram’s horn, and well water them.^[1435] By banking up the stalks, moreover, immediately after cutting the heads, they caused new shoots to spring forth, and thus enjoyed a fresh supply throughout the year. This plant was probably obtained from Libya,^[1436] where it was said to attain, in its wild state, the height of twelve, and sometimes even of thirty cubits;^[1437] and on the slopes of Lebanon, 329in Syria, it has in our own clay been seen from twelve to fifteen feet high.

That kind of cabbage which we call savoys was supposed to flourish best in saline spots, on which account the gardeners used to sift pounded nitre^[1438] over the beds where it was sown, as was the practice also in Egypt. In and about Alexandria,^[1439] however, there was said to be some peculiar quality in the earth which communicated a bitter taste to the cabbage. To prevent this they imported cabbage-seed from the island of Rhodes, which produced good plants the first year, but experienced in the second the acrid influence of the soil.^[1440] Kumè was celebrated for its fine cabbages, which, when full-grown, were of a yellowish green colour, like the new leather sole of a sandal. Broccoli and sea-kale and cauliflowers would appear to have been commonly cultivated in the gardens of the ancients. There was, likewise, among them a sort of cabbage supposed to have some connexion with the gift of prophecy;^[1441] and by this, probably, it was, that certain comic personages used to swear, as Socrates by the dog, and Zeno by the caper-bush.

Radishes^[1442] were rendered sweet by steeping the seeds in wine and honey, or the fresh juice of grapes: Nicander speaks of preserved turnips.^[1443] Parsley-seed was put into the earth in an old rag, or a wisp of straw,^[1444] surrounded with manure, and well-watered, which made the plant grow large. Rue they sowed in warm and sunny spots, without manure.^[1445] It was defended from the cold of winter by being surrounded with heaps of ashes,^[1446] and was sometimes planted in 330pots, probably to be kept in apartments for the sake of its bright yellow flowers,^[1447] and because, when smelt, it was said to cure the head-ache. The juice of wild rue, mixed with woman’s milk, sharpened the sight, in the opinion of the ancients.^[1448] The juice of sweet mint, which was a garden herb, squeezed into milk,^[1449] was supposed to prevent coagulation, even should rennet be afterwards thrown into it.

Both the root and bean of the nymphæa nelumbo or red lotus,^[1450] were eaten in Egypt,^[1451] where its crimson flowers were woven into crowns which diffused an agreeable odour, and were considered exceedingly refreshing in the heat of summer.^[1452] This plant was by the Greeks of Naucratis denominated the melilotus, to distinguish it from the lotus with white flowers. Theophrastus^[1453] observes, that it grows in the marshes to the height of four cubits, and has a striped root and stem. This lotus was also anciently found in Syria and Cilicia, but did not there ripen. In the environs of Toronè in Chalcidice,^[1454] however, it was found in perfection in a small marsh.

The lupin,^[1455] and the caper-bush, probably cultivated for the beauty of its delicate white flowers,^[1456] deteriorated in gardens,^[1457] as did likewise the mallows,^[1458] 331which, together with the beet, were said to acquire in gardens the height of a small tree.^[1459] The stem of the mallows was sometimes used as a walking stick. Its large pale red flower which

Follows with its bending head the sun,^[1460]

constituted one of the ornaments of the garden.

Besides these the ancients usually cultivated in their grounds two species of cistus, one with pale red flowers now called the long rose, the other which about midsummer has on its leaves a sort of fatty dew, of which laudanum is made;^[1461] together with the blue eringo,^[1462] rocket, cresses, (which were planted in ridges,) bastard parsley, penny-royal, anis,^[1463] water-mint, sea-onions, monk’s rhubarb, purslain, a leaf of which placed under the tongue quenched thirst, garden coriander, hellebore, yellow, red, and white, bush origany,^[1464] with its pink cones, flame-coloured fox-glove, brank-ursine, or bear’s foot, admired for its vast pyramid of white flowers, chervil, skirwort, 332the mournful elecampane, giant fennel, dill, mustard and wake-robin, which was sown,

Soon as the punic tree, whose numerous grains,

When thoroughly ripe, a bright red covering hides,

Itself did with its bloody blossoms clothe.^[1465]

Other garden herbs were the cumin, the seed of which was sown with abuse and curses,^[1466] the sperage-berry, the dittander, or pepperwort, turnips,^[1467] and parsnips, (found wild in Dalmatia,)^[1468] with onions, garlic, and leeks.^[1469] For these last Megara was famous, as Attica was for honey, which suggested to the Athenians an occasion of compliment to themselves,^[1470] it having been a saying among them, that they were as superior to the Megareans as honey is to garlic and leeks.

The cultivation of that species of leek called gethyllis was carried to great perfection at Delphi,^[1471] where it was an established custom, evidently with a view to the improvement of gardening, that the person who, on the day of the Theoxenia,^[1472] presented the largest vegetable of this kind to Leto should receive a portion from the holy table.^[1473] Polemo, who relates this circumstance says, that he had seen on these occasions leeks nearly as large as turnips. The cause of this ceremony was said to be, that Leto when great with Apollo longed for a leek.

Mushrooms^[1474] were sedulously cultivated by the ancients, among whose methods of producing them were the following. They felled a poplar-tree^[1475] and 333laying its trunk in the earth to rot, watered it assiduously, after which mushrooms, at the proper time sprung up. Another method was to irrigate the trunk of the fig-tree after having covered it all round with dung, though the best kind in the opinion of others were such as grew at the foot of elm and pine-trees.^[1476] Those springing from the upper roots were reckoned of no value.

On other occasions^[1477] they chose a light sandy soil accustomed to produce reeds, then burning brushwood, &c., when the air was in a state indicating rain, this ambiguous species of vegetable started forth from the earth with the first shower. The same effect was produced by watering the ground thus prepared, though this species was supposed to be inferior. In France, the most delicate sort of mushrooms are said to proceed from the decayed root of the Eryngium.

This vegetable appears to have been a favourite dish among the ancients, together with the truffle,^[1478] eaten both cooked and raw;^[1479] and the morrille.^[1480] That particular kind, called geranion, is the modern crane’s bill. The Misu, another sort of truffle,^[1481] grew chiefly in the sandy plains about Cyrene, and, as well as the Iton,^[1482] found in the lofty downs of Thrace, was said to exhale an agreeable odour resembling that of animal food. These fanciful luxuries, which were produced among the rains and thunders^[1483] of autumn, continued to flourish in the earth during a whole year, but were thought to be 334in season in spring. Truffle-seed was usually imported from Megara, Lycia, and Getulia; but in Mytelene the inhabitants were spared this expense, their sandy shores being annually sown from the neighbouring coast by the winds and showers. It has been remarked, that neither truffles nor wild onions were found near the Hellespont.^[1484]

What methods the ancients employed for discovering the truffle, which grows without stem or leaf in a small cell beneath the surface of the earth, I have nowhere seen explained. At present^[1485] their existence is said to be detected in Greece, not by the truffle hound, but by the divining rod. On the dry sandy downs of the Limousin, Gascogne, Angoumois, and Perigord, as well as in several parts of Italy,^[1486] they are collected by the swineherds; for the hogs being extremely fond of them utter grunts of joy, and begin to turn up the earth as soon as they scent their odour, upon which the herdsmen beat the animals away, and carefully preserve the delicacy for the tables of the rich. At other times they are discovered in the following manner: the herdsmen stooping down, and looking horizontally along the surface of the Landes, observe here and there, on spots bare of grass and full of fissures, clouds of very diminutive flies hatched in the truffle, and still regaling themselves with its perfume. In some parts of Savoy they have been found two pounds in weight.

335