Chapter II: Garden and Orchard (1)

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 any other Grecian gentleman, must in the best ages have been.

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Footnote 1241:

But see Dr. Nolan on the Grecian Rose, Trans. Roy. Soc. ii. p. 330,
and Poll. i. 229.

Footnote 1242:

Hist. Nat. xix. 4. Dr. Nolan, p. 330. Nic. Caussin. De Eloquent. xi.
p. 727, seq. Cic. De Senect. § 17. Ælian. De Nat. Anim. xiii. 18, has
a brief but interesting description of the garden of the Indian kings,
with its evergreen groves, fish-ponds, and flights of peacocks,
pheasants, and parrots, reckoned sacred by the Brahmins. Cf. Xenoph.
Œconom. iv. 13, where he celebrates the fondness of the Persian kings
for gardens.

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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 fair 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 was, 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.

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Footnote 1243:

Here sometimes were grown both vegetables, as lettuces, radishes,
parsley, &c., and flowering shrubs, as the wild or rose-laurel, which
was supposed to be a deadly poison to horses and asses. Lucian. Luc.
siv. Asin. § 17.

Footnote 1244:

Luc. Piscat. § 6.

Footnote 1245:

Geop. x. 1. 1. xii. 2.

Footnote 1246:

The cedar still grows wild on the promontory of Sunium. Chandler, ii.
8.

Footnote 1247:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. pl. 4.

Footnote 1248:

Plato describes, though not in a garden, a fountain and a plane-tree,
in language so picturesque and harmonious, that it has captivated the
imagination of all succeeding writers, many of whom have sought to
express their admiration by imitating it in their own style:—Ἥ τε γὰρ
πλάτανος αὕτη μάλ’ ἀμφιλαφής τε καὶ ὑψηλή, τοῦ τε ἄγνου τὸ ὕψος καὶ τὸ
σύσκιον πάγκαλον, καὶ ὡς ἀγμὴν ἔχει τῆς ἀνθης, ὡς ἄν εὐωδέστατον
παρέχοι τὸν τόπον· ἥ τε αὖ πηγὴ χαριεστάτη ὑπο τῆς πλατάνου ῥεῖ μάλα
ψυχροῦ ὕδατος, ὥς τε γε τῷ ποδὶ τεκμήρασθαι· νυμφῶν τε τινων καὶ
Ἀχελώου ἱερὸν ἀπὸ τῶν κορῶν τε καὶ ἀγαλμάτων ἔοικεν εἶναι· εἰ δ᾽ αὖ
βούλει, τὸ εὔπνουν τοῦ τόπου ὡς ἀγαπητὸν καὶ σφόδρα ἡδὺ· θερινόν τε
καὶ λιγυρὸν ὑπηχεῖ τῷ τῶν τεττίγων χορῷ, πάντων δὲ κομψότατον τὸ τῆς
πόας ὅτι ἐν ἠρέμα προσάντει ἱκανὴ πέφυκε κατακλινέντι τὴν κεφαλὴν
παγκάλως ἔχειν. Phæd. t. i. p. 8, seq. The prevailing image in this
passage is thus expressed by Cicero: “Cur non imitamur Socratem illum,
qui est in Phædro Platonis; nam me hæc tua platanus admonuit, quæ non
minus ad opacandum hunc locum patulis est diffusa ramis, quam illa
cujus umbram secutus est Socrates quæ mihi videtur non tam ipsa
aquula, quæ describitur, quam Platonis oratione crevisse.” De Orat. i.
7. The picture is slightly varied by Aristinætos, who introduces it
into a garden:—Ἡ δὲ πηγὴ χαριεστάτη ὑπὸ τῇ πλατάνῳ ῥεῖ ὕδατος εὖ μάλα
ψυχροῦ, ὥς γε τῷ ποδὶ τεκμήρασθαι, καὶ διαφανοῦς τοσοῦτον, ὥστε
συνεπινηχομένων καὶ διὰ διαυγὲς ὑδάτιον διαπλεκομένων ἐπαφροδίτως
ἀλλήλοις, ἅπαν ἡμῶν φανερῶς ἀποκαταφαίνεσθαι μέλος. Epist. Lib.i.
Epist. 3. p. 14. On the epithet ἀμφιλαφὴς, which Ruhnken (ad Tim. Lex.
p. 24) observes was almost exclusively appropriated by the ancients to
the Plane tree, see Apollon. Rhod. ii. 733. Wellauer. et schol.

Footnote 1249:

Where running water was not to be obtained, they constructed two
gardens, the one for winter, which depended on the showers, the other
on a northern exposure, where a fresh, cool air was preserved
throughout the summer. Geop. xii. 5.

Footnote 1250:

Used by rustics in crowns. Athen. xv. 12. Prometheus was crowned with
agnus-castus. 13.

Footnote 1251:

Geop. xi. 7. Plin. xv. 18.

Footnote 1252:

Geop. x. 1. 3.

Footnote 1253:

Which delighted particularly in the edges of paths and trodden places.
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6.1.

Footnote 1254:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. pl. 5, sqq.

Footnote 1255:

Laing, Notes of a Traveller, p. 6.

Footnote 1256:

Geop. xi. 21, 23, sqq.

Footnote 1257:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. pl. 79. pl. 203. pl. 334, &c.

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One 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]

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Footnote 1258:

Πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ ἀφ’ ὧν ζῶσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, ταῦτα ἡ γῆ φέρει
ἐργαζομένοις· καὶ ἀφ’ ὧν τοίνυν ἡδυπαθοῦσι προσεπιφέρει.—Ἔπειτα δὲ ὅσα
κοσμοῦσι βωμοὺς και ἀγάλματα, καὶ οἷς αὐτοὶ κοσμοῦνται, καὶ ταῦτα μετὰ
ἡδίστων ὀσμῶν καὶ θεαμάτων παρέχει. κ. τ. λ. Xenoph. Œconom. v. 2,
seq.

Pliny has a curious passage on the use of crowns among the Romans,
which Holland has thus translated: “Now when these garlands of flowers
were taken up and received commonly in all places for a certain time,
there came soon after into request those chaplets which are named
Egyptian; and after them, winter coronets, to wit, when the earth
affordeth no flowers to make them, and these consisted of horn
shavings dyed into sundry colours. And so in process of time, by
little and little crept into Rome, also the name of corolla, or as one
would say, petty garlands; for that these winter chaplets at first
were so pretty and small: and not long after them, the costly coronets
and others, corollaries, namely, when they are made of thin leaves and
plates and latten, either gilded or silvered over, or else set out
with golden and silvered spangles, and so presented.” xxi. 2. Pollux
affords a list of the principal flowers used in crowns by the Greeks:
τὰ δὲ ἐν τοῖς στεφάνοις ἄνθη, ῥόδα, ἴα, κρίνα, σισύμθρια, ἀνεμῶναι,
ἕρπυλος, κρόκος, ὑάκινθος, ἑλίχρυσος, ἡμεροκαλὲς, ἑλένειον, θρυαλὶς,
ἀνθρίσκος, νάρκισσος, μελίλωτον, ἀνθεμὶς, παρθενὶς, καὶ τἄλλα ὅσα τοῖς
ὀφθαλμοῖς τέρψιν, ἠῥισὶν ἡδεῖαν ὄσφρησιν ἔχει. Cratinus enumerates
among garland flowers, those of the smilax and the cosmosandalon.
Onomast. vi. 106. Athen. xv. 32. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 1. 2–6.
4. Persons returning from a voyage were sometimes crowned with
flowers. Plut. Thes. § 22. Soldiers also going to battle. Ages. § 19.
Cf Philost. Icon. i. 24. p. 799. Plut. Sympos. iii. 1.

Footnote 1259:

Athen. xv. 15.

Footnote 1260:

Id. xv. 16.

Footnote 1261:

Id. xv. 13.

Footnote 1262:

Id. xv. 18.

Footnote 1263:

Id. xv. 22.

Footnote 1264:

Id. xv. 26.

Footnote 1265:

Athen. xv. 9.

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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 slew 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]

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Footnote 1266:

Geop. xi. 2. Ovid. Metam. 550.

Footnote 1267:

Geop. xi. 4.

Footnote 1268:

Geop. xi. 6.

Footnote 1269:

Geop. xi. 10. Cf. Plut. Sympos. vol. iii. 1, where he assigns the
reason why the pine was sacred to Poseidon and Dionysos. The foliage
of the pine-forests was so dense in Bœotia as to permit neither snow
nor rain to penetrate through. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 9. 6. The
shade of such trees, therefore, would be more especially coveted.

Footnote 1270:

Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 537. Geop. xii. 17. 16.

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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,
Many a verdant myrtle-bough,
Many a rose-crown featly wreathed,
With twisted violets that grow
Where the breath of spring has breathed.

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Footnote 1271:

By Dr. Nolan. See his paper on the Grecian Rose. Trans. Roy. Soc. of
Lit. ii. 327, sqq.

Footnote 1272:

Cf. Athen. xv. 11.

Footnote 1273:

Οἱ δὲ, ἀπικόμενοι ἐς ἄλλην γῆν τῆς Μακεδόνιης, οἴκησαν πέλας τῶν κήπων
τῶν λεγομένων εἶναι Μίδεω τοῦ Γορδίεω. ἐν τοῖσι φύεται αὐτόματα ῥόδα,
ἕν ἕκαστον ἔχον ἑξήκοντα φύλλα ὀδμῆ δὲ ὑπερφέροντα τῶν ἀλλων· ἐν
τούτοισι καὶ ὁ Σιληνὸς τοῖσι κήποισι ἥλω, ὡς λέγεται ὑπὸ Μακεδόνων.
ὑπὲρ δὲ τῶν κήτων οὖρος κέεται, Βέρμιον οὔνομα, ἄβατον ὑπὸ χειμῶνος.
viii. 138. On the arts and manners of this Midas, who, together with
Orpheus and Eumolpos was the founder of the Hellenic religion, see J.
G. Voss. de Idololat. i. 24, and Bouhier, Dissert. sur Herod. ch. 80.

Footnote 1274:

Cf. Theop. Hist. Plant. iv. 87.

Footnote 1275:

Athen. iii. 21. Stesichoros lived before Christ about 632. Clint.
Fast. Hellen. ii. 5. Crowns of roses are mentioned by Cratinus who was
born 519 B. C. which shows that roses must have been largely
cultivated in his time. Athen. xv. 27.

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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]

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Footnote 1276:

Il. α. 477. ι. 703. Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 610. To place the matter
beyond dispute, Homer speaks of oils rendered fragrant by the perfume
of the rose:—ῥοδόεντι δὲ χρῖεν ἐλαίῳ. Il. ψ. 186.

Footnote 1277:

Dioscor. i. 154.

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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.

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Footnote 1278:

“Les Egyptiens, selon le département de leur Roy Horus, n’en mettaient
que trois (saisons): le printemps, l’esté, et l’automne: leur
attribuans quatre mois à chacune, et les figurans par une rose, une
espy, et une pomme, ou raisin.” Les Images de Platte Peinture des deux
Philostrates, par Vigenère, Paris, fol. 1627, p. 555.

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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 rosebuds 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 Greece 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.

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Footnote 1279:

Geop. xi. 18. A species of perpetual rose is said to have been
recently discovered in France, where “A Parisian florist, we are told,
has succeeded in producing a new hybrid rose from the Bourbon rose and
Gloire de Rosomène, the flowers of which he had fertilised with the
pollen of some Damask and hybrid China roses. The plant is extremely
beautiful, the colour bright crimson shaded with Maroon purple, and is
further enriched with a powerful fragrance.” TIMES, March 24th, 1841.

Footnote 1280:

Geop. xi. 18. 12.

Footnote 1281:

Plinius varia genera commemorat, Milesia ardentissimo colore,
Alabandica albicantibus foliis, Spermonia vilissima, Damascenæ albæ
distillandis aquis usurpantur. Differunt foliorum multitudine,
asperitate, lævore, colore, odore.—Heresbachius, de Re Rustica, lib.
ii. p. 121. a.

Footnote 1282:

Problem. xii. 8. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6. 5.

Footnote 1283:

Athen. xv. 29. Plin. xxi. 10. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6. 4.

Footnote 1284:

As Dr. Nolan seems to suppose. On the Grecian Rose. Transact. Roy.
Soc. ii. 328. Though Theophrastus states the contrary very distinctly.
Hist. Plant. vi. 2. 1—6. 4—7. 5. The white rose appears at present to
be commonly cultivated in Attica.—Chandler, ii. 181.

Footnote 1285:

Geop. xi. 18. 13.

Footnote 1286:

Geop. xi. 18. 1.

Footnote 1287:

Pashley, Trav. i. 8, who observes, that the rose is common in February
at Malta.

Footnote 1288:

Geop. xi. 18. 5. Plin. xxi. 4. Pallad. iii. 21. 2.

Footnote 1289:

Geop. xi. 18. 4. Cf. xii. 19. 3.

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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]

the 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.”

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Footnote 1290:

Geop. xi. 20. Heresbach. de Re Rust. p. 122. b. Theoph. Hist. Plant.
vi. 6. 4, 8.

Footnote 1291:

Plin. xxi. 13.

Footnote 1292:

Colum. De Cultu Hortorum, x. 102.

Footnote 1293:

Winter’s Tale, iv. 5.

Footnote 1294:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 222, tab. 318. Schol. Aristoph. Eq.
1320. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6. 4. The finest violets, crocusses,
&c., in the ancient world, were supposed to be found in Cyrene. Id.
vi. 6. 5.

Footnote 1295:

Dioscor. ii. 155.

Footnote 1296:

On the birth of the Hyacinth, see Eudocia in the Anecdota Græca, i.
408.

Footnote 1297:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6. 9. 8. 2. This flower flourishes after the
setting of Arcturus, about the autumnal equinox.—“We were ferried over
a narrow stream fringed with Agnus-Castus, into a garden belonging to
the convent. A number of vernal flowers now blossomed on its banks;
the garden anemone was crimsoned with an extraordinary glow of
colouring. The soil which was a sandy loam, was further enlivened with
the Ixia, the grass-leaved Iris, and the enamel-blue of a species of
speedwell, not noticed by the Swedish Naturalist.” Sibth. Walp. Mem.
i. 282, seq.

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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 sweet 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.

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Footnote 1298:

This plant was brought from Mount Hymettos, to be cultivated in the
gardens of Athens. The Sicyonians, likewise, transplanted it to their
gardens from the mountains of Peloponnesos.—Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi.
7. 2.

Footnote 1299:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 7. 4.

Footnote 1300:

Dioscor. iii. 89. Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 14, tab. 192, seq.
tab. 310, tab. 518, tab. 549. Column. x. De Cult. Hort. 96, sqq.

Footnote 1301:

The basil-gentle was watered at noon, other plants morning and
evening.—Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 5. 2.

Footnote 1302:

Dioscor. iii. 114.

Footnote 1303:

Colum. x. 399, seq. Engl. Trans.

Footnote 1304:

The anemone among other flowers beautifies the fields of Attica, so
early as the month of February.—Chandler, ii. 211. “Les campagnes et
les collines sont rouges d’anémones.”—Della Rocca, Traité sur les
Abeilles, t. i. p. 5.

Footnote 1305:

Cultivated usually in pots, resembling the gardens of Adonis. Theoph.
Hist. Plant. vi. 7. 3. Thickets of this shrub constitute one of the
greatest beauties of the islands of the Archipelago. “Les lauriers
roses, que l’on conserve en France avec tant de soin, viennent à
l’aventure dans les prairies, et le long des ruisseaux qui en sont
bordés. Rien n’est plus agréable que de voir ces beaux arbres, de la
hauteur de douze à quinze pieds, variés de fleurs rouges et blanches,
se croiser par les branches d’en haut, sur un ruisseau ou sur le lit
d’une fontaine, et faire un berceau qui dure quelquefois un grand
quart de lieue.” Della Rocca, Traité Complet sur les Abeilles, t. i.
p. 6.

Footnote 1306:

Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 253.

Footnote 1307:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 8. 2.

Footnote 1308:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 27.

Footnote 1309:

Known also by the names of νηρίον and ῥοδοδάφνη.—Dioscor. iv. 82.
Geop. ii. 42. 1.

-----

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 and 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 of 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.

-----

Footnote 1310:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 9. 3.

Footnote 1311:

Cf. Clus. Hist. Rar. Plant. i. 43. p. 65.

Footnote 1312:

Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 85. The berry, both of the myrtle and the
laurel, assumed, we are told, a black colour in the garden of
Antandros.—Theophrast. Hist. Plant. ii. 2. 6.

Footnote 1313:

Hemsterhuis, Annot. ad Poll. ix. 49. p. 943. Cf. Dion. Chrysost. i.
273.

Footnote 1314:

Sibthorp. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 2, tab. 367, tab. 374, seq.

Footnote 1315:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 9. 3.

Footnote 1316:

The strawberry-tree is found flourishing in great beauty and
perfection on Mount Helicon, and its fruit is said to be exceedingly
sweet.—Chandler, ii. 290.

Footnote 1317:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. tab. 361.

Footnote 1318:

Ἔνθα πλάτανος μὲν ἀμφιλαφής τε καὶ σύσκιος, πνεῦμα δὲ μέτριον, καὶ πόα
μαλθακὴ, ὥρα θέρους ἐπανθεῖν εἰωθυῖα. Aristænet. Epist. lib. i. Epist.
3. p. 13. There was, according to Varro, an evergreen platane tree in
Crete, i. 7. The same platane is mentioned by Theophrastus, who
informs us, that it grew beside a fountain in the Gortynian territory
where Zeus first reclined on landing from the sea with Europa, i. 9.
5. Near the city of Sybaris, there is said to have grown a common oak
which enjoyed the privilege of being undeciduous. Ibid.

Footnote 1319:

Ἄμπελοι δὲ παμμήκεις σφόδρα τε ὑψηλαὶ περιελίττονται κυπαρίττους ὡς
ἀνακλᾷν ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ πολὺ τὸν αὐχενα πρὸς θέαν τῶν κύκλῳ συναιωρουμένων
βοτρών, ὧν οἱ μὲν ὀργῶσιν, οἱ δὲ περκάζουσιν οἱ δὲ ὄμφακες, οἱ δὲ
οἰνάνθαι δοκοῦσιν.—Aristænet. Epist. lib. i. Ep. 3. p. 13, seq.

Footnote 1320:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. tab. 516.

Footnote 1321:

Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 13. 1.

Footnote 1322:

Dodwell, ii. 455. Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 283. There was a species of
mistletoe called the Cretan, which found equally congenial the
climates of Achaia and Media. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 1. 3.

Footnote 1323:

That is to say at a late period, for in the time of Theophrastus it
would seem not to have been common in Greece, if it had been at all
introduced. Hist. Plant. iii. 17. 1.

Footnote 1324:

Dodwell, ii. 455.

Footnote 1325:

Even the platane, also, delights in humid places. Theoph. Hist. Plant.
i. 4. 2. The black poplar was said to bear fruit in several parts of
Crete. iii. 3. 5.

-----

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 banks 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.

-----

Footnote 1326:

Geop. v. 44. Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 24. p. 112.

Footnote 1327:

Walp. Mem. i. 60.

Footnote 1328:

The cactus, as most travellers will have remarked, flourishes
luxuriantly in Sicily even among the beds of lava where little else
will grow; it appears, however, to delight in a volcanic soil.
Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, “i. 209. In the Æolian
Islands it thrives so well that it usually grows to the height of ten,
twelve, and sometimes fifteen feet, with a stem a foot or more in
diameter. The fruits, which are nearly as large as turkeys’ eggs, are
sweet and extremely agreeable to the palate. It is well-known that the
fruits grow at the edges of the leaves, the number on each leaf is not
constant, but they are frequently numerous, as I have counted two and
twenty on a single leaf.” iv. 97.

Footnote 1329:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 29. tab. 157. tab. 185.

Footnote 1330:

Sibth. in Walp. Trav. p. 73, seq. On the seasons of these wild flowers
see Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 9. 2.

Footnote 1331:

Dioscor. ii. 186.

Footnote 1332:

Athen. xv. 29.

Footnote 1333:

Demosth. in Callicl. § 1. 3, seq.

-----

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 mark 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.

-----

Footnote 1334:

Cf. Varro. i. 15. Magii Miscellan. lib. iv. p. 187. b. As the
cotton-tree in modern times has been supposed not to thrive at a much
greater distance than twenty miles from the sea; so, among the
ancients, the olive was supposed not to flourish at a greater distance
than three hundred stadia. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 2. 4. Both
opinions are probably erroneous, as the olive-tree is found in
perfection in the Fayoum, and the cotton-plant in Upper Egypt.

Footnote 1335:

Vict. Var. Lect. p. 874. But the Scholiast (Aristoph. Ran. 1026) gives
a different though less probable interpretation to the passage.

Footnote 1336:

Cf. Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 3.

Footnote 1337:

Cato. De Re Rusticâ 6. They were sometimes also grafted, we are told,
on lentiscus stocks. Plut. Sympos. ii. 6. 1.

Footnote 1338:

In Syria and some other warm countries the olive was said to produce
fruit in clusters. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 11. 4. And when this
fruit was found chiefly on the upper branches, they augured a
productive year. id. i. 14. 2. Geop. ix. 2. 4. The ancients
entertained extraordinary ideas concerning the purity of the olive,
which they imagined bore more freely when cultivated by persons of
chaste minds. Thus the olive-grounds of Anazarbos, in Cilicia, were
thought to owe their extraordinary fertility to the reserved and
modest manners of the youths who cultivated them. Id. ix. 2. 6.

Footnote 1339:

Geop. ix. 3. 1. Virg. Georg. ii. 179. The heads of olive-stocks when
freshly planted were covered with clay, which was protected from the
wet by a shell. Xenoph. Œconom. xix. 14. The pits for the planting of
the olive and other fruit-trees were of considerable depth and dug
long beforehand. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 1.

-----

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] The 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.

-----

Footnote 1340:

Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 582, seq.

Footnote 1341:

Οὐ γίνονται δὲ τέττιγες ὅπου μὴ δένδρα ἐστιν· διὸ καὶ ἐν Κυρήνη οὐ
γίνονται ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ, περὶ δὲ τὴν πόλιν πολλοί, μόλιστα δ᾽ οὗ ἐλαῖαι·
οὐ γὰρ γίνονται παλίν σκίοι. Aristot. Hist. Anim. v. 30. Cf. Phile, de
Animal. Proprietat. c. 25. p. 81.

Footnote 1342:

In Spain, however, these insects exhibit a somewhat different taste,
being there found amid the foliage of the most leafy trees. “Every oak
in the cork-wood near Gibraltar was the abode if not of harmony, at
least of noise, and the concert kept up amidst the foliage by the
numerous grass or rather tree-hoppers was quite deafening.” Napier,
Excursions on the shores of the Mediterranean, ii. p. 2.

Footnote 1343:

Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 75.

-----

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 at Lemnos, the citron, the lemon,[1354] the date-palm,[1355] the pistachio, the almond, the service, and the cornel-tree.

-----

Footnote 1344:

On the cultivation of the apple see Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 3. 3.
Geop. xviii. 18.

Footnote 1345:

Athen. xiv. 63. Etym. Mag. 122. 20.

Footnote 1346:

Geop. x. 41. Plin. xv. 25. Athen. ii. 35.

Footnote 1347:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 13. 1.

Footnote 1348:

Etym. Mag. 211. 4, sqq.

Footnote 1349:

Geop. x. 3. 73.

Footnote 1350:

Geop. xiii. 19. Athen. ii. 38.

Footnote 1351:

Athen. ii. 12. Vid. Cœl. Rhodigin. vii. 15. Bochart, Geog. Sac. col.
629.

Footnote 1352:

Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 3. 3. The fruit of the pomegranate-tree
lost much of its acidity in Egypt. Id. Hist. Plant. ii. 2. 7.

Footnote 1353:

In Greece the orange-tree and the lemon blossom in June, Chandler, ii.
238.

Footnote 1354:

Cf. Chandler, ii. 250.

Footnote 1355:

In Babylonia the palm-tree was by some thought to be propagated by
off-shoots. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. ii. 2. 2. In Greece, the fruit
seldom ripened completely. iii. 3. 5.

-----

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.

-----

Footnote 1356:

Ἔτι δὲ τὸ ἔμπνουν τῆς αὔρας λιγυρὸν ὑπηχεῖ τῷ μουσικῷ τῶν τεττίγων
χορῷ δι᾽ ἥν καὶ τὸ πνίγος τῆς μεσημβρίας ἠπιῶτερον ἐγεγόνει ἡδὺ καὶ
ἀηδόνει, περὶ πετόμεναι τὰ νάματα, μελωδοῦσιν. ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἡδὺ
φώνῶν κατηκούομεν ὀρνίθων, ὥσπερ ἐμμελῶς ὁμιλούντων ανθρώποις.
Aristænet. Epist. lib. i. Ep. 3. p. 17.

Footnote 1357:

“The amorous thrill of the green-finch was now heard distinctly. The
little owl hooted frequently round the walls of the convent. In the
river below, otters were frequently taken. On the sides of the banks
were the holes of the river-crabs; and the green-backed lizard was
sporting among the grass.” Sibth. in Walp. Trav. p. 76.

-----

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 is 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.

-----

Footnote 1358:

Plat. De Legg. t. viii. p. 107.

-----

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]

-----

Footnote 1359:

Eudoc. Ionia. 434.

Footnote 1360:

Plin. xix. 19. Athen. xi. 39.

Footnote 1361:

Bœttig. Fragm. sur les Jar. des Anciens, in Magaz. Encycloped. Ann.
vii. t. i. p. 337. Cardinal Quirini, Primordia Corcyræ, c. vii. p. 60,
sqq.

Footnote 1362:

See in Xenophon a brief description of the gardens of Cyrus. Œconom.
iv. 21. Upon this passage our countryman, Sir Thomas Browne, has
written an elaborate treatise.

Footnote 1363:

On the various methods of propagating trees see Theophrast. Hist.
Plant. ii. 1. 2.

-----

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. From 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 the 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 on 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.

-----

Footnote 1364:

Astronomicon, ii. p. 30. l. 4. Scalig. et not. p. 67.

Footnote 1365:

Cf. Athen. xiv. 68.

Footnote 1366:

De Plantis, ii. 6.

Footnote 1367:

Hobhouse, Travels, i. 227. Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce, t. i. p.
297.

Footnote 1368:

Geop. iii. 3. 9. Clem. Alexand. Stromat. l. vi. Opera, t. ii. p. 800.
Venet. 1657.

Footnote 1369:

Geop. xii. 75. x. 75. 19.

Footnote 1370:

Geop. x. 77. Colum. v. 11. 1. Pallad. vii. 5. 2. Plin. xvii. 26. Cato.
42. Virg. Georg. ii. 73, sqq.

Footnote 1371:

Geop. x. 76.

Footnote 1372:

Introduced by Dionysios the elder into Rhegium, where it attained,
however, no great size. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 5. 6. The same
naturalist speaks of two plane trees, the one at Delphi, the other at
Caphyæ in Arcadia, said to have been planted by the hand of Agamemnon,
which were still flourishing in his own days, iv. 13. 2. This tree
attains a prodigious size in Peloponnesos. Chandler, Travels, ii. 308.
Our traveller was prevented from measuring the stem by the fear of
certain Albanian soldiers who lay asleep under it; but Theophrastus
gives us the dimensions of a large platane, at Antandros, whose trunk,
he says, could scarcely be embraced by four men, while its height
before the springing forth of the boughs was fifteen feet. Having
described the dimensions of the tree, he relates a very extraordinary
fact in natural history, namely, that this platane, having been blown
down by the winds and lightened of its branches by the axe, rose again
spontaneously during the night, put forth fresh boughs, and flourished
as before. The same thing is related of a white poplar in the museum
at Stagira, and of a large willow at Philippi. In this last city a
soothsayer counselled the inhabitants to offer sacrifice, and set a
guard about the tree, as a thing of auspicious omen. Theoph. Hist.
Plant. iv. 16. 2, seq. Cf. Plin. xvi. 57. In corroboration of the
narrative of Theophrastus, Palmerius relates, that, during the winter
of 1624–25, while Breda was besieged by Ambrosio Spinola, he himself
saw in Brabant an oak twenty-five feet high, and three feet in
circumference, overthrown by the wind, and recovering itself exactly
in the manner described by the great naturalist. The vulgar, who
regarded it as a miracle, preserved portions of its bark or branches
as amulets.—Excercitationes, p. 598.

Footnote 1373:

Plut. Sympos. ii. 6. 7.

Footnote 1374:

“It is reported,” observes Lord Bacon, “that, in the low countries,
they will graft an apple scion upon the stock of a colewort, and it
will bear a great flaggy apple, the kernel of which, if it be set,
will be a colewort and not an apple.” Sylva Sylvarum, 453.

Footnote 1375:

Geop. x. 20. 1. Varro. i. 59. Mustea (mala) a celeritate mitescendi:
quæ nunc melimela dicuntur, a sapore melleo.—Plin. xv. 15. Dioscor. i.
161.

Footnote 1376:

Plut. Sympos. ii. 6. 1.

Footnote 1377:

Geop. x. 19. 15, cum not. Niclas.

Footnote 1378:

Inseritur vero ex fœtu uncis arbutus horrida. Virg. Georg. ii. 69,
with the note of Servius.

Footnote 1379:

Plut. Sympos. ii. 6. 1.

Footnote 1380:

Plin. xvii. 14.

Footnote 1381:

Castanea inseritur in se, et in salice, sed ex salice tardius maturat,
et fit asperior in sapore. Pallad. xii. 7. 22. Cf. Virg. Georg. ii.
71. Plutarch speaks of certain gardens on the banks of the Cephissos,
in Bœotia, in which he beheld pears growing on an oak-stock: ἦσαν δὲ
καὶ δρύες ἀπίους ἀγαθὰς ἐκφέρουσαι. Sympos. ii. 6. 1.

Footnote 1382:

Geop. x. 41. 3. iv. 12. 5.

Footnote 1383:

Geop. iv. 4.

-----

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]

-----

Footnote 1384:

Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce, t. i. p. 298.

-----

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]

-----

Footnote 1385:

Idem. t. i. p. 288. Speaking of the fertility of the islands, Della
Rocca remarks: “Le terroir y est si bon, et les arbres y viennent si
vîte, que j’ai vu à Naxie des pépins d’orange de Portugal pousser en
moins de huit ans de grands orangers, dont les fruits étoient les plus
délicieux du monde, et la tige de l’arbre si haute, qu’il falloit une
longue échelle pour y monter.”—Traité Complet des Abeilles, t. i. p.
6.

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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 possessed 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 pricked 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]

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Footnote 1386:

On the artificial ripening of dates, Theoph. ii. 8. 4.

Footnote 1387:

Athen. iii. 19. Plut. Phoc. § 3. Xenoph. Vectigal. i. 3.

Footnote 1388:

Ὁ νοῦν ἔχων γεωργός, ὧν σπερμάτων κήδοιτο καὶ ἔγκαρπα βούλοιτο
γενέσθαι, πότερα σπονδῇ ἂν θέρους εἰς ᾿Αδώνιδος κήπους ἀρῶν χαίροι
θεωρῶν καλοὺς ἐν ἡμέραισιν ὀκτὼ γιγνομένους.—Plat. Phœd. t. i. p.
99. Suid. v. Ἀδώνιδ. κῆπ. t. i. p. 84. b. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7.
3. Caus. Plant. i. 12. 2. Eustath. ad Odyss. λ. p. 459. 4.

Footnote 1389:

Tod, Annals of Rajast’han, vol. i. p. 570.

Footnote 1390:

Cf. Athen. iii. 12. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 3. 3. The fruit of the
Egyptian sycamore, or Pharaoh’s fig-tree, was eaten in antiquity as
now. Athenæus, who was a native of the Delta, says they used to rip
open the skin of the fruit with an iron claw, and leave it thus upon
the tree for three days. On the fourth it was eatable, and exhaled a
very agreeable odour. Deipnosoph. ii. 36. Theophrastus adds, that a
little oil was likewise poured on the fruit when opened by the iron.
De Caus. Plant. i. 17. 9. ii. 8. 4. In Malta figs are still sometimes
ripened by introducing a little olive oil into the eye of the fruit,
or by puncturing it with a straw or feather dipped in oil. Napier,
Excursions along the Shores of the Mediterranean, vol. ii. p. 144. Cf.
Lord Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, 446.

Footnote 1391:

Ap. Athen. iii. 10. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 8. 1.

Footnote 1392:

Aristot. de Gen. Anim. t. i.

Footnote 1393:

Suid. v. ερινεὸς. t. i. p. 1038. d.

Footnote 1394:

Cf. Tournefort, t. ii. p. 23.

Footnote 1395:

Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 767

Footnote 1396:

Athen. iii. 7. The Laconian fig-tree was not commonly planted in
Attica. Frag. Aristoph. Georg. 4. Brunck. This kind of fig requires
much watering, which was found to deteriorate the flavour of other
kinds. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 7. 1.

Footnote 1397:

Athen. iii. 8.

Footnote 1398:

Athen. iii. 9. In the fig-tree orchards of Asia Minor the spaces
between the trees are sown, as in vineyards, with corn, and the bushes
are often filled with nightingales.—Chandler, i. 244.

Footnote 1399:

Athen. iii. 10. There was, also, a species which received its name
from resembling the crow in colour. Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 611. Philost.
Icon. i. 31. p. 809, where figs are enumerated in his elegant
description of the Xenia. Cf. Pausan. i. 37. Vitruv.

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