GARDENING

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ENCYCLOPADIA

GARDENING.

PP XHE earth, Herder observes, is a star among other stars, and man, an improving

animal acclimated in every zone of its diversified surface. The great mass of this star is composed of inorganic matters called minerals, from the decomposing surface of which proceed fixed organic bodies called vegetables, and moving organic bodies called animals, Minerals are said to grow, or undergo change only; vegetables to grow and live; and animals to grow, live, and move. Life and growth imply nourishment; and primitively, vegetables seem to have lived on minerals; and animals, with some exceptions, on vegetables. Man, supereminent, lives on both; and, in consequence of his faculty of improving himself and other beings, has contrived means of increasing the number, and ameliorating the quality of those he prefers. This constitutes the chief business of private life in the country, and includes the occupations of housewifery, or domestic economy, agriculture, and gardening.

Gardening, the branch to which we here confine ourselves, as compared with agri- culture, is the cultivation of a limited spot, by manual labor, for culinary and orna- mental products; but relative to the present improved state of the art, may be defined the formation and culture, by manual labor, of a scene more or less extended, for various purposes of utility, ornament and recreation.

Thus gardening, like most other arts, has had its origin in the supply of a primitive want; and, as wants became desires, and desires increased, and became more luxurious and refined, its objects and its province became extended; till from an enclosure of a few square yards, containing, as Lord Walpole has said,“a gooseberry-bush and a cab- bage,”’ such as may be seen before the door of a hut on the borders of a common, it has expanded to a park of several miles in circuit, its boundaries lost in forest scenery,— a palace bosomed in wood near its centre; the intermediate space varied by artificial lakes or rivers, plantations, pleasure-grounds, flower-gardens, hot-houses, orchards, and potageries:— producing for the table of the owner and his guests, the fruits, flowers, and culinary vegetables, of every climate of the world!— displaying the finest verdant landscapes to invite him to exercise and recreation, by gliding over velvet turf, or po- lished gravel walks, sheltered, shady, or open in near scenes; or with horses and chariots along rides and drives“ of various view” in distant ones.

From such a variety of products and objects, and so extended a scene of operations, have arisen the different branches of gardening as an art; and from the general use of gardens, and of their products by all ranks, have originated their various kinds, and the different forms which this art has assumed as a trade or business of life. Gardening is practised for private use and enjoyment, in cottage, villa, and mansion gardens;— for public recreation, in umbrageous and verdant promenades, parks, and other scenes, in and near to large towns;—for public instruction, in botanic and experimental gardens;— for public example, in national or royal gardens;— and for the purpose of commerce, in market, orchard, seed, physic, florists’, and nursery gardens.

To aid in what relates to designing and laying out gardens, artists or professors have arisen; and the performance of the operative part is the only source of living of a nu- merous class of serving gardeners, who acquire their art by the regular routine of ap- prenticeship, and probationary labor for some years as journeymen.

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