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59. Willows were cultivated for binding the vines to the trees that supported them; for hedges; and for making baskets(Virg. G. ii. 4. 36.): moist ground was preferred for growing them, Udumi salictum. ie

60. Hedges were of various sorts, but we are not informed what were the plants grown in those used for defence. They surrounded chiefly vineyards and gardens; for agriculture was then, as now, carried on in the common or open field manner.

Secr. V. Roman Gardening as a Science, and as to the Authors ut produced.

61. The gardening of the Romans was entirely empirical, and carried on with all the superstitious observations dictated by a religion founded on polytheism. Almost every operation had its god, who was to be invoked or propitiated on all oecasions.<« I will write for your instruction,” says Varro to Fundasius,‘‘ three books on husbandry, first invoking the twelve dii consentes.” After enumerating the gods which preside over household matters, and the common field operations, he adds,‘‘ adoring Venus as the patroness of the garden, and offering my entreaties to: Lympha, because culture is drought and misery without water.” The elements of agriculture, he says, are the same as those of the world— water, earth, air, and the sun. Agriculture is a necessary and great art, and it is a science which teaches what is to be planted and done in every ground, and what lands yield the greatest profit. It should aim at utility and pleasure, by producing things profitable and agreeable,&c.

62. Lunar days were observed, and also lucky and unlucky days, as described by Hesiod. Some things, Varro observes, are to be done in the fields while the moon is increasing; others on the contrary when she is decreasing, as the cutting of corn and underwood. At the change of the moan pull your beans before daylight; to prevent rats and mice from preying on a vineyard, prune the vines in the night-time: sow vetches before the twenty-fifth day of the moon,&c.“ I observe these things,”’ says Agrasius, (one of fifty authors who Varro says had written on husbandry, but whose writings are now lost,)“not only in shearing my sheep, but in cutting my hair, for I might become bald if I did not do this in the wane of the moon.”’

63. Religion and magic were also called in to the aid of the cultivator. Columella says that husbandmen who are more religious than ordinary, when they sow turnips, pray that they may grow both for themselves and for their neighbours. If caterpillars attack them, Democritus affirms that a woman going with her hair loose, and bare-footed, three times round each bed will kill them. Women must be rarely admitted where cucumbers or gourds are planted, for commonly green things languish and are checked in their growth by their handling of them.

64. Of vegetable physiology they seem to have been very ignorant. It was a doctrine held by Virgil, Columella, and Pliny, that any scion may be grafted on any stock; and that the scion partaking of the nature of the stock, had its fruit changed in flavor accord- ingly. Pliny mentions the effect of grafting the vine on the elm, and of drawing a vine shoot through the trunk of a chestnut; but modern experience proves that no faith is to be given to such doctrines, even though some of these authors affirm to have seen what they describe.

65. Equivocal generation was believed in. Some barren trees and shrubs, as the poplar, willow, osier, and broom, were thought to grow spontaneously; others by fortuitous seeds, as the chestnut and oak; some from the roots of other sorts of trees, as the cherry, elm, bay,&c. Notwithstanding the ignorance and inaccuracy which their statements betray, the Romans were aware of all our common, and some of our uncom- mon practices: they propagated plants as we do; pruned and thinned, watered, forced, and retarded fruits and blossoms, and even made incisions and ringed trees to induce fruitfulness. of

66. There is no Roman author exclusively on gardening, but the subject is treated, more or less, by Cato, Varro, Virgil, Pliny, and Columella.

Cato and Varro lived, the former B. C. 150, and the latter B. C, 28: both wrote treatises on rural affairs, De Re Rustica; but, excepting what relates to the vine and the fig, have little on the subject of gardens.

Virgil’s Georgics appeared in the century preceding the commencement of our zra. Virgil was born in Mantua about B.C. 70; but lived much at Reme and Naples. He appears to have taken most of his ideas from Cato and Varro.

Pliny’s Natural History was written in the first century of our zra. Pliny was born at or near Rome, and lived much at court. The twelfth to the twenty-sixth book inclusive are chiefly on husbandry, gardens, trees, and medical plants:

The Rural Gconomy of Columelia is in twelve books, of which the eleventh, on Gardening, is in verse. He was born at Gades, now Cadiz, in Spain, but passed most of his time in Italy.