THE GROWTH OF GARDENING.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8416, 16 January 1899, Page 4

THE GROWTH OF GARDENING.

In" "An Address to Gardeners," by Alphonse dc Lamartinc, a translation of which appears in the Garden, reference is made to the growth of gardening. Pliny made the catalogue of all the plants of the Roman Empire in his day ; Charlemagne pointed out in his Capitularis, which were his Charta, the name and number of the vegetables which he commanded to be grown in his gardens ; Bato imposed upon each Roman citizen, however poor, the duty of cultivating flowers in his enclosure, that his culture and elegance might also impart some culture and elegance to the manners of the people. The art of gardening— first sketched out by the Romans, univcrsalisccl and brought to a prodigious state of perfection in China, enlarged in England to the proportions of an aristocratic luxury, depreciated and strained in Holland to the point of adoration of the tulip, raised in Italy to the dignity of a splendid art, in association with statuary, sculpture, and architecture, utilised iv France by its alliance with high agriculture, of which it is the enlightener — at last reaches in several parts of Europe the condition of an industry, employing millions of hands and importing and exporting millions of fruits and flowers. Thus gardening, which was hitherto a recreation, a domestic luxury, a decoration of the earth, is becoming a new aud magnificent subject of commerce at a time when work fails man ralhtr than man work ; at a time when a notion of an industry is the invention of a source of wealth, is the invention of an occupation, of a livelihood for thousands of workmen. Upon the littoral of the Mediterranean there is a very large coasting trade done in flowers. Tuscany and the State of Genoa cultivate and export to the value of several millions the produce of their flower beds. But one art has begotten another. After the artof their cultivation has come the art of harvesting, assorting flowers, colors, shades and scents. This art has made much progress at Genoa ; for instance to such an extent that roses, carnations, dahliahs, tulips, ranunculi have been studied, combined, interwoven, plaited, that boqucts intended for the table at festivities, often more than a yard in circumference, resemble Smyrna carpets, vegetable fabrics, perfumed velvets, mopaics of vegetation. Veritable weavers weave these perfumed tissues. The boquet. makers there, as at Athens, form a profession of themselves. The boqucts admired ;it the fetes of Toulon, Marseilles, oven Paris, have often been woven at Florence or Genoa. Thus luxurious gardening becomes more and more an industry. Go on perfecting it, and it will become a new art, n painting of which the palette will be a garden.