Middletown transcript., 1883-11-16
SOME WONDERFUL GARDENS.

The first thing man dld Wneh ne Was
placed on this earth was to keep a
garden. And although he proved an
unfaithful gardener in this instance, it
would seem that his taste for horticul-
ture has always remained prominent
passion. Whether the products were
objects of utility or beauty, he sought
for the most perfect method of tilling
the earth, and from the earliest times
of civilization or national refinement
gardening was practiced art. The
story of that first Eden seems to have
haunted the imaginations of men, and
legends of various forms have come
down of that primeval home of the
race. The Greek poets celebrated the
gardens of the Hesperides, which they
located near the Atlas Mountains in
the Barbary States. In it were orch
ards of trees that bore golden apples,
which were guarded by a sleepless
dragon with a hundred heads. The
garden was walled in with brazen gates,
and was under the especial protection
of Juno. the queen of heaven. 1t was
one Of the twelve labors of Hercules to
secure these golden apples, an exploit
that he performed by putting the hun
dred-headed dragon to sleep.
Almost as celebrated in Greek story
were the gardens Of the Ph8acian
prince Alcinour at Scheria, whose
charms are related by Homer in book
seventh of the Odyssey in some of his
most exquisite hexameters. These
gardens occupied about four acres of
ground, and were fenced with a hedge
or green enclosure. Every fruit and
flower known to the Greeks bloomed
and ripened in that favored retreat.
To Ulysses, on his arrival at the palace
of the Phaacian King, the gardens
seemed like paradise. Two plenteous
fountains irrigated the ground, and the
poet glows rapturously over its tossing
fruit-laden boughs and it's summery,
shady bowers.
Among other famous Greek gardens
were those of the Phrygian Prince
Midas in Macedonia, celebrated for
their Roses with a hundred leaves,
which Xerxes visited upon his invasion
of Greece and those of the Ilissus at
Athens, founded by Pisistratus $40
B. c., which were the first public gar
dens that we read Of among the an
clients.
Perhaps the most wonderful of all
the wonderful gardens of the world
were the hanging gardens of Babylon,
built by Nebuehadnezzar. He reigned
six hundred years before our Christian
era, and was the greatest monarch and
builder of his time. He erected grand
public works at his capital which be-
came wonders of the world, and he
INDUCED in some no less costly private
His wife, Queen Amyn-
tbs, was Median princess, and sighed
for her native mountains amid the
fatness of the Babylonian plain, the
greatest in the ancient world. To
crafty her, NebuchadnezZar construct
ed the famous gardens, which were not
i" hanging gardens at all, but rather
an elevated paradise. Arches were
80 ;coJ ~, oroI,oc in continued corioC |
until they overtopped the walls of
Babylon, the height of two hundred
cubits and stairways led from terrace
to terrace. The whole structure Of
was overlaid with soil sufi-
cient to nourish the largest trees, !
which by means of hydraulic engines,
were supplied from the river with {
abundant moisture. In the midst of ,
these groves stood the royal winter
for retreat which, in other ,
would be most suitable for .
summer habitation, was here reserved
for those cooler months in which alone
man can live in the open air. This .
first great work of landscape gardening, I
which history describes, comprised
charming variety of bills and forests,
rivers, cascades and fountains, and was
adorned with the loveliest flowers the
East could produce.
The Persians laid out extensive tracts
Of land, called paradises, diversified ,
with streams, groves and grottos, and ]
beautified with every object of art. +
They reduced gardening to science
which waS'the envy even of the Greeks. .
The gardens of the great satrap, lisa +
Dhernes, at Sardis, excited the admira- =
ton of the Spartan Lysander, laid out
with the most magnificent taste and 7
adorned with all the plants and flowers n
IF Orient lands. Mithridates, of Pom q
Jus, copying from his Persian ancestors, I
exhibited horticultural passion, and U
was himself an adept at gardening. +
Lucullus, the conqueror of Mithridates, h
carried some of the Pontine kings r
deaS to Italy, ornamentlng his own y
with the fanciful establish a
nent of the Persian to such degree +,
hat his friends, the Stoics, called him Il
{ Xerxes in a gown" 1t is well to II
perhaps, that it is to Lu- Fl
julius that we owe the introduction of n
he Cherry tree into the lands of the RI
Vest. "
The Chinese have, from a remote a
exhibited marvellous skill Ii
II the laying out of gardens and plea e,
ure grounds. Chinese horticulture in W
many respects cannot be surpassed by fc
hat of the most civilized nation of I
o-day. The imperial gardens are said A
o be exquisite creations of the artists 4
nd the gardeners art. Those of the
Emperor Kien-Long, at Zhehol, pre-
ent the most magnificent specimens of D
he Chinese style to be found in the 81