DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0030
A HISTORY OF GARDEN ART
CHAPTER I
ANCIENT EGYPT
UNDER primitive conditions, the cultivation of gardens could only begin when
a wandering tribe settled. The nomad drove bis herds across the open un-
fenced pasture-land. When, however, with the aid of the pickaxe he broke
the ground, providing something in the nature of cultivated land and a fixed
dwelling-place, he was compelled to erect a fence, in order to protect the
homestead from the inroads of enemies and wild beasts. This enclosure, rudimentary as
it was, formed the first garden. It was earlier than the farm, which could only be developed
after fields had been formed with further fencing. It is in this particular sense that Herder
was right when he called the garden older than the farm; nevertheless it was not a garden
proper, because it was not yet separated from the rest of the land. Such as it was, it was
quite close to the house, and contained fruit-trees and vegetables. The different kinds of
plants had to be set out in regular beds because of the sort of attention they needed,
for only by observing a certain order in arrangement was it possible to secure a
satisfactory return.
We cannot, of course, study the earliest stages of gardening at first hand, and the
prehistoric discoveries about cultivated plants throw no light on the manner or or. er
of their actual planting. One can only say with certainty that the cultivation was not
equal everywhere, nor according to any one plan; and that in a country won from the
primeval forest the gardens had quite a different aspect from the oasis gardens still girt
by the sandy desert.
In the very cradle of all human civilisation is a land which from the peculiar character
of its soil and climate was bound to show an early and important development of garden
cultivation. This land is Egypt. Here the Nile by its own independent work has wrested
from the desert a valley, narrow and long. Every year its waters, pouring forth blessing
and fruitfulness, take on themselves that work which in other places has to be carried
out by the care and pains of men themselves—the work of conveying to the earth the
nourishment first obtained therefrom. But this narrow strip of land, so specially favourable
to the production of succulent stalks, was ill adapted for the cultivation of the larger kinds
of trees or for long-lived vegetation. Whether or not Egypt had extensive woodlands in
prehistoric times, as would appear from palasontological discoveries, we cannot consider
here, for it presupposes a different temperature and climate. We can only remark in
passing that a rainless sky must have checked the development of forest, especially in
Upper Egypt. If the kings wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the chase, they had to be
content with the neighbouring desert. In pictures of the Old and the Middle Period
3
CHAPTER I
ANCIENT EGYPT
UNDER primitive conditions, the cultivation of gardens could only begin when
a wandering tribe settled. The nomad drove bis herds across the open un-
fenced pasture-land. When, however, with the aid of the pickaxe he broke
the ground, providing something in the nature of cultivated land and a fixed
dwelling-place, he was compelled to erect a fence, in order to protect the
homestead from the inroads of enemies and wild beasts. This enclosure, rudimentary as
it was, formed the first garden. It was earlier than the farm, which could only be developed
after fields had been formed with further fencing. It is in this particular sense that Herder
was right when he called the garden older than the farm; nevertheless it was not a garden
proper, because it was not yet separated from the rest of the land. Such as it was, it was
quite close to the house, and contained fruit-trees and vegetables. The different kinds of
plants had to be set out in regular beds because of the sort of attention they needed,
for only by observing a certain order in arrangement was it possible to secure a
satisfactory return.
We cannot, of course, study the earliest stages of gardening at first hand, and the
prehistoric discoveries about cultivated plants throw no light on the manner or or. er
of their actual planting. One can only say with certainty that the cultivation was not
equal everywhere, nor according to any one plan; and that in a country won from the
primeval forest the gardens had quite a different aspect from the oasis gardens still girt
by the sandy desert.
In the very cradle of all human civilisation is a land which from the peculiar character
of its soil and climate was bound to show an early and important development of garden
cultivation. This land is Egypt. Here the Nile by its own independent work has wrested
from the desert a valley, narrow and long. Every year its waters, pouring forth blessing
and fruitfulness, take on themselves that work which in other places has to be carried
out by the care and pains of men themselves—the work of conveying to the earth the
nourishment first obtained therefrom. But this narrow strip of land, so specially favourable
to the production of succulent stalks, was ill adapted for the cultivation of the larger kinds
of trees or for long-lived vegetation. Whether or not Egypt had extensive woodlands in
prehistoric times, as would appear from palasontological discoveries, we cannot consider
here, for it presupposes a different temperature and climate. We can only remark in
passing that a rainless sky must have checked the development of forest, especially in
Upper Egypt. If the kings wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the chase, they had to be
content with the neighbouring desert. In pictures of the Old and the Middle Period
3