Evidence is accumulating that the garden was the age-old training center in which the arts and sciences first blossomed.
In a sense, the evidence confirms what Webster long ago suggested —culture started with soil cultivation. The very word reflects garden history.
Horticulture and agriculture are obvious derivations.
The Antiquity of Cultivated Plants
But culture came to significant improvement of seed stock, the transformation of a wild seedling through selection and careful breeding.
Today, this symbol of the garden has passed over to the human realm—the refined person has culture, he has become cultivated. Or take another form of the root “cult.”
Today, religion and medicine may have forgotten their origin, but the word cult still points back to it. The folklore of many lands indicates that the ancient garden was a sacred place.
The Garden of Eden contained many trees that were pleasant to look at and which produced edible fruits. Herb gardens were often dedicated to Artemis or some other god of Nature.
Until recently, this relationship was confused by the idea that soil cultivation didn’t start until Neolithic times—only about 8,000 years ago, too late to have had profound significance.
Oakes Ames, a research professor of botany at Harvard, scored a breakthrough in his Economic Annuals and Human Cultures (1939) by showing that our principal food plants must have far greater antiquity.
Their structure is complex. Their wild prototypes are often so far in the past as to be untraceable.
Seeds in tombs dating from the dawn of recorded history had already completed their evolution. They must have progressed from a very ancient past.
Advance Gardening in Ancient Egypt
So advanced were the arts of gardening in Egypt were so advanced that by 2600 B.C., high officials could boast of landscaping comparable to today’s.
Inscribed on the tomb of Methane, a governor and high priest of the Third Dynasty, is a description of his villa, which was enclosed in a 2 Vi-acre walled area of grape arbors, palms, figs, and acacias with a formal garden.
A later tomb in the reign of Amenhotep 111 (1400 B.C.) gives a detailed plan of a similar garden.
It had a gateway at the right with a porter’s lodge nearby and a path leading through arched arbors to the main residence.
Flower beds surrounded the area, and shady avenues of sycamore figs alternated with palms. The garden, separated by walls into eight distinct sections, included four ponds with lotus lilies swaying and ducks swimming about.
It showed rhythm and symmetry, a happy combination of elegance and utility in communion with Nature.
Tools and Techniques of Primitive Gardening
It is a mistake to think the plow was necessary for cultivation. Primitive gardeners are known to have used digging sticks, hoes, and mattocks.
A man with a hand ax can plant an acre of an orchard in sod in a few hours. And paleontologists report that the hand ax is probably 500,000 years old.
The Garden as The Matrix of Culture
As soon as this great age of the garden is realized, its claim to be the matrix of all culture becomes clear. The most promising wild plants had to be propagated. Seeds had to be selected and saved for planting.
The proper time for each garden operation, the handling of the soil, the suppression of weeds, the protection against wild animals, insects, diseases, and frost, the advantages of moisture and sunlight, and the harvesting and storage of the crop— all these lessons had to be thoroughly learned for each of the 250 plants in the material medical (ancient herb cures) of Egypt and Babylon.
Ames concluded that not only was man improving the plants over long ages, but the disciplines of the garden were also improving man.
The Role of Women in Primitive Gardens
The secret of this symbiosis was loving care. Therefore, it is not surprising that anthropologists find women in charge of primitive gardens.
The mother had to watch the year’s food supply, and as fast as she discovered the necessary disciplines, she taught them to her children.
Ceremonies in the spring and autumn helped instill the proper awe. The dance around the Tree of Life acquired a deep significance.
Rhythm, music, song, and colorful costumes gave added charm. Processions, pageantry, and festivals developed from this evolved drama and the arts.
Days, weeks, and months had to be counted, so a calendar was developed with help from the heavenly bodies.
Irrigation was needed for the plants, enclosure walls, containers for liquids, and structures for storing food. So came the beginnings of science. The garden was our first temple and school.
The Significance of Sacred Trees and Symbolism
Archaeologists say that with each sacred pillar, there once stood a sacred tree. Therefore, the great stone circles and long alignments need green life, blossoms, and fruit for full restoration of the picture. The word pairidaeza, or enclosure, shows religious significance.
The sacred garden was not forgotten when open-air temples were roofed and columns erected. The flutings and capitals of Egyptian pillars still show papyrus plant carvings.
Heritage of Modern Gardeners
Modern gardeners will do well to remember their heritage. It goes back far beyond our epoch, and perhaps we can justify the claim of Genesis that man was created in a garden.
44659 by Henry Bailey Stevens