Agricultural Beginnings

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Agricultural Beginnings

• 4000-3000 B.C. Agic. was going
• 3000 B.C. - Ox used for field cultivation,
  replacing the hoe
• By flowering of Egyptian culture, horticulture
  was an established discipline
• Systematic irrigation
• Formalized gardens, drug and medicinal plants
• Many fruits, etc.
• date, grape, olive, fig, banana, lemon,
  pomegranate, cucumber, artichoke, lentil, garlic,
  leek, onion, lettuce, mint, endive, chicory,
  radish, various melons

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Babylonia and Assyria

• Irrigation canals (burnt brick and asphalt sealed
  joints) kept 10,000 sq. miles under cultivation
  fed 15,000,000 people (1500 B.C.)
• By 700 B.C. an Assyrian herbal listed over 900
  plants including 250 vegetable, drug, and oil
  crops.

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Rome

• Grafting and budding
• Cold storage of fruit
• Formal gardens quite important
• statues, topiary, walls, trellises, flower
  boxes, fruits, etc.
• Fertility appraisals
• Legume rotation
• Prototype greenhouse - constructed of mica and
  used for vegetable forcing

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Medieval - Western Cultures

• Much lost. The monastery kept the horticultural
  art alive
• food, medicinals, and beauty
• Renaissance - revived interest in Italy in 13th -
  14th centuries.
• Gardens common outside the monastery again.
• Spread to France, then England
• 1600's - Formal gardens at peak (Versailles).

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Experimental Science

• 1500's and on brought about an upsurge in yields.
• 1600-1700
• Especially continued in 20th century and
  particularly since WWII
• increased technology, breeding, and physiological
  knowledge