If such a place, it required care to rear the tender—to check the luxuriant—correct the irregular—to support the burdened—extirpate the noisome weed—and repulse the browsing animal. Such was the only occupation of the first gardeners: for in those highly-favoured spots, those natural paradises, (some of which still remain in India,) where the groves which formed the habitations also supplied the simple food of the inhabitants; where the cocoa-nut[48], with its various liquors, abounded; [p263] where the date, the mango, tamarind, and lime dropped in profusion into the hand; where the melon tribe upon, and the nutritious yam beneath the surface of the bountiful soil, were all spontaneously supplied without care, and without toil:—in such circumstances, neither sagacity to contrive, nor ability to perform, were necessary, further than collecting and preserving those spontaneous gifts of nature. But population increased; and when mankind became translocated to regions less favourable to vegetation, and where the spontaneous productions of the earth were insufficient for their subsistence, then the business of the planter and cultivator became a necessary occupation; and hence gardening would begin to assume a systematic form. As improvements, and the times in which they took place, have descended together in continuous and collateral streams, the narration may be divided into three periods, viz.:—From the earliest ages to the beginning of the sixteenth century;—from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth;—and from that period to the present time. We have already hinted at what were probably natural, or aboriginal gardens: the account is so far feasible from the fact, that such places and productions may be met with on the peninsula of India, at the present day: true it is, they cultivate rice, and some few inferior plants, where they have opportunity, and use them along with their wild fruits; but when they cannot procure these cultivated necessaries, (which sometimes happens,) they must rely on the natural productions. It is necessary to add, that some of the castes, from religious principle, abhor the use of almost any kind of animal food; and, therefore, vegetables are their sole support.