iv. Chinese Gardening. as a Science, and as to the Authors it has produced
810. The practice of the Chinese is entirely empirical, though, as Mr. Main observes, they have some rude ideas of the sexual system. They are ignorant, however, of chemistry and physiology, without some knowledge of which no cultivator can have the slightest pretensions to be considered scientific. Notwithstanding this, the Chinese, like the Greeks and Romans, who, in their day, were equally ignorant with the modern Chinese of the sciences mentioned, have written books on gardening; for the existence of books on any art is no proof of its advancement, whatever it may be of its popularity.
