3000 BCE          (BCE = Before the Common Era, Christian Era, Roman-Cesar Era)
    Written manuals for the use of herbs in medicine existed in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and in China.  Herbal remedies were widely used by the ancient people.
    Potatoes are cultivated in the Andes mountains of Peru.
       Lost Crops of the Incas
    Egyptians in the Nile Valley manufacturing and wearing cotton clothes.
    Egyptian tomb paintings show walled gardens with fish ponds and fruit trees.
    Carved water basin from Tello in Mesopotamia.  [Hirst 1999]
    Olives cultivated in Crete and Syria.

2700 BCE
    Rhubarb cultivated in China for medicinal purposes.
    Egyptians used over 500 plants, wild and cultivated, for medicinal purposes.
    Chinese Emperor Shen Nung's plant classification lists.

2500  BCE
    Rice was an important food in Mohenjo-Daro near the Arabian Sea, and in the Yangtze Basin in China.
    Cotton was cultivated and its fibers spun and woven in Peru and the Indus Valley of Asia.  [Baker 1978]
    Figs, grape vines, pomegranates, and dates in cultivation in Egypt and Asia.  The first garden art was probably decorated grape arbors [Gothein 1928].   Olive trees cultivated in Crete.

2000 BCE
    Native Americans are growing many varieties of corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, as well as using many wild plants as foods.
    Egyptians making paper from the papyrus plant.  Watermelon cultivated in Africa, tea and bananas in India, apples in the          Indus Valley.

1750 BCE
    The Hammurabic Code.  Includes sections on maintaining irrigation canals and ditches, and property laws regarding gardens..  Sumerian "Farmer's Almanac."

1495 BCE
    Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt imports trees from conquered territory in North Africa.
    Farming in Ancient Egypt
    One of the oldest surviving garden plans is for the garden of a court official in Thebes.

1167 BCE
    Ramses III, Egyptian King, (1198-1167) benefactor to many grand temple gardens and public buildings.

1000 BCE
    Irrigation begins in in Mexico.  [Heiser 1990]
    Sacred Places:  Trees and the Sacred.
    Tiglath Pileser I, King in Mesopotamia, enthusiastic gardener

800 BCE
    Peanuts cultivated in Peru.

700 BCE
    Works and Days by Hesiod.

540 BCE
    Hanging Gardens of Babylon.  Built by slaves and peasants directed by King Nebuchadnezzar II.
    Sugar cane grown along the Indus River.

485 BCE
    King Darius the Great (521-485) and his paradise garden in Persia.

440 BCE
    Herodotus of Halicarnassos (484-426) writes on history, customs and life in the ancient world.

377 BCE
    Hippocrates (circa 460-377)  Greek physician.  Wrote 87 treatises.  Many herbal remedies.

350 BCE
    Gardens at the Academy, Athens, Greece
    Natural history references in the Jewish sacred scriptures - Pentateuch.
    Trees: Living Links to the Classical Past.  By John M. McMahon.

322 BCE
    Aristotle (384-322)  Greek philosopher and scientist.   Wrote 26 treatises on natural science.
        On Plants, Parts of Animals, On the Soul, Generation, Physics, On the Heavens.
        Theophrastus inherited Aristotle's botanic garden in Athens, and many of Aristotle's treatises.
    Books on plants and gardening written by Theophrastus.
    Theophrastus is considered by some to be the "Father of Botany."
    Exchange of information, seeds and plants between Greece and Persia.

301 BCE
    History of Plants and Theoretical Botany by Theophrastus.
  Trees: Living Links to the Classical Past.  By John M. McMahon.
  Summary of Greek biology.

271 BCE
    Epicurus (341-271) used a large garden for gatherings and walks.   The Philosophy Garden
    Upon the Gardens of Epicurus; or, Of Gardening.    By Sir William Temple, 1685.

207 BCE
    The opulent and extensive gardens and palace of the first Chinese emperor Ch'in Shih Huang-ti were burned by peasants and Confucian rebels.

200 BCE
    King Dutthagamini in India has a large artwork of the Sacred Fig Tree (Buddha's tree) made of precious materials and placed in the Great Gold Dust Dagoba park and gardens.
    Gardens at Pompeii, Italy   [Helphand 1977]
    Greco-Roman eating, drinking, farming, farming and starving exhibit.
    Almonds cultivated in Greece.

149 BCE
    Cato (234-149) wrote on the simple country life.
    De Agriculture, by Cato the Elder, emphasizes planting olives and grapes.

100 BCE
    Grain harvesting at Karanis, Egypt
    The Shang Lin (Great Grove) immense imperial garden of the Chinese emperor Wu-ti.
    Shanlin Yuan ("yuan" is chinese for "garden") occupied over 1000 km² and contained more than 300 palaces.

87 BCE
    The royal park and gardens of the Chinese Emperor Wu Ti (140-87) in West China, Chang-an.
    The Roman's staple grain was spelt.

40 BCE
    De Re Rustica.   Varro (116-27).  Roman agriculture.   Varro was a prolific author, and he noted that there were over 40 known treatises available on the subject in 40 BCE.

29 BCE
    Georgics.   Virgil.   Roman rural life.
    Celtic Druids and Sacred Trees

50
    De Materia Medica.    Dioscorides the Greek.  Herbal medicine.

60
    De Re Rustica, On Agriculture and Trees ...   Columella.

79
    Natural History (Naturalis Historica).   Pliny the Elder  (23-79).   Roman naturalist.

90
    De Aquae Ductibus.   Frontinus.   Waterworks in the garden and farm.

105
    Tuscan villa at the base of the Apennies

113
    Pliny the Younger (61-113) Letters about villa gardens.

138
    Emperor Hadrian's Villa near Tivoli.

250
    The administrators of the Roman Empire (circa 100 BCE - 500 AD) actively exchanged information on agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, hydraulics, and botany.   Seeds and plants were widely shared.
    Chinese making paper from rags, bark, hemp and other fibrous materials.   [Baker 1978]
 

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