The document provides an overview of the history and development of horticulture. It begins with the origins of the word horticulture and its meaning of cultivated garden. It then discusses how early humans gathered plants and the beginnings of plant cultivation in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Key figures like Theophrastus and Linnaeus contributed to the early foundations of the science of horticulture. The document continues to discuss the growth of horticulture through the Renaissance and its introduction and development in America.