The Garden of Cyrus

'The Garden of Cyrus', or 'The Quincuncial Lozenge or Network Plantations of the Ancients, naturally, artificially, mystically considered', is a discourse by Sir Thomas Browne. Ostensibly an essay promoting the use of the quincunx in planting trees, whatever the value of its wilder flights of fancy, it was in that respect entirely practical and conventional, as the planting, especially of orchards, in multiples of quincunxes, that is to say staggered straight rows, was already normal practice, and, as Browne says, long had been, as the most effective pattern for maximizing sunlight on each tree.