200 
THE COMPLETE HERBAL 
CHAPTER I. 
Of Leaves of Herbs, or Trees. 
1. Or leaves, choose only such as are 
green, and full of juice; pick them care- 
fully, and cast away such as are any way 
declining, for they will putrify the rest: So 
shall one handful be worth ten of those you 
buy at the physic herb shops. 
2. Note what places they most delight 
to grow in, and gather them there; for 
Betony that grows in the shade, is far better 
than that which grows in the Sun, because 
it delights in the shade; so also such herbs 
as delight to grow near the water, shall be 
gathered near it, though happily you may 
find some of them upon dry ground: The 
Treatise will inform you where every herb 
delights to grow. 
3. The leaves of such herbs as run up to 
seed, are not so good when they are in 
flower as before (some few excepted, the 
leaves of which are seldom or never used) 
in such cases, if through ignorance they 
were not known, or through negligence 
forgotten, you had better take the top and 
the flowers, then the leaf. 
4. Dry them well in the Sun, and not in 
the shade, as the saying of physicians is; 
for if the sun draw away the virtues of the 
herb, it must needs do the like by hay, by 
the same rule, which the experience of 
every country farmer will explode for a 
notable piece of nonsense. 
5. Such as are artists in astrology, (and 
indeed none else are fit to make physicians) 
_ such I advise; let the planet that governs 
the herb be angular, and the stronger the 
better; if they can, in herbs of Saturn, let 
‘Saturn be in the ascendant; in the herbs of 
_ Mars, let Mars be in the mid heaven, for in 
those houses they delight; let the Moon 
_ apply to them by good aspect, and let her 
not be in the houses of her enemies; if you 
cannot well Ses till she apply to them, let 
her apply to a planet of the same triplicity; 
if you cannot wait that time neither, let 
her be with a fixed star of their nature. 
6. Having well dried them, put them up 
in brown paper, sewing the paper up like 
a sack, and press them not too hard to- 
gether, and keep them in a dry place near 
the fire. 
7. As for the duration of dried herbs, 
a just time cannot be given, let authors 
prate their pleasure; for, 
Ist. Such as grow upon dry grounds will 
keep better than such as grow on moist. 
2dly, Such herbs as are full of juice, 
will not keep so long as such as are drier. 
3dly, Such herbs as are well dried, will 
keep longer than such as are slack dried. 
Yet you may know when they are corrupt- 
ed, by their loss of colour, or smell, or both; 
and, if they be corrupted, reason will 
tell you that they must needs corrupt the 
bodies of those people that take them. 
4, Gather all leaves in the hour of that 
planet that govers them. 
CHAPTER I. 
Of Flowers. 
1, Tue flower, which is the beauty of the 
plant, and of none of the least use in phy- 
sick, grows yearly, and is to be gathered 
when it is in its prime. 
2. As for the time of gathering them, let 
the planetary hour, and the planet they 
come of, be observed, as we shewed you 
in the foregoing chapter: as for the time of 
the day, let it be when the sun shines upon 
them, that so they may be dry; for, if you 
gather either flowers or herbs when they are 
wet or dewy, they will not keep. 
3. Dry them well in the sun, and keep 
them in papers near the fire, as I shewed 
you in the foregoing chapter. 
4. So long as they retain the colour and ~ 
smell, they are good; either of them being 
gone, so is the virtue iat 
