BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN RECORD 

VOL. XXXII JANUARY, 1943 No. 1 

THE HERB GARDEN 
THE 
BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN* 
GuIpE No. 15 
Part I 
CULINAR WERE S--tHEIR CULTURE, LRADMTONsS; 
AN DAU SE 
By ExizapetH ReEMSEN VAN BRUNT 
Flonorary Curator of Culinary Herbs 
Importation data of the last ten years make clear the acute short- 
age of culinary as well as medicinal herbs resulting from war-time 
disruption of usual trade routes and destruction of production in 
many countries. The United States has been importing yearly an 
average of more than one million pounds of sage from Greece, 
Yugoslavia and Italy; 5,489,100 Ibs. of caraway seed from Russia 
and the Netherlands; 140,552 lbs. of rosemary from Tunisia, 
France, and Spain, and more than six million pounds of poppy 
seed from Holland, Poland, etc. All this trade was wiped out ina 
few months of war, and these are but a few of the shortages we 
face. When that periodical of business and industry, The Wall 
Street Journal, first-pages herbs, as it did recently, we may admit 
their place in “Big Business.” “Some herbs that add zest to food 
won't be handy by Thanksgiving,” predicted the headline. “Not all 
spices will disappear. The popularity of herb gardens may ease 
the distress which otherwise would ensue. Persons alert to oppor- 
3) 
tunity are developing substitutes ... ,”’ etc. As meat extenders 
1 The illustration on front cover page represents a gardener setting out 
leeks. From Cresentius, Opus ruralium commodorum. Speier, 1495. 
1 
