73 UMBELLIFER^ 



well in the garden as in the fields, and put them all together, that the taste 

 of the one may amende the relishe of the other." It must be remembered 

 that most of the writers of this period used their word "sallet" in a wider 

 sense than we do our " salad." They included in the description of sallets 

 such plants as the asparagus, Avhich were used only in a cooked condition ; 

 and our word " edil)le " expresses what they meant. They were content with 

 such plants as grew wild, because they knew few others ; yet there are but a 

 small number of our native vegetables which afford, even when cultivated, a 

 good and wholesome food ; for most of those seen at our tables are, like our 

 potatoes, French beans, peas, lettuces, onions, and radishes, the product of 

 distant soils. The frequent wars of the earlier times prevented men from 

 cultivating the land for anything, save such produce as was necessary to sus- 

 tain life, though during periods of peace horticulture made some little pro- 

 gress. Doubtless, the description of Harrison is true : " Such herbes and 

 fruits," he says, " as grow yeerlie out of the ground of seed, have been verie 

 plentiful in this land in the time of the first Edward, and after his daies ; but 

 in processe of time they grew also to be neglected, so that from Henrie the 

 Fourth, till the latter end of Henrie the Seventh, and beginning of Henrie the 

 Eighth, there was little or no use of them in England, but they remained 

 either unknowne, or supposed as food more meet for hogs and savage beasts to 

 feed upon than mankind ; whereas in my time their use is not onely resumed 

 among the poore commons, I mean of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers, 

 radishes, skerrits, parsneps, carrets, cabbages, navews, turneps, and all kindes 

 of salad herbes ; but also fed upon in daintie dishes, at the tables of delicate 

 merchants, gentlemen, and the nobilitie, who make their provision yearlie for 

 new seeds out of strange countries, from whence they have them aboun- 

 dantlie." Hume tells us, that when Catharine of Arragon wanted a salad she 

 had to despatch a person to Flanders to procure one. Some kind of salad 

 might, however, have been doubtless procured for the Queen in England, 

 though it was probably so inferior to that to which in her earlier days she had 

 been accustomed, that she might not choose such a dish to appear at her table. 

 It is likely that it would have been mainly composed of some herbs which, as 

 Evelyn says of mushrooms, " Nature affords her vagabonds under every 

 hedge " ; but winter-cresses, water-cresses, larab's-lettuce, Alexanders, sam- 

 phire, chervil, rampions, and rockets, were even then commonly used as 

 salads ; and the goosefoots and oraches were boiled for the tables of those 

 who could not procure the more expensive carrots, parsnips, and skirrets. 

 Doubtless, many a one provided himself like a character in Albion's 

 England : — 



" A sheeve of bread as brown as nut. 



And cheese as white as snowe, 

 And wildings of the season's fruiti^ 



He did in scrip bestowe." 



The stem of the Alexanders is very stout, furrowed, and often three or 

 four feet in height. The name Smyrnium is synonymous with myrrh. The 

 plant is called Srnyrnerkraut by the Germans ; Muceron by the French ; and 

 Macerone by the Italians. The young shoots, when boiled, are said to 

 resemble asparagus in flavour. Pennant mentions that they were boiled and 



