NATURAL 
The great Importance and proper 
Method of Cultivating and Curing 
Rhubarb *, €Fc. by Sir William 
Fordyce, M.D, F.R.S. 
From the Annals of Agriculture, vol. 18. 
T will not be denied, that the 
taste for luxury is become more 
than ever general and prevalent in 
this country; that partly the indo- 
lence which is its common attend- 
ant, and partly the extreme mutabi- 
lity of the climate, prevent multi- 
tudes from taking proportioned ex- 
ercise in open air; and that many of 
the most painful and dangerous dis- 
eases proceed from weakness and 
disorders in the stomach and bowels, 
always increased by intemperance. 
It will therefore be allowed, that if 
a simple or plant, possessing powers 
to correct those disorders and streng- 
then that weakness, could be propa- 
gated amongst ourselves at an easy 
Tate, so as to be purchased at a small 
expence, it would be a circumstance 
highly grateful to every friend of 
humanity. 
Such a plant, we have the happi- 
ness to know, has been provided by 
the beneficence of nature; I mean 
rhubarb, or rheum palmatum of the 
London Dispensatory 1788, so justly 
celebrated by the best physicians, 
both at home and abroad. We can- 
not however but regret, that hitherto 
it has not been cultivated in Britain 
with the care or skill requisite for 
producing any quantity worth a 
name, far less such a supply as could 
either save the country altogether its 
present expensive importation, or 
render the article so cheap as to be 
attainable by the great numbers who 
have not now the benefit of sharing 
in its salutary effects, 
HISTORY. 
The late Sir Alexander Dick, Bart. 
President of the College of Physicians 
at Edinburgh, being acquainted with 
these particulars, and prompted by a 
zeal for the public good that strong- 
ly marked his character, was solici-: 
tous to try whether the culture of 
this salutary root might not be in- 
troduced into Britain so effectually 
as to answer the purposes of general 
utility before suggested. Full of the 
benevolent idea, he applied to a me- 
dical friend of his own, the Jate Dr. 
Mounsey, at the court of Petersburg, 
with whom he corresponded, and 
who was fortunately in such high 
favour with the late Czar Peter, as: 
to procure, by the intervention of 
his Imperial Majesty, an order for 
some of the best rhubarb-seeds to be 
sent to the imperial gardens at Pe- 
tersburg. There it prospered exceed- 
ingly, often producing seed within 
two or three years, and growing so 
fast as to gain not seldom, in the 
space of less than three weeks, the 
height of twelve or fourteen feet. 
It isin truth a very hardy plant; and, 
where it is thriving, shoots up in 
stems of great size and beauty, 
After the Czar’s death Dr. Moun- 
sey brought home with him, to Bri- 
tain, some of its seeds, and gave a 
part of them to Sir Alexander Dick, 
who took the most sedulous pains 
to raisethe plant in his own gardens 
at Prestonfield, and to dry its roots. 
Nor did he fail to distribute the seeds 
among such of his noble and learned 
friends as he thought would be best 
disposed and qualified to cherish his 
favourite object. Among the rest, 
he imported them to the late Duke 
of Athol, the Earl of Bute, and the 
late Dr. Hope of Edinburgh, my old 
fellow-student there; of whom I 
381 
_* Yor several curious particulars respecting this plant, and the various methods 
of culliyating it, see vols. x. and xxxii. of this work. 
cannot 
