66 THE GENUS CROCUS. 



plant into England. The usual statement, made by one writer after another, is 

 that it was introduced by Sir Thomas Smith, in the time of Edward the Third, 

 in the year 1444, and the curious account given by Hakluyt, {English Voiages, &c., 

 vol. 2, 1582) is worth extracting. "It is reported at Saffron Walden that a 

 pilgrim proposing to do good in his countrey stole a head (corm) of Saffron, 

 and hid the same in his palmer's staffe which he had made hollow before of 

 purpose, and so he brought the root into this realme, with venture of his life, for 

 if he had bene taken by the law of the countrey from whence it came he had 



died for the fact." 



It is clear from this, that at the time of Hakluyt— 1582— Saffron was a staple 

 English product, and its importance is shewn that it gave the name to Saffron 

 Walden, as well as to Saffron Hill in London, which "was formerly a part of Ely 

 Gardens, and derives its name from the crops of Saffron which it bore".— Cunningham. 



Coles, in his Adam in Eden (1657), attributes its introduction to the Romans. 

 There is abundant authority from Tusser, Gerard, Parkinson, Camden, and other 

 writers, that it was largely cultivated before and after Shakespeare's time, and 

 that the quality of English Saffron was very superior. "Our English honey and 

 Saffron is better than any that cometh from any strange or foreign land".— 

 Bullein Government of Health, 1588. Shakespeare, in The Tempest, Comedy of Errors, 

 and All's well that ends well, uses the word Saffron as a colour, and in The Winter s 

 Tale, more specifically as a dye— 



"I must have Saffron to colour the Warden Pies" 



Winter's Talc, Act IV. Sc. 2. 



Saffron is reputed to have been grown at Hinton, in Cambridgeshire; and 

 according to Hakluyt, it appears to have been cultivated in Cambridgeshire before 

 his time & Miller, in his Gardeners Dictionary, published in 1733. gives a long 

 account of the method of its cultivation and use, as practised at Saffron Walden, 

 and in Cambridgeshire, in the years 1723-28. Loudon's Encyclopedia of Plants, 

 under Crocus describes its history, use, and culture; and Lord Braybrooke's 

 History of Audley End, Essex, may also be referred to for the history of Saffron. 



Its importance as a product of Saffron Walden, is indicated by the fact that 

 the Arms of the Boro' are "Three Saffron flowers walled in"; and the Town 

 Records shew that it was an article of culture in the reign of Charles the Second. 

 Lord Braybrooke, in The History of Audley End, states that before the beginning 

 of the last century, the quantity grown at, or near Walden annually decreased, 

 and that by the year 1790 it had entirely disappeared from the neighbourhood. 

 In the English Botany, Vol. I, p. 24, Ed. 2, it is stated that Saffron is found 



