2 A GARDEN OF HERBS 



from the greatest authority l on the history of gardening 

 that even in Tudor days only very wealthy men had separate 

 gardens merely for pleasure, whilst all the small manors 

 and farm-houses throughout the country still retained the 

 old herb garden. For over seven centuries before that time, 

 all the gardens in England were herb gardens, and very 

 beautiful they must have been, for roses, lilies, gillyflowers, 

 lavender, rosemary, fennel, poppies, marigolds, honeysuckle, 

 periwinkles, peonies and violets were all used as herbs. 

 Our ancestors ate such enormous quantities of meat, that 

 for " vegetables," as we understand them, they would have 

 had very little use, and what they needed in large quantities 

 were all sorts of herbs, for stuffings and stewings, for decora- 

 tions, for perfume and for medicine. Indeed, " vegetables " 

 are quite newcomers in England. They declined in favour 

 throughout Europe with the fall of the Roman Empire, and 

 though they were reintroduced after the Renaissance, they 

 were not in common use till at least a hundred years later 

 We were far behind our continental neighbours in our know- 

 ledge of them, and vegetables which figured in the old 

 Roman menus were considered luxuries in this country in 

 the days of the later Stuarts. Though potatoes were 

 introduced into England in Elizabeth's reign, they were not 

 grown to any extent, and the working people did not eat 

 them for another two hundred years. Gilbert White, 

 writing late in the eighteenth century, says of them : " They 

 have prevailed by means of premiums within these twenty 

 years only, and are much esteemed here now by the poor, 

 who would scarcely have ventured to taste them in the last 

 reign/' Of Jerusalem artichokes we knew nothing till we 

 learnt about them from the Red Indians; and they were 

 only introduced into England in Tudor days. It was about 

 the same time that French beans were first cultivated in 

 this country, but scarlet runners were unknown till Stuart 

 times. The wild carrot is an indigenous plant in the British 

 islands, but of the cultivated carrot we were ignorant till 



1 The Honourable Mrs. Evelyn Cecil, History of G waning in, 

 England. 



