CENTURY V. 231 



violets or wall-flowers, and see whether it will not 

 make the violets or wall-flowers sweeter, and less 

 earthy in their smell. So set lettuce or cucumbers 

 amongst rosemary or bays, and see whether the 

 rosemary or bays will not be the more odorate or 

 aromatical. 



489. Contrariwise, you must take heed how you 

 set herbs together, that draw much the like juice. 

 And therefore I think rosemary will lose in sweet 

 ness, if it be set with lavender, or bays, or the like. 

 But yet if you will correct the strength of an herb, 

 you shall do well to set other like herbs by him to 

 take him down ; as if you should set tansey by an 

 gelica, it may be the angelica would be the weaker, 

 and fitter for mixture in perfume. And if you should 

 set rue by common wormwood, it may be the worm 

 wood would turn to be liker Roman wormwood. 



490. This axiom is of large extent ; and there 

 fore would be severed, and refined by trial. Neither 

 must you expect to have a gross difference by this 

 kind of culture, but only farther perfection. 



491. Trial would be also made in herbs poisonous 

 and purgative, whose ill quality, perhaps, may be 

 discharged, or attempered, by setting stronger 

 poisons or purgatives by them. 



492. It is reported, that the shrub called our 

 ladies seal, which is a kind of briony, and coleworts, 

 set near together, one or both will die. The cause 

 is, for that they be both great depredators of the 

 earth, and one of them starveth the other. The like 

 is said of a reed and a brake ; both of which are sue- 



