The Herb Garden 109 



scent of leafage. It is impossible to describe to 

 one who does not feel by instinct " the lure of 

 green things growing," the curious stimulation, the 

 sense of intoxication, of delight, brought by working 

 among such green-growing, sweet-scented things. 

 The maker of this interesting garden felt this stimu- 

 lation and delight ; and at her city home on a 

 bleak day in December we both revelled in holding 

 and breathing in the scent of tiny sprays of Rue, 

 Rosemary, and Balm which, still green, had been 

 gathered from beneath fallen leaves and stalks in 

 her country garden, as a tender and grateful atten- 

 tion of one herb lover to another. Thus did she 

 prove Shakespeare's words true even on the shores 

 of Lake Michigan : — 



" Rosemary and Rue: these keep 



Seeming and savor all the winter long." 



There is ample sentiment in the homely inhabi- 

 tants of the herb garden. The herb garden of the 

 Countess of Warwick is called by her a Garden of 

 Sentiment. Each plant is labelled with a pottery 

 marker, swallow-shaped, bearing in ineradicable 

 colors the flower name and its significance. Thus 

 there is Balm for sympathy, Bay for glory, Fox- 

 glove for sincerity, Basil for hatred. 



A recent number of The Garden deplored the dying 

 out of herbs in old English gardens; so I think 

 it may prove of interest to give the list of herbs 

 and medicinal shrubs and trees which grew in this 

 friend's herb garden in the new world across the sea. 



