1 1 8 Old Time Gardens 



Wintergreen, which was universally made into tea or 

 oil for rheumatism, appears now in prescriptions for 

 the same disease under the name of Gaultheria. 

 Peppermint, once a sovereign cure for heartburn 

 and " nuralogy," serves us decked with the title of 

 Menthol. " Saffern-tea ' never has lost its good 

 standing as a cure for the "jarnders." In coun- 

 try communities scores of old herbs and simples 

 are used in vast amounts ; and in every village 

 is some aged man or woman wise in gathering, dis- 

 tilling, and compounding these " potent and parable 

 medicines," to use Cotton Mather's words. One of 

 these gatherers of simples is shown opposite page 

 1 20, a quaint old figure, seen afar as we drive through 

 country by-roads, as she bends over some dense 

 clump of weeds in distant meadow or pasture. 



In our large city markets bunches of sweet herbs 

 are still sold; and within a year I have seen men 

 passing my city home selling great bunches of Cat- 

 nip and Mint, in the spring, and dried Sage, Marjo- 

 ram, and other herbs in the autumn. In one case 

 I noted that it was the same man, unmistakably a 

 real countryman, whom I had noted selling quail on 

 the street, when he had about forty as fine quail as 

 I ever saw. I never saw him sell quail, nor herbs. 

 I think his customers are probably all foreigners — 

 emigrants from continental Europe, chiefly Poles and 

 Italians. 



The use of herbs as component parts of love 

 philters and charms is a most ancient custom, and 

 lingered into the nineteenth century in country com- 

 munities. I knew but one case of the manufacture 



