128 Old Time Gardens 



to flavor the Fast Day pudding. One old lady re- 

 calls that it was truly a bitter food to the younger 

 members of the family ; Miss Shelton, in her enter- 

 taining book, The Salt Box House, tells of Tansy 

 cakes, and says children did not dislike them. 

 Tansy bitters were made of Tansy leaves placed 

 in a bottle with New England rum. They were 

 a favorite spring tonic, where all physicians and 

 housewives prescribed " the bitter principle " in the 

 spring time. 



No doubt Tansy was among the earliest plants 

 brought over by the settlers ; it was carefully cher- 

 ished in the herb garden, then spread to the door- 

 yard and then to farm lanes. As early as 1746 

 the traveller Kalm noted Tansy growing wild in 

 hedges and along roads in Pennsylvania. Now it 

 extends its sturdy growth for miles along the coun- 

 try road, one of the rankest of weeds. It still is 

 used in the manufacture of proprietary medicines, 

 and for this purpose is cut with a sickle in great arm- 

 fuls and gathered in cartloads. I have always liked 

 its scent; and its leaves, as Gerarde said, "infinitely 

 jagged and'nicked and curled " ; and its cheerful little 

 "bitter buttons" of gold. Some old flowers adapt 

 themselves to modern conditions and look up-to- 

 date ; but to me the Tansy, wherever found, is as 

 openly old-fashioned as a betty-lamp or a foot-stove. 



On July 1, 1846, an old grave was opened in 

 the ancient "God's Acre" near the halls of Har- 

 vard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This 

 grave was a brick vault covered with irregularly 

 shaped flagstones about three inches thick. Over 



