SAFFRON. 189 



hath created medicines out of the earth, and 

 he that is wise will not abhor them/'* 



When a saffron plantation comes to flower, 

 the owner of the fields collects a number of 

 hands, who commence gathering the flowers 

 early in the morning, and throwing them by 

 handfuls into baskets ; the pistillum shrinks 

 when the sun becomes powerful, therefore 

 the gathering is discontinued about eleven 

 o'clock, and the flowers are carried to a 

 building, where the stigma and chives are 

 taken out, and the rest of the flower thrown 

 away ; these are placed about two or three 

 inches thick, between white paper, and then 

 sweated and dried in little kilns for the pur- 

 pose, over a charcoal fire, where great nicety 

 is required in the turning and drying the 

 saffron. The gathering is never stopped 

 on account of the weather, or even of the 

 sabbath-day, the infraction of which was 

 allowed on this occasion even by that strict 

 Sabbatarian, Mr. Greenham, in his Treatise 

 on that subject, " because," he says, " God 

 who hath made the saffron so to flower, 

 would not that a thing so useful for man's 

 health, should be lost for want of gathering." 



* Ecclesiastes, chap, xxxviii. v. 4. 



