214 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



prodigieusement amples, deviennent, en blanchissant, 

 une de nos meilleures plantes potageres. La culture 

 en a fait des varietes et des sous-varietes, dont deux 

 de'pouille'es d'e"pines sont plus faciles a manier, cependant 

 on pre^fere au cardon d'Espagne, tout inerme qu'il est, le 

 cardon de Tours, arme d'epines longues et tres aigues. 

 Celui-ce est moins sujet a monter; ses cotes sont plus 

 grosses, plus tendres, et beaucoup plus dedicates. Le 

 rofesseur Gilibert a connu un me'decin qui depuis dix 

 ans prenait tous les matins un verre de de*coction des 

 feuilles vertes de cardon, avec la persuasion intime que 

 ce remede 1'avait gueri d'un engorgement au foie, et en 

 pre"venait le retour.' It is curious how, in these old 

 books, the faith seems always to have been in what was 

 put into the water, not in the good tumblerful of any hot 

 liquid plain water being perhaps the best of all, though 

 no doubt in any decoction of vegetable there would be 

 small quantities of soda. The book is full of all kinds 

 of interesting information, and there are constant allu- 

 sions to the use of vegetables in all sorts of illnesses, 

 especially gout and stone. There is an article in the 

 * Edinburgh Eeview ' of November 1810 on the uses of 

 vegetarianism for the cure of stone. It seems now as if 

 we were once more tending towards the system of Aber- 

 nethy, who lived in the early part of the century. The 

 recommendation he gave to his patients was : ' Live on 

 sixpence a day, and earn it/ 



1824. 'The Universal Herbal/ by Thomas Greene. 

 This is an ambitious book in two large fat volumes. It 

 professes to contain an account of all the known plants 

 in the world, adapted to the use of the farmer, the gar- 

 dener, the husbandman, the botanist, the florist, and 

 country housekeepers in general. Mine is the second 

 edition, revised and improved. The frontispiece is 

 coloured and very funny ; it is called ' Wisdom and 



