HERBALS OF THE NEW WORLD 137 



Muschata as well as in England. 



Pepperwort flourisheth notably and so doth Tansie 



Musk Mellons are better than our Enghsh and Cucumbers. 



Pompions there be of several kinds ; they are dryer than our 



English pompions and better tasted ; You may eat them 



Green." 



The book ends in a delightfully irrelevant fashion with a poem 

 on an Indian squaw, introduced as follows : — " Now, gentle 

 Reader, having trespassed upon your patience a long while 

 in the perusing of these rude Observations, I shall, to make you 

 amends, present you by way of Divertisement, or Recreation, 

 with a Copy of Verses on the Indian Squa or Female Indian 

 trick' d up in all her bravery." 



The American Physitian ; or a Treatise of the Roots, Plants, 

 Trees, Shrubs, Fruit, Herbs, etc., growing in the English 

 Plantations in America,'^ has, as its name implies, more of a 

 medical character than the older books. In his preface the 

 writer, WiUiam Hughes, tells us : — " Tis Hkely some may say 

 need we trouble ourselves with those things we cannot reach? 

 To such I answer, that the most part of them here mentioned 

 which grow not in England already are brought over daily 

 and made use of. ... I suppose there are few but would 

 gladly know that there are such things in the world, although 

 scarcely any which care or desire to go to see them; I hope 

 this Description which is as right to truth as I could possibly 

 draw it, if my eyesight failed me not, may be acceptable, 

 although it be far short of what I intended ; it being my desire 

 to have made it more compleat by one more voyage into those 

 parts of the World, in which my endeavours should not have 

 been found wanting for the bringing and fitting of Roots, Seeds 

 and other Vegetables to our climate, for, to increase the number 

 of Rarities which we have here in our Garden already; in the 



1 Published in London. See Bibliography, p. 217. 



