THE VALUE OF GARLIC 101 



not let those stay there?" with a considerable 

 emphasis on the " those," implying that the whole 

 thing was wild and uncared for, and he seemed 

 somewhat astonished when we said that we had 

 deliberately planted them there ; a man, apparently 

 sane, who would knowingly set wild buttercups in 

 his garden, being beyond his comprehension. 



An old herbalist 1 tells us that "the leaves of 

 garlick stamped are good sauce to eat with fish, 

 and with butter in Aprill and May, being eaten 

 by labouring men. It discusses the inconveniences 

 caused by minerall vapours, and heals the jandice, 

 cramps, and cold diseases." Its strong smell made 

 it, according to Markham, in his book on " Hus- 

 bandry," 1638, "an excellent waye to take Moles." 

 One merely puts "garlic into the mouthes of the 

 holes and they will come out quickely as amazed," 

 while yet another old authority, Buttes, in his 

 "Table Talke," published in 1599, declares that 

 " Garlicke is of most speciall vse for sea-faring 

 men." We concluded that this must be from 

 some antiscorbutic quality, but we find it com- 

 mended as "a most excellent preservative against 

 all infections proceeding from the nastie sauor of 

 the pump or sincke, and of tainted meates which 

 the mariners are faine to eate for fault of better," 

 the sickening smell of the bilge water or of putrid 

 beef or pork being not removed but merely over- 

 1 Lovell, writing in 1665. 



