i88 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



fruit or vegetable as you will, of more recent times, 

 except perhaps the banana, has been adopted by 

 popular consent so readily as the tomato. From 

 being a questionable delicacy occasionally to be 

 seen on the tables of educated and travelled folk, 

 tomatoes, after a short interval of aloofness, have 

 come in the course of a decade or two to be food 

 for the million. 



One kind of " salleting " which was formerly in 

 great request has probably dropped entirely out 

 of cultivation a certain umbelliferous plant, Siiim 

 sisarum, the tuberous roots of which were known 

 as skirrets, and were " boyled^, peeled and pithed 

 and eaten cold with vinegar and oyle." Skirrets, 

 like parsnips, have a peculiar sweetness which, it 

 is said, recommended them as a special dainty to 

 the Emperor Tiberius. I have sometimes looked 

 through seed catalogues for this old-fashioned 

 plant, but without success, as for curiosity's sake 

 it would make a good addition to the herb garden. 



Herbs, in our modern acceptation of the term, 

 are too much neglected nowadays ; and an interest- 

 ing collection might be made, which would always 

 be an attractive corner of a kitchen garden to those 

 who like to recall old-time associations. Mint and 

 sage and lemon thyme, with parsley, make up the 

 chief sum of pot herbs in ordinary use. The 

 French grow many more of these savoury things 

 for " garniture " than we do a good example 

 which is always being set before us, but seldom 

 followed. 



A long list might be made of the herbs that 

 were commonly grown in the seventeenth century 



