46 The American Flower Garden 



At this late day one can but pity the writhing children into 

 whom copious draughts of bitter, nauseous teas were poured 

 every time they took cold, while a paternal hand, as relentless as 

 that of Fate, held their little noses until the last drop was gulped 

 down. Boneset, chamomile and tansy tea, well steeped, were 

 perennial agonies to children of Colonial days. Onion syrup 

 and "stewed Quaker," for hoarseness and sore throat, "Saffern" 

 tea for biliousness, "sarsaparilla for spring fever, basil to clear the 

 wits these were among the "potent medicines" so highly 

 esteemed by Cotton Mather and his contemporaries, and still 

 implicitly relied on by not a few old women in New England 

 villages. Tansy must have come over the sea with some of the 

 earliest settlers, for it had escaped from the gardens throughout 

 the colonies and run wild down the lanes very commonly when 

 Peter Kalm, the Swedish botanist, found it naturalised here in 

 1748; and by the roadsides leading to old homesteads we still 

 find the shining yellow "bitter buttons," now reckoned as an 

 American wild flower. The ox-eye daisy, which whitens our 

 fields, was also imported for its alleged medicinal virtues. Scores 

 of new plants were added to that parterre of Nature's garden we 

 are pleased to call "ours" when runaways from our ancestors' 

 garden patches reverted to wild ways in this free country. The 

 hay used in packing the colonists' china and other fragile importa- 

 tions, contained seeds of weeds and wild flowers that now over- 

 run the farmer's fields. Plantain is sometimes called "the English- 

 man's foot." 



To add zest to the monotonous bill of fare, the Colonial house- 

 keeper occasionally depended upon the garden at her door. Sage 

 and thyme for the dressing of fowls and home-made sausage, mint 

 for the lamb from the home flock, caraway for the "seed cakes" 



