144 THE JOY OF GARDENS 



basket and shears, and collect your herbs for the uses of 

 winter. 



What a pity it would be if the honorable occupation of 

 herb gathering should fade from the privileges of women, 

 for it has pleasures of a dainty order, and the wonder is 

 that there are not more of the gentler sex who embrace 

 its work. It needs light fingers, knowledge, and wit, 

 touches beauty and poetry, and lures into the meadows 

 and forests. It is generous in its rewards, granting sweet 

 graces of thought like those bequeathed to all who follow 

 the beloved of the poets. 



Ever since one to the manor born in herb gathering 

 trailed her frilled petticoats among the dewy mints to 

 pinch a leaf of sweet basil crouched at the foot of 

 the rue, the scanty corner set apart for herbs has not 

 been the prosaic place the cook avers it to be. Sage and 

 old-man seemed to bristle under her fingers, and to dis- 

 pense perfumes after their kind as she recited legends 

 from herb lore of "an herb for every pain." Banished 

 forever is our faith in apothecaries who build their honor 

 on coal-tar compounds, as these are as naught beside heal- 

 ing plants distilled and brewed to cure an ache or to 

 "minister to a mind diseased." 



All true herb gatherers are children of inheritance. 

 The few that kind fortune has sent across my path in a 

 lifetime have passed their wisdom by word of mouth as 

 they learned it from some grandsire or ancient relative. 



