130 THE HERB-GARDEN 



gold of truth remains. The old-fashioned Herbal 

 Simples that once were used were really remedies, 

 and instead of laughing at them, we begin to 

 wonder how so much that was true and useful 

 could have been found out. 



It was partly done by watching the self-cure of 

 animals. Has anyone ever noticed how at many 

 an old farmstead a goat will be kept as if for luck, 

 and apparently for no other reason ? This is a 

 survival from the days when the goat was thought 

 the ' Herbalist Quadruped,' clever in finding Herbs 

 that were good for physic. Early man must often, 

 we imagine, have experimented on himself. Poor 

 Eve vdth the apple — what a signal failure was her 

 experiment ! It was doubtless one of the first. 

 Long afterwards the sons of the prophets gathered 

 gourds and shred them into the pot. These were 

 experimenters and discoverers of a valuable medi- 

 cine — the Colocynth, or Bitter Apple. 



Our wild Herbs are as full of virtue as ever, and 

 we stUl depend on them for medicine ; but the 

 chemist in the laboratory extracts their goodness 

 for us. The gathering and preparing of Herbal 

 Simples for ourselves is a lost art. One is some- 

 times asked the question, What is the art of 

 ' Simpling '? It consists in curing common ail- 



