loo THE BOOK OF HERBS 



maketh the heart mery." Such a pleasant and easy 

 remedy against the evils arising from " perturbation of 

 spirits " is worth remembering ! Gerarde and Parkinson 

 both speak of the prickly strawberry ; a plant which is 

 "of no use for meate" but which has "a small head 

 of greene leaves, many set thick together like unto a 

 double ruffe, and is fit for a gentlewoman to -wear on 

 her arme, etc. as araritie instead of a flower." Gerarde 

 has a curious little note on its discovery. " Mr John 

 Tradescant hath told me that he was the first that took 

 notice of this Strawberry and that in a woman's garden 

 at Plimouth, whose daughter had gathered and set the 

 roots in her garden, instead of the common Strawberry, 

 but she finding the fruit not answer her expectation, 

 intended to throw it away, which labour he spared her, 

 in taking it and bestowing it among the lovers of such 

 vanities." The custom of transplanting wild straw- 

 berries was very general. 



Wife, unto thy garden and set me a plot. 

 With strawberry rootes of the best to be got. 

 Such growing abroade, among thorns in the wood, 

 Wei chosen and picked proove excellent food. 



September's Huibandry, — TuSSER. 



Miss Amherst says that in the Hampton Court 

 Accounts there are " several entries of money paid for 

 strawberry roots, brought from the wood to the King's 

 garden." The fact that this is no longer the custom, 

 may explain the disappointment that some have ex- 

 perienced, who, in the hope of enjoying " the most 

 excellent cordial smell " described by Sir Francis Bacon, 

 have haunted their kitchen gardens when the straw- 

 berry leaves are dying, and without reward. The 

 strawberries grown there at present are not, as in his 

 day, natives, subjected to civilisation, but are chiefly 

 of American or Asiatic origin (the first foreign straw- 

 berry cultivated in England was Fragarta virginiana, and 



