36 GARDENS OF ENGLAND 



us in the end. What do our cooks do now, poor 

 things! when they want herbs for flavouring? 

 We give them dried herbs from the shops in 

 bottles, a makeshift method that admits of no 

 variety and very little taste. How different in the 

 days of the old olitory or herb garden, where the 

 culture and culling of simples was as much a part 

 of female education as the preserving and tying 

 down of " rasps and apricocks." There was not a 

 Lady Bountiful in the kingdom but made her 

 own dill-tea and diet-drinks from herbs of her own 

 planting : — 



Herbs too she knew, and well of each could speak 

 That in her garden sipp'd the silvery dew ; 



Where no vain flower disclos'd a gaudy streak, 

 But herbs for use, and physic, not a few. 



Some very Old-Fashioned Herbs 



Of herbs that are even more out of fashion than 

 those we have been considering, there is a long list. 

 Many of the names are unfamiliar ; others we only 

 know as wild plants. Here are some of them : 

 Alecost, angelica, blites, bloodwort, buck's-home, 

 cardoons, clary or clear-eyes, dittander, elecampane 

 (which makes a sweetmeat), fenugreek (beloved of 

 cattle), Good King Henry, herb patience, hore- 



