ADDENDA So 
side to gather specimens of the common vegetation and 
the wild flowers and grasses for examination, or with 
a view to discover their hidden merits. No doubt it 
would be waste of time now that the spread of know- 
ledge has invaded the most out-of-the-way neighbour- 
hood. There is, too, the ubiquitous doctor at hand 
with his advice and his remedies for every occasion ; 
and every village has its store, where we can get our 
sweets, our scents, our pickles and preserves ready 
made; and the ready means of locomotion, the restless 
coming and going in all parts from city to country, has 
rendered the old solitude of provincial life altogether a 
thing of the past—so there is no longer any need for 
these legitimate occupations of the gentlewomen who 
were extolled as good housewives and ornaments of 
their sex in the old homes of long ago. ‘The leisurely 
existence which would now be looked on contemptuously 
as vegetating in country tedium, afforded the requisite 
time and opportunities for exercising the taste inherent 
in womankind for the culture of flowers, for the delicate 
manipulation of plants, and the making of various de- 
coctions, and compiling notes and descriptions of their 
use. Botany could be studied, the neighbourhood 
could be searched for specimens, and such medical 
knowledge as was attainable could be called into re- 
quisition, so that often the Lady Bountiful of the country 
seat was also practically the doctor for the countryside: 
and who shall say that her simple remedies were not 
frequently efficacious, and sometimes certainly less harm- 
ful than the more scientific and experimental methods 
of these later days? It is indeed not entirely a cause 
for satisfaction that the study of the medicinal properties 
of herbs has gone out of fashion, or that the more 
general use of them for purposes of food and household 
stuff is much neglected, if not despised. Yet even now 
in some ancient dwellings, where family traditions linger, 
