The Herb Garden 
11 5 
salves, his wife seeks not the city, but prefers her gardens 
and fields before all outlandish gums.” 
Simples were medicinal plants, so called because 
each of these vegetable growths was held to possess 
an individual virtue, to be an element, a simple 
substance constituting a single remedy. The noun 
was generally used in the plural. 
You must not think that sowing, gathering, dry- 
ing, and saving these herbs and simples in any con- 
venient or unstudied way was all that was necessary. 
Not at all; many and manifold were the rules just 
when to plant them, when to pick them, how to pick 
them, how to dry them, and even how to keep them. 
Gervayse Markham was very wise in herb lore, in 
the suited seasons of the moon, and hour of the day 
or night, for herb culling. In the garret of every old 
house, such as that of the Ward Homestead, shown 
on page 116, with the wreckage of house furniture, 
were hung bunches of herbs and simples, waiting for 
winter use. 
The still-room was wholly devoted to storing 
these herbs and manufacturing their products. This 
was the careful work of the house mistress and her 
daughters. It was not intrusted to servants. One 
book of instruction was entitled. The Vertuouse Boke 
of Distyllacyon of the Waters of all Manner of Herbs . 
Thomas Tusser wrote : — 
# 
“ Good huswives provide, ere an sickness do come. 
Of sundrie good things in house to have some. 
Good aqua composita, vinegar tart. 
Rose water and treacle to comfort the heart, 
