I2 4 
Old Time Gardens 
and to counteract “ Head-Ach ” from over indul- 
gence in wine, especially if a little Sage were added. 
It promoted love in man and diminished it in 
woman ; it was good for the ear-ache, eye-ache, 
stomach-ache, leg-ache, back-ache ; good for an ague, 
good for a surfeit ; indeed, it would seem wise to 
make Rue a daily article of food and thus insure 
perpetual good health. 
The scent of Rue seems never dying. A sprig 
of it was given me by a friend, and it chanced to 
lie for a single night on the sheets of paper upon 
which this chapter is written. The scent has never 
left them, and indeed the odor of Rue hangs literally 
around this whole book. 
Summer Savory and Sweet Marjoram are rarely 
employed now in American cooking. They are still 
found in my kitchen, and are used in scant amount 
as a flavoring for stuffing of fowl. Many who taste 
and like the result know not the old-fashioned mate- 
rials used to produce that flavor, and “of the younger 
sort” the names even are wholly unrecognized. 
Sage is almost the only plant of the English 
kitchen garden which is ordinarily grown in America. 
I like its fresh grayness in the garden. In the 
days of our friend John Gerarde, the beloved old 
herbalist, there was no fixed botanical nomenclature ; 
but he scarcely needed botanical terms, for he had a 
most felicitous and dextrous use of words. “ Sage 
hath broad leaves, long, wrinkled, rough, and whit- 
ish, like in roughness to woollen cloth threadbare.” 
What a description ! it is far more vivid than the 
picture here shown. Sage has never lost its estab- 
