128 Old Time Gardens 
to flavor the Fast Day pudding. One old lady re- 
calls that it was truly a bitter food to the younger 
members of the family ; Miss Shelton, in her enter- 
taining book, The Salt Box House, tells of Tansy 
cakes, and says children did not dislike them. 
Tansy bitters were made of Tansy leaves placed 
in a bottle with New England rum. They were 
a favorite spring tonic, where all physicians and 
housewives prescribed “ the bitter principle ” in the 
spring time. 
No doubt Tansy was among the earliest plants 
brought over by the settlers ; it was carefully cher- 
ished in the herb garden, then spread to the door- 
yard and then to farm lanes. As early as 1746 
the traveller Kalm noted Tansy growing wild in 
hedges and along roads in Pennsylvania. Now it 
extends its sturdy growth for miles along the coun- 
try road, one of the rankest of weeds. It still is 
used in the manufacture of proprietary medicines, 
and for this purpose is cut with a sickle in great arm- 
fuls and gathered in cartloads. I have always liked 
its scent; and its leaves, as Gerarde said, “infinitely 
jagged and’nicked and curled ” ; and its cheerful little 
“ bitter buttons ” of gold. Some old flowers adapt 
themselves to modern conditions and look up-to- 
date ; but to me the Tansy, wherever found, is as 
openly old-fashioned as a betty-lamp or a foot-stove. 
On July 1, 1846, an old grave was opened in 
the ancient “God’s Acre” near the halls of Har- 
vard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This 
grave was a brick vault covered with irregularly 
shaped flagstones about three inches thick. Over 
