The Presidential Address. 
83 
“ wicks” that occupied the clearings or “ fields.” Brentwood 
tells of one notable clearing by fire, how caused we know not, 
which may perhaps have produced that open space known as 
Warley Common, on which in Gerard’s time, as now, the 
swamp-loving Osmunda flourished “ near unto a place that 
some have digged to the end to find a nest or mine of 
gold.” 74 The English farmer, whose chief animal food was 
pork, is likely to have been keenly alive to the value of the 
“ pannage,” or food for swine, in the masts and acorns of the 
common woods of the village ; but the increasing demand 
for bread from a growing population, coupled with the system 
of the cultivation and fallowing of the common lands by 
rotation, 75 led no doubt to very extensive clearing between 
the fifth and the eleventh centuries. The English garden 
rejoiced in its leeks, onions, garlic, cresses and beans, its 
strawberries and raspberries, and perhaps even in Honey¬ 
suckle and Southernwood, 76 before the coming of Augustine 
and his followers ; and, though possibly during these six 
centuries there was but little secular communication with the 
Continent likely to cause the introduction of new plants, we 
can well believe that those missionaries who showed much 
worldly wisdom in many matters, and the representatives of 
the various monastic orders who settled in our land did much 
for the improvement of the English garden, both in vege¬ 
tables and in medicinal herbs. Besides mint, sage, rue, 
dittany, and radishes, they may have re-introduced peas, 
which had been grown by the Mongols of the Later Stone 
Age, and parsley, which the Roman colonist can hardly have 
been without, and possibly cabbages and turnips. Among 
74 John Gerard, ‘ Herball,’ 1597, p. 969. 
75 On this subject see E. Nasse, ‘ The Agricultural Community of the 
Middle Ages,’ Cobden Club, 1872, especially p. 51, which describes the 
“three-field husbandry” at Nastock (Navestock) in 1291, and p. 83, 
where Tusser, an Essex man, is quoted as defending inclosures or 
“ severall ” as opposed to “ champion ” or common land. 
76 These conclusions are based mainly on the existence of purely 
Teutonic names, especially when others of Latin origin are in use for the 
same plant. (See Earle, op. cit., and Thomas Wright, ‘ The Homes of 
other Days.’) 
D 
