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THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE DATE
INDICATED BELOW AND IS SUB-
JECT TO AN OVERDUE FINE AS
POSTED AT THE CIRCULATION
DESK.

HISTORY

OF

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

VOL. I.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, DORSET STREET.

4l ISTORY

OF

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES;,

COMPRISING

THEIR BOTANICAL, MEDICINAL, EDIBLE,
AND CHEMICAL QUALITIES; NATURAL HISTORY;

AND RELATION TO

ART, SCIENCE, AND COMMERCE.

BY HENRY PHILLIPS,

AUTHOR OF THE
HISTORY OF FRUITS KNOWN IN GREAT BRITAIN.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN AND CO.

PUBLIC LIBRARY, CONDUIT STREET, HANOVER SQUARE.

MDCCCXXII.

PREFACE.

It is not without feelings of anxiety and
apprehension, that the Author commits his
second Work, on the vegetable gifts of Na-
ture, to the public.

Their indulgence to his labours in the
vineyard, has emboldened him to venture on
a more extensive field ; he therefore now
offers his Treatise on " Cultivated Vege-
tables," in a similar shape, with a hope of
similar reception. Considering, however, the
almost infinite variety of plants which are
cultivated for use or pleasure, the Author
has thought it expedient to select those
familiar plants which seem entitled to the
most general attention. He has also intro-
duced some species of vegetables that are
not strictly cultivated, but whose services
and singular properties render them worthy
of notice.

IV PREFACE.

He has avoided the technical terms of
Botany as much as the subject would pos-
sibly allow ; keeping in mind the advice of
an ancient poet, who says,

'A/uadiarepov <j>pdaop icai aatyiarzpov.

" Speak with less shew of learning, so it be with
more perspicuity."

And the extracts from medical works have,
on the same principle, been as much sim-
plified as the nature of the subject would
properly admit.

In giving the medicinal qualities of the
plants, the Author's intention is to make
their various properties known, in order that
the prescriptions of the physician may not be
counteracted by the effects of an improper
vegetable diet ; not to induce the inexperi-
enced to tamper with their constitutions,
by means of the powerful juices of physical
herbs, which are not more beneficial when
skilfully applied, than they are baneful when
administered unseasonably by the ignorant.

TO THE KING.

SIRE,

In dedicating this " History
of Cultivated Vegetables" to Your
Majesty, the Author is sensible that the
condescension of the Sovereign, in accept-
ing so humble a tribute, will be far more
conspicuous than the ability of the Subject
by whom it is offered.

However deficient the Writer may be in
the graces of style, he is not without a due
sense of the advantages with which a high
state of Cultivation has blessed these king-
doms. Under the liberal Patronage of Your
Majesty, and your Illustrious Predecessor,
the Arts of Agriculture and Horticulture
have advanced towards perfection with a
rapidity unparalleled in the history of any
other nation, ancient or modern.

DEDICATION.

The benign influence of these two arts is
indiscriminately enjoyed by all ranks ; for
while they supply the wealthy with all the
luxuries of more genial climes, they afford
to the humbler sons of industry and labour
a diversified banquet, which in ancient times
even kings could not procure. These arts
have banished famine from the land, blessed
the poor with plenty, beautified the country,
and

" Made Albion smile,

One ample theatre of sylvan grace.1'

That Your Majesty may long enjoy
these blessings, with which bounteous Na-
ture has rewarded the skill and industry of
your Subjects, and enriched your dominions,
is the fervent prayer of,

Your Majesty's
Most faithful subject and servant,

Henry Phillips.

Queen s House, Baysivater,
Dec. 24, 1821-

PREFACE. Vll

Author could give. He has been more par-
ticularly desirous to introduce cheerful (but
at the same time, he trusts, inoffensive) anec-
dote, with a hope of leading by an agreeable
road to a knowledge of Plants, and love of
Natural Philosophy : and more particularly
to render his work attractive to the younger
part of his readers, whom he intreats not to
abandon Virgil, when they bid adieu to their
tutors, but to remember those lines of his
Georgics :

" Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari !
Fortunatus et ille, Deos qui novit agrestes,
Panaque, Silvanumque senem, Nymphasque sorores!

Thus translated by Dryden ;

" Happy the man, who, studying Nature's laws,
Through known effects, can trace the secret cause,
His mind possessing in a quiet state,
Fearless of fortune, and resign'd to fate.
And happy too is he who decks the bowers
Of Sylvans, and adores the rural powers."

PREFACE.

The most experienced medical practitioner
will admit, that he must often rely on the
assistance of the nurse and the cook for
the perfect re-establishment of his patient.
Cooling medicine will afford little relief to the
fevered invalid who is supplied with astrin-
gent diet ; nor will stimulating cordials in-
vigorate the body, while it is relaxed by
attenuating aliment.

The Author is aware, that modern prac-
tice has long since disregarded the high
encomiums bestowed on certain vegetables
by the ancients ; but he considers the antique
physic-gardens an object of no less interest
than antique orchards; and as the modern
sons of Ceres and Pomona have improved
their art, by reviving and adopting some
of the ancient practices, (particularly that
of cutting corn before it is perfectly ripe,
which was so strenuously recommended by
Pliny nearly eighteen hundred years ago,) the
disciples of Esculapius may, in like manner,
discover some valuable matter among the

VI PREFACE.

neglected or disregarded receipts of th<
ancient world. Should the present work
contribute to such a result, the Author will
then have effected all the benefit he could
anticipate.

It is hoped that the learned Reader will
not deem the Author intrusive or pedantic
in giving a slight biographical sketch of the
ancient writers he has quoted; as such me-
moirs may not always be familiar to those
who may be disposed to turn over his leaves,
nor is it to be expected that the farmer or
the gardener is fully acquainted with ancient
physicians; or that those whose occupations
confine them to cities, should have acquired
a perfect knowledge of the lives of the agri-
culturists of antiquity.

Selections from those poets who seem to
have made this part of Nature's works their
peculiar province, have been interspersed,
from a desire to clothe information in an
amusing garb ; and sometimes as the only
confirmation of ancient customs, which the

4-.v »'• ' l v ? '• > "I

1i»U»vtxcuUuial

INTRODUCTION.

" To me be Nature's volume broad display'd ;
And to peruse its all instructing page
My sole delight."

It would be a difficult question to decide,
whether the study of the natural history of
Plants be more agreeable to the mind, or
beneficial to the body. The importance of
this pursuit must be deeply felt by the re-
flecting mind ; indeed it has advantages over
every other science. The study of Natural
History, and particularly of Botany, calms
the mind, and quiets the passions; whereas
Historical research produces unpleasant re-
flections, and in tracing the fate of kingdoms
or individuals our feelings are often as much
distressed as our minds are amused. Other
branches of philosophy too often disgust us

VOL. I. B

2 INTRODUCTION.

with the world, whereas the wonders of Na-
ture display the power of the Almighty in
the most agreeable and tranquil manner.

" Go, mark the matchless workings of the Power
That shuts within the seed the future flower ;
Bids these in elegance of form excel,
In colour these, and those delight the smell ;
Sends Nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth and charm all human eyes."

Cowper.

Ray says, " No knowledge can be more
pleasant to the soul than Natural History :
none so satisfying, or that doth so feed the
mind. The treasures of Nature are inex-
haustible : there is enough for the most inde-
fatigable industry, the happiest opportunities,
the most prolix and undisturbed vacancies/'

The vegetable world presents an almost
infinite variety of objects, calculated not only
to supply our numerous wants, but to gratify
the senses, to delight the most refined taste,
and to elevate the mind to the God of
Nature.

" Thus the men

Whom Nature's work can charm, with God himself
Hold converse, grow familiar day by day
With his conceptions ; sit upon his plan,
And form to his the relish of their souls."

Ak en side's Pleasures of' Imagination*

INTRODUCTION. 3

The charms of Nature have ever enchanted
the sensitive soul of the poet, and inspired
his verse. Courtier says, in his " Pleasures of
Solitude."

" Though yet no cynic, still I must prefer
The works of Nature to the whims of Art :
Those speak their God — these oft from God deter;
Those to the soul true health and peace impart,
These oft pervert the head, and oft corrupt the heart."

Blackmore also invites us to this study :

f(

Your contemplation further yet pursue ;
The wondrous world of vegetables view !
See various trees their various fruits produce,
Some for delightful taste, and some for use.
See sprouting plants enrich the plain and wood,
For physic some, and some design'd for food.
See fragrant flowers, with different colours dyed,
On smiling meads unfold their gaudy pride."

And Thomson must have induced many
an admiring reader to a contemplation of
the wonders and wisdom of the Almighty
Maker ; — who,

— " when young Spring protrudes the bursting gems,
Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale
Into his freshen'd soul ; her genial hours
He fully enjoys ; and not a beauty blows,
And not an opening blossom breathes in vain."

b2

INTRODUCTION.

Natural philosophy has never been intro-
duced with success into any country until its
inhabitants had made considerable progress
in other arts. The Assyrians, Chaldaeans,
and Egyptians, had attained great proficiency
in this science long before the existence of
either the Greeks or Romans, who did not
encourage it until they had learnt the art of
war, and had in great measure become civi-
lized by the very nations they had con-
quered.

In this kingdom, Lord Bacon was the first
who cultivated natural philosophy ; and it is
from his torch that many excellent lights
have since been kindled.

In the primitive times, when men were
driven either by war, or a wandering disposi-
tion, to form colonies in distant countries,
they lived upon such fruits as sprang out of
the earth without art or cultivation. At
Argos they fed chiefly on pears, at Athens
on figs, in Arcadia on acorns; but, as their
numbers increased, it became necessary for
them to cultivate vegetables for the subsist-
ence of themselves and their cattle ; and we
find that in those early days the labours of
the agriculturists were so duly appreciated,
that the persons of the husbandmen and the

INTRODUCTION. O

shepherds were held sacred even by the
enemies of their country.

Herodotus informs us, that one of the
greatest princes of the East, Xerxes, when he
led his army into Greece, gave strict orders
to his soldiers not to annoy the husbandmen.
Among the Indians, it was held unlawful to
take these men in war, or to devastate their
plantations.

Cultivated vegetables afford the principal
part of our subsistence ; for without the aid
of cultivation our numerous flocks and herds
could not be supported; and it is from the
same source that we derive every comfort and
luxury that we enjoy. They furnish our
wine, our oil, and our ale ; as well as the
greater portion of our garments and furni-
ture; they are the natural medicine of all
animals, as well as the principal one for man.
A medical writer of eminence says, " Vege-
table food is not only necessary to secure
health, but long life. In infancy and youth
we should be confined to it mostly ; in man-
hood, and decay of life, use animal ; and
near the end, vegetable again."

I am persuaded, says Dr. Veitch, that it
will be invariably found true, that those who
are living on animal food, are more impetu-

6

INTRODUCTION.

ous in temper, than those who live on vege-
table aliment." The same author says, "The
influence of diet is of the most vital im-
portance in the prevention and cure of in-
sanity. Those living on animal food pre-
sent great fulness of the vessels on the sur-
face of the body, which is not confined to
the visible and external frame, but will be
felt in the brain and membranes of those
who are afflicted with, or who have a ten-
dency to this disease.

It is to vegetable productions, that com-
merce owes its support. They form our
ships, cordage, and sails ; and it is for vegeta-
ble rarities, principally, that we cross the
seas, and explore every clime from the equa-
tor to the poles.

The unlettered countryman examines ve-
getation with delight and instruction, The
peasant, who is an attentive observer of Na-
ture, substitutes the pimpernel and the chick-
weed, for a weather-glass ; finding, when
these flowers fully expand, that no rain
will fall for some hours. The husbandman
finds also a barometer in the trefoil, which
always contracts its leaves at the approach
of a storm. The shepherd, when he sees
the thistle-down agitated without an ap-

INTRODUCTION. (

pearance of wind,

" And shakes the forest-leaf without a breath,"

drives his flock to shelter, and cries, Heaven
protect yon vessel from the approaching
tempest ! Then

" chaffwith eddy winds is whirl'd around,

And dancing leaves are lifted from the ground ;
And floating feathers on the waters play."

Virgil.

The philosophical student of Nature not
only accounts for these phenomena, but
sees as far as man can ken into the wonders
of vegetation.

" But the hidden ways

Of Nature wouldst thou know? how first she frames
All things in miniature ? thy specular orb
Apply to well-dissected kernels ; lo !
Strange forms arise, in each a little plant
Unfolds its boughs : observe the slender threads
Of first-beginning trees, their roots, their leaves,
In narrow seeds described ; thou 'It wondering say,
An inmate orchard every apple boasts !"

Philips's Cider.

We shall often have to remark in this
work, how much the atmosphere of this
country has been improved by the attention
paid to agricultural pursuits ; and that the
high state of cultivation now attained, has in
a great measure banished the ague, and
other pests of life, from our shores ; while

' 9
8 INTRODUCTION,

we learn with regret, that the once purer air
of Italy is become almost pestilential in the
vicinity of Rome, from the want of proper
attention to the draining and cultivation
of the fields.

Gardens have ever been esteemed as afford-
ing the purest of human pleasures, and the
greatest refreshment to the spirits of man;
and as these rural delights greatly promote
sedateness and quietness of mind, while they
afford the advantages of air and exercise, they
must tend to the establishment of health
and the prolongation of life. We notice
with great satisfaction, that the lives of the
ancient as well as of the more modern herb-
alists, have generally extended to an ad-
vanced age ; and that some of them have
even pursued their tranquil course without
indisposition through life.

A knowledge of plants will prevent many
of those ills, for the relief of which, mineral
aid is often sought in vain. We have found
the perfume of flowers and shrubs in the
garden, not only refresh the sense, but in-
spire cheerfulness and good humour in those
who walk, and create appetite in those who
join in the labour, whether to turn the earth,
or to prop the drooping flower. For where is

INTRODUCTION. 9

the man who can forbear to join

" the general smile

Of Nature ? Can fierce passions vex his soul,

While every gale is peace, and every grove

Is melody?"

Thomson.

" Where every breeze shall medicine every wound."

Shenstone.

Rapin says,

" Thrice happy they who these delights pursue ;
For whether they their plants in order view,
Or overladen boughs with props relieve,
Or if to foreign fruits new names they give,
If they the taste of every plum explore,
To eat at second course, what would they more?
What greater happiness can be desired,
Than what by these diversions is acquired ?"

The Chinese have no school for the study
of physic ; but they make use of simples
and roots, and are generally well experi-
enced in the knowledge of the several vir-
tues of all the herbs growing in their coun-
try ; and which every master of a family
teaches his servant. Lewis and Clark, and
other travellers up the Mississipi, observe,
that the native Americans always carried
with them roots and herbs, of which they
had discovered the use.

The predilection of the ancient Syrians
for gardening gave rise to the proverb of the

10 INTRODUCTION.

Greeks, " Many worts and pot-herbs in
byria.

The Greeks had physic-gardens in the
time of Theophrastus ; and Pliny often men-
tions the medicinal herb-gardens of the Ro-
mans.

We meet with no English work on plants
prior to the sixteenth- century. In 1552,
all books on geography and astronomy in
England were ordered to be destroyed, as
being, it was supposed, infected with magic.
It is very probable, that works on the virtues
of herbs underwent the same fate ; as witch-
craft was thought to be assisted by various
plants. The Babylonians had their magical
observations in gathering certain herbs; and
the Latin poets inform us, how superstitious
the Romans were on this head.

" These poisonous plants, for magic use design'd,
(The noblest and the best of all the baneful kind)
Old Mceris brought me from the Pontic strand,
And cull'd the mischief of a bounteous land.
Smear'd with these powerful juices, on the plain
He howls a wolf among the hungry train :
And oft the mighty necromancer boasts,
With these, to call from tombs the stalking ghost,
And from the roots to tear the standing corn,
Which, whirl'd aloft, to distant fields is borne :

Such is the strength of spells/'

Virgil.

INTRODUCTION. 1 1

»

" In a large caldron now the medicine boils,
Compounded of her late collected spoils,
Blending into the mash the various powers
Of wonder-working juices, roots, and flowers."

Ovid.

Our immortal bard, availing himself of the
credulity of the age, makes the weird sisters,
in their incantations, employ

" Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark ;

Liver of blaspheming Jew :

Gall of goat, and slips of yew."

Macbeth.

*

The English surgeons and apothecaries
began to attend to the cultivation of medi-
cinal herbs in the time of Henry the Eighth.
Gerard, the father of English herbalists, had
the principal garden of those days, attached
to his house in Holborn, and which we think
was in existence as late as 1659 ; for on the
7th of June in that year, Evelyn mentions in
his Diary, that he " went to see the founda-
tion laying for a street and buildings in
Hatton Garden, designed for a little towne,
lately an ample garden."

Gerard mentions several private herb-gar-
dens in 1597, but does not notice any public
establishment for the encouragement of his
art. We therefore presume, that Oxford
has to boast of the earliest public physic-

12 INTRODUCTION.

garden in this country, which appears to
have been planted about the year 1640,
when Parkinson first published his work on
plants; as in a letter written to that author
by Thomas Clayton, his Majesty's professor
of physic at Oxford, to compliment him on
his " Herculean botanical labours" he says,
" Oxford and England are happy in the
formation of a specious illustrious physicke-
garden, compleatly beautifully walled and
gated, now in levelling, and planting, with
the charges and expences of thousands, by
the many ways Honourable Earl of Danby,
the furnishing and enriching whereof, and of
many a glorious Tempe, with all useful de-
lightfull plants, will be the better expedited
by your painfull, happy, satisfying worke."

We may infer how little the art of garden-
ing was understood in this country at that
period, when we find the garden at Oxford
was put under the direction of a German,
who continued to hold that situation in the
time of Evelyn, as appears by his Diary :
" 24 Oct. 1664, I went to the Physic-garden
at Oxford, vvhere were two large locust-trees,
as many platana*, and some rare plants, under

# We presume this was the Plantain tree, Musa.

INTRODUCTION. 13

the culture of old Bobart." — " Jacob Bobart
was a German, and was appointed the first
keeper of the Physic-garden at Oxford."

A botanic garden was planted at Padua
in 1533, and one at Presburg in 1564. At
the present time there are twenty-three bo-
tanic gardens in the Austrian monarchy.
France has two noble establishments for the
encouragement of this art ; and Amsterdam
may boast, not only of having enriched Eu-
rope, but the West Indies also, with plants
from her public garden ; while Sweden may
justly pride herself on giving the world a
Linnaeus.

Evelyn, whose Sylva has immortalized his
name, notices in his Diary, June 10, 1658,
" I went to see the medical garden at West-
minster, well stored with plants, under Mor-
gan, a skilful botanist." This remark has
given rise to a supposition, that it was the
garden belonging to the Apothecaries of Lon-
don, prior to its being removed to Chelsea ;
but this was not the case, as Coles mentions
it as a private garden, in his Paradise of
Plants, published in 1657, where (in chapter
8) he says, " some plants grow only in the
gardens of herbarists, as in Mr. Morgan's
garden at Westminster."

14 INTRODUCTION.

•

We find no authentic account of a public
physic-garden in the vicinity of London,
before the year 1673, although it appears in
the minute-books of the Society of London,
(June 21, 1674) that several members pro-
posed to build a wall round Chelsea Garden,
at their own expense, with the assistance of
such subscriptions as they might be able to
procure ; provided the Court of Assistants
would agree to pay two pounds every year
for ever, to each of the six Herborizings :
which proposal was accepted. The pro-
prietors of the Laboratory Stock gave fifty
pounds towards the building of this wall, on
the condition that they were to be allowed a
piece of ground in the garden for Herbs.

Evelyn observes, in his Diary, 7th August,
168.5, " I went to see Mr. Wats, keeper of
the Apothecaries Garden of Simples at
Chelsea, where there is a collection of innu-
merable rarities of that sort, particularly, be-
sides rare annuals, the tree bearing Jesuits
bark, which had done such wonders in quar-
tan agues. What was very ingenious, was
the subterranean heate, conveyed by a stove
under the conservatory, all vaulted with brick,
so as he has the doores and windowes open
in the hardest frost, secluding only the snow."

INTRODUCTION. 15

We conclude, that this was the first green-
house heated by artificial means, in this
country ; as Mr. Evelyn had visited most
gardens in England, as well as in France and
Italy, without noticing green-houses before.

Sir Hans Sloane was a great friend to the
Chelsea Garden establishment, and by the
deed of conveyance of the land from this great
man, it will be seen how anxious he was for
its prosperity ; a clause is inserted which runs
thus: " That the Master, Warden, and So-
ciety of Apothecaries shall render yearly to
the President, Council, and Fellows of the
Royal Society of London, fifty specimens of
distinct plants, well dried and preserved, which
grew in their garden the same year, with
their names or reputed names ; and those
presented in each year to be specifically diffe-
rent from every former year, until the num-
ber of two thousand shall have been deli-
vered." This part of the covenant has long
since been much more than fulfilled.

In the same year that this conveyance was
signed (1722), Mr. Philip Miller was appoint-
ed gardener to the establishment, which of-
fice he filled with great honour to himself
and benefit to his country for the long space
of forty-eight years. He had not been in

16 INTRODUCTION.

that situation more than two years when he
published his Gardener's Dictionary, in two
volumes octavo, but which is not generally
noticed by his biographers, although we deem
it the germ and embryo from whence, in
1781, sprang his folio volume, which has since
swelled into four large folios, and has been
translated into the Dutch, German, and
French languages.

Sir Joseph Banks, who was a liberal bene-
factor to this garden, commenced his botani-
cal studies, it is said, under the tuition of the
venerable compiler of the Gardener's Dic-
tionary. Sir Joseph presented to the Chel-
sea Botanic Garden more than five hundred
different kinds of seeds, which he had col-
lected in his voyage round the globe. Th

Ok

services wThich this great naturalist has ren-
dered his country are unparalleled, and will
be remembered by posterity with gratitude,
as long as these kingdoms are blessed with
civilization.

It is said that the finest and most interest-
ing collection of hardy herbaceous plants that
this country could ever boast of, has been
formed by the care and knowledge of Mr.
William Anderson, the present gardener of
the Apothecaries' Botanic Garden at Chelsea,

INTRODUCTION. 17

who was recommended to that situation by
the late Sir Joseph Banks in the year 1814.
Aiton and Forsyth were transplanted from
Chelsea Garden to Royal grounds. The
former is succeeded by his son in the care of
the King's gardens, particularly that of the
exotic garden of Kew, which perhaps con-
tains the finest collection of plants ever con-
gregated in any one spot on the globe.

This exotic garden, although now so su-
perbly furnished with vegetable rarities, is of
no great antiquity, having, we are told, been
first established in the year 1760, by the
Princess Dowager of Wales ; but from an old
verse in the Gentleman's Magazine for the
year 1732, dated June 2, we find the garden
was of some celebrity at that time.

" The King and the Queen, the weather being fine,
On Saturday last went to Richmond to dine ;
His Royal Highness that day was to view
His gardens and house, repairing at Kew."

Evelyn writes in his Diary, Aug. 27, 1678,
" I went to my worthy friend Sir Henry Ca-
pel (at Kew), brother to the Earle of Essex:
it is an old timber-house ; but his garden has
the choicest fruit of any plantation in Eng-
land, as he is the most industrious and under-
standing in it."

vol. i. e

18 INTRODUCTION.

The present Royal Family being greatly
attached to the study of Botany, his late Ma-
jesty bestowed much attention on the garden
at Kew, and had the satisfaction of seeing the
example which he set, followed with such ar-
dour by his subjects, that not less than 6756
rare exotic plants were introduced into these
kingdoms during his reign, and exotic beau-
ties are now seen blended with our natural
verdure in every corner of the island. The
bad taste in laying out our gardens, which
was originally brought from France, no longer
exists ; and we are happy to observe, that
the disguising of Nature and the frivolous
formality in gardening is fast declining where
it first took birth, as English gardeners are
now in great demand in the vicinity of Paris.
History furnishes no instance where a coun-
try has so rapidly improved in the arts of
agriculture and horticulture as Great Britain,
under the protection of George the Third, of
whom justice and gratitude compel us to say,
" He made the land to flow with milk and
honey."

It is within the memory of the author, that
Mr. Scrace first sowed wheat on the Downs
near the Race-stand at Brighton, for which,
and the building of barns on these supposed

INTRODUCTION. 19

sterile hills, he was thought to have lost his
reason ; but the following harvest turned the
ridicule of his neighbours into admiration and
imitation, and these uncultivated tracts soon
became a waving ocean of corn, which has
made the Southdown farmer the pride and
envy of the people.

The example given by one of the best of
Kings, and the attention shewn to agricul-
tural pursuits by an enlightened Nation, will,
we trust, never be forgotten, as no treasure
can be so valuable as that which protects us
from famine and pestilence.

Sterne says, " I am convinced there would
be more attentive observers of Nature, if, for
example, the spider spun threads of gold, if
the lobster contained pearls, or if the flowers
of the field made old people young."

Reason tells us, that a well-tilled garden
produces us more real luxuries, than mines
of gold or oceans of pearls could afford us ;
and experience teaches us, that although we
are not made young by the virtue of plants,
we may prevent premature old age by a
knowledge of herbs.

We now offer our Literary Herbage, with
a hope that most readers will gather some
little store for the table, although the famili-
es 2

20 INTRODUCTION.

arity of the plants here presented, may, in
some degree, detract from the novelty ex-
pected in every new garden that is laid open
to the public. The Author has endeavoured
to plant his beds amusingly, as an induce-
ment to lead those into the study of plants,
who have not yet entered on that delightful
pursuit ; and although his parterres may not
present that science which the learning of the
present day demands, he flatters himself that
no weed will be found so obnoxious as to
offend the most refined delicacy.

HISTORY

OF

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES

ARTICHOKE.— CINARA.

Natural order ', Flosculosce. A genus of the
Syngenesia Polygamia JEqualis class.

The generic name is said to be derived from
the word cinis, because, according to Colu-
mella, land for artichokes should be manured
with ashes. Parkinson says, it is so called
from the ash colour of its leaves.

This vegetable now bears the same name
in all the European languages, with very
little variation. It is nearly allied to the
curduus or common thistle, and is said by
Pliny* to have been more esteemed, and to
have obtained a higher price, than any other
garden herb. He was ashamed to rank this

* Book 19, chap. 8.

22 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

vegetable amongst the choice plants of the
garden, being in fact no other than the this-
tle. He states, that the thistles about Car-
thage the Great, and Corduba especially,
cost the Romans, annually, six thousand
thousand sesterces ; and concludes by cen-
suring the vanity and prodigality of his coun-
trymen, in serving up such things at table as
the very asses and other beasts refuse, for
fear of pricking their lips. We find in the
fourth chapter of the same book, that the
commoners of Rome were prohibited, by an
arbitrary law, from eating artichokes. The
same author says, artichokes are preserved
in vinegar, and in honey, and seasoned also
with the costly root of the lazerwort plant,
and cumin ; by which means they were to
be had every day in the year.

The juice of the artichoke, pressed out
before it blossoms, was used by the ancients
to restore the hair of the head, even when it
was quite bald. They also ate the root of
this plant (as well as that of the thistle) sod-
dened in water, to enable them to drink to
excess, as it excited a desire for liquor. It
was supposed to strengthen the stomach,
and was reported by Chaereas the Athenian,
and Glaucias, to cause mothers to be blessed

ARTICHOKE. 23

with male children, as well as to sweeten the
breath of those who chewed it. Columella
notices the same quality in the artichoke,
but intimates that it injures the voice.

" Let the prickly artichoke

Be planted, which to Bacchus, when he drinks,
Is grateful ; not to Phoebus, when he sings."

Both the Greeks and Romans appear to
have procured /this plant from the coast of
Africa about Carthage, as also from Sicily.

From Italy it was brought to this country,
during the reign of Henry the Eighth, about
the year 1548 ; and, by reason of the great
moisture of our climate, and the attention
which was paid to its cultivation, it soon be-
came so much improved in size and flavour,
that the Italians sent for plants from Eng-
land, deeming them to be of another kind,
but they soon returned to their natural size,
when restored to that country.

Gerard has left us correct representations
of both the French and the Globe varieties,
but makes no mention of their country or
their introduction ; we may therefore con-
clude, that they were become common in
1596.

The Globe kind, being a plant infinitely
more tender than the French artichoke, was

24 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

nearly lost in the severe winter of 1739-40,
previously to which time it was almost the
only kind cultivated, on account of its great
superiority ; but our gardeners supplying
themselves on that occasion with plants
from Guernsey, where the French kind is cul-
tivated, this variety again found its way into
our gardens; but was only retained until the
Globe artichoke could again be reared, when
the French species was no longer cultivated.

The artichoke affords a pleasant, whole-
some, and nourishing food ; Arbuthnot says,
" it contains a rich, nutritious, stimulating
juice." The Italians and French eat the
heads raw, with vinegar, salt, oil, and pep-
per ; but they are considered to be hard of
digestion in a raw state, and are, therefore,
generally preferred after having been boiled.
In this state they are sold in the streets of
Paris, and form a standing dish at a French
breakfast.

The Germans and French eat not only the
heads, but also the young stalks boiled, sea-
soned with butter and vinegar.

Artichokes are usually sent to our tables,
when whole, boiled in water ; but they are
much preferable when boiled in oil or butter.
The artichoke bottoms are generally admired

ARTICHOKE. 25

when served up either plain, ragou'd, fricas-
seed, fried, or pickled. Coles recommends
artichoke bottoms baked in a pie after being
boiled, as a restorative and strengthener of
the stomach. Artichoke bottoms are dried
in the sun for winter use ; but the whole ar-
tichoke may be preserved for a considerable
time, if covered with fresh sand. Young
artichokes are pickled whole.

The stalks blanched like celery, and pre-
served in honey, are said to be an excellent
pectoral : the roots are considered aperient,
cleansing, and diuretic ; and are recommended
in the jaundice, for which disorder the com-
mon leaves, boiled in white- wine whey, or
the juice of the leaves, are also considered
salutary. We have known many persons
greatly relieved from the bile, by drinking
sherry wine, in which the common leaves and
cut stalks of this plant had been steeped.

Lord Bacon observes, that no other herb
has double leaves ; one belonging to the
stalk, the other to the fruit or seed.

The field-mouse is a great destroyer of the
roots of these plants ; and it is a good pre-
servative of them to plant beets round the
beds of artichokes ; as the roots of the beet,
being still more agreeable to the taste of

26 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

these little animals than those of the arti-
choke, preserve the latter from these de-
predators.

The French artichoke, Cinara scolymus,
grows wild in the fields of Italy, where it
often attains the height of a man.

The bottoms of the Cotton-thistle, Onopor-
dum acanthium, are often eaten as artichokes.

27

ASPARAGUS.— ASPARAGUS.

Natural order, Sarmentacece. The genus of
Asparagus is allied to Convallaria. In
botany it stands in the Hexandria Mono-
gynia class.

This plant takes its name from the Greek
word AffTrapa-yoc, signifying a young shoot
before it unfolds its leaves. Gerard says,
" it is called in English Sperage, and likewise
Asparagus, after the Latin name, because
asparagi, or the springes heereof, are pre-
pared before all other plants ; for the word
asparagus doth properly signify the first
spring or sprout of euery plant, especially
when it be tender."

It is evidently a native of this country,
for the same author observes, that " the
manured or garden asparagus comes up of
the size of the largest swan's quill ;" he
adds, "it is the same as the wild, but, like
other vegetables, was made larger by culti-
vation."— " Our garden asparagus groweth

28 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

wild in Essex, in a meadowe adioining to
a myll beyond a village called Thorp, and
also at Singleton, not farre from Carbie, and in
the meadowes neereMoulton in Lincolnshire:
likewise it groweth in great plenty neere
vnto Harwich, at a place called Landam-
erlading." Miller was of opinion, that the
common asparagus which is cultivated for
the use of the table, might probably have
been brought by culture to its present per-
fection, from the wild sort, which grows na-
turally in Lincolnshire, where the shoots are
no larger than straws. It is well known how
much the asparagus is improved in size since
Gerard's time (1597) ; and it might be still
farther improved, if our gardeners were to
import roots of this plant from the borders
of the Euphrates, where it grows to an extra-
ordinary thickness.

The colony of the Joxides in Caria had a
singular custom respecting asparagus, which,
according to ancient tradition, owed its ori-
gin to the following story : — Perigone, hav-
ing been pursued by Theseus, threw herself
into a place thickly filled with asparagus and
reeds ; and prostrating herself, made a vow,
that if these plants would hide her from
Theseus, she would never pull or burn them.

ASPARAGUS. 29

The lover's voice, however, succeeding in
drawing his fair-one from her hiding-place,
she surrendered to the intreaties of Theseus,
and her descendants ever afterwards forbade
the burning of asparagus.

This vegetable first came into use as a
food, about two hundred years before Christ,
in the time of the elder Cato ; and its quali-
ties were probably discovered by this distin-
guished agriculturist, as it was the last vege-
table written upon by him. He mentions no
other method of raising this plant than by
seed ; and recommends sheep's dung for the
beds, in preference to any other manure.
This author was of opinion, that asparagus
beds would only continue productive for
nine years.

Suetonius informs us, in his Life of Augus-
tus, that that Emperor was very partial to
asparagus ; and Erasmus tells us the same in
his Adagia.

Pliny states*, that asparagus, which for-
merly grew7 wild, so that every man might
gather it, was in his time carefully cherished
in gardens, particularly at Ravenna, where
the cultivated asparagus was so fair and

* Book 19, chap. 4.

30 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

large, that three heads would weigh a pound,
and were sold for an As, (about three-far-
things.) He afterwards says, "of all garden
herbs asparagus is (by report) the best to be
eaten, and agrees well with the stomach."*
The wild asparagus was called Corruda and
Lybicum, and by the Athenians, Horminium.

It was said by the ancients, that, if a per-
son anointed himself with a liniment made
of asparagus and oil, the bees would not ap-
proach or sting him.

Asparagus is said to promote appetite, but
affords little nourishment. Dr. James recom-
mends it to be eaten at the beginning of dinner,
when, he tells us, it is grateful to the stomach.
If eaten before dinner, it refreshes and opens
the liver, spleen, and kidneys, and puts the
body in an agreeable state. Asparagus is
considered to be of admirable service to those
afflicted with the gravel, or who are scorbutic
or dropsical. It is also of singular efficacy in
disorders of the eyes ; but is hurtful to such
as labour under the gout, or have weak sto-
machs.

The roots are more diuretic than the
sprouts, because they have more of the salt,

* Book 20, chap. 10.

ASPARAGUS. 31

from whence they derive that quality, than
any of the parts growing above ground, which
cannot imbibe it so copiously as the root
itself receives it from the earth. And this
may pass for a reason why most roots are
more endowed with this property than their
plants. The root of asparagus is one of
those called the five opening roots : it is also
of some use as a pectoral; and makes a chief
ingredient in the syrup of marsh-mallows,
given as a remedy for the stone. It is good
in all compositions intended to cleanse the
viscera, especially where obstructions threaten
the jaundice and dropsy. This vegetable is
also salutary in many disorders of the breast, as
operating by urine, which is generally of ser-
vice in such cases.*

If the root is put upon a tooth that aches
violently, it causes it to come out without
pain, according to Ant. Mizald, and others. -f-

M. Roliquet has, it is said, discovered a
new vegetable principle in asparagus : it is a
triple salt of lime and ammonia, of which the
acid is unknown. This chemist and M.
Vauquelin have found a substance in the juice
of this vegetable, analogous to manna.

# Galen, Hoffman, James, 8cc.

t Mizald, cent. 7. Memorab. A ph. 34. Schenck, Obs.
Med. L. 1 .

32 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

In Queen Elizabeth's time asparagus was
eaten, says Gerard, " sodden in flesh-broth,
or boiled in faire water, and seasoned with
oile, vinegar, salt, and pepper, then serued at
mens tables for a sallade."

At the present time it is principally served
to table on a toast, or ragou'd. It makes an
excellent soup, and the small sprue-grass
forms a part of most of our spring pottages.
It is often cut small and sent to table as a
substitute for green peas.

The flowers of asparagus are found, on a
strict examination, to be dioecious, although
arranged by Linnaeus, and other botanists, as
hermaphrodite. Those which bear berries
have abortive stamina, and those which have
perfect stamina are destitute of pistils, or
have only such as are abortive. The male
plants throw up a far greater quantity of
shoots than the female, although not quite
equal to them in size.

In making new beds, the males only should
be selected, which may be easily done by not
planting them from the seed-beds until they
have flowered. When the plants are one
year old, transplant them into other beds, at
six inches distance ; let them remain there
until they flower, which will be, with respect

ASPARAGUS. 33

to most of them, in the second year ; put a
small stick to each male plant to mark them,
and pull up the females, unless it is preferred
to make a separate plantation of them, to
prove the truth of the experiment.

Asparagus is now obtained by the attentive
gardener at all seasons of the year, and the
same plants are made to give two crops in
the year by the following method : towards
the end of July, especially if it be rainy
weather, cut down the stalks of the plants,
fork up the beds, and rake them. If it be
dry, water them with the drainings of a
dunghill, or with water wherein horse or cow-
dung has been steeped; leave the beds rather
flat instead of the usual round shape, in order
that they may retain all the moisture. In
ten or fourteen days the asparagus will begin
to appear : if the weather is dry, continue to
water the beds two or three times a week.
By this method you may cut asparagus till
about the end of September, at which time
the produce of the hot-beds will be ready ;
so that, with five or six hot-beds during the
winter, you may have a regular succession of
this agreeable vegetable for every month of
the year.

It may be observed that by cutting the

VOL. J. D

34 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

beds twice a year, you exhaust them ; to
obviate this, succeeding beds should be
prepared. We are, however, of opinion
that asparagus beds do not become worn out,
or unproductive, so soon as is generally
imagined ; as some of the finest asparagus
we have met with in this country, the author
recollects to have been cut from a bed at
Westburton, in Sussex, which he was then
told had abundantly supplied Mr. Upperton's
family for more than seventy years.

In Jamaica, and other West India islands,
they cut asparagus in twelve months after the
seeds are sown.

3.5

ASPHODEL— ASPHGDELUS.

Natural order, Coronarice. A genus of the
Hexandria Monogi/nia class.

Asphodelus, is derived from a, and cr^aAAw,
subplanto, (nro&Xov, from airoSoq ashes : aspho-
dels being anciently planted with mallows on
graves.*

The asphodel root was to the ancient
Greeks and Romans, what the potatoe now
is to us, a bread plant, the value of which
cannot be too highly estimated. It has long
since given way to its successors in favour ;
and if now permitted to blossom, it is seen
only in obscure corners of gardens, in which it
perhaps was formerly the principal plant.

So universally has the Virginian plant su-
perseded that of Troas, that we no longer
consider the asphodel as an article of food ;
and were it not for the occasional appearance
of the Hastula regia, King's spear, in our par-

* Ray.
d 2

36

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

terres, this plant which nourished the an-
cients, and the verses in which it is cele-
brated by the poets, would have been equally
forgotten.

The origin of this vegetable is traced in
fabulous history to that memorable apple,
which Discord threw into the assembly of the
gods who attended the nuptials of Peleus
and Thetis, as a prize for the fairest of the
goddesses. The decision of Paris in favour
of Venus is said to have offended Juno and
Minerva so highly, that they endeavoured to
break the beavitiful crook which Pan had given
to the shepherd of Ida, but which was saved
by its turning into the blossom of a yellow as-
phodel, so much resembling a royal sceptre.

From this fable we conclude, that the
ancients considered the asphodel a native of
Mount Ida; and as modern botanists agree
that the plant is indigenous to that neigh-
bourhood, we will not dispute whether it
first sprang up in the valley or on the hill,
but will turn to the instructive pages of
Pliny, who calls it one of the most sovereign
and renowned herbs that the world pro-
duces ; and says, that the roots boiled with
husked barley are certainly the most restora-
tive diet that can be taken by consumptive

ASPHODEL. 37

persons, or those whose lungs are affected.
He adds, that no bread is so wholesome as
that which is made of these roots and the
flour of grain mixed together. The same
author tells us, that the roots of the asphodel
were generally roasted under the embers,
and then eaten with salt and oil ; but when
mashed with figs, they were thought a most
excellent dish. Hesiod, the first poet who
wrote on agriculture, mentions the latter
method as the only way to dress asphodels.
Homer has also noticed this plant. The as-
phodel appears to have been highly esteemed
by Pythagoras, who has been styled by an-
cient authors the prince of philosophers.
He lived upon the purest and most innocent
food, and was so averse to the shedding of
blood, that it is said, when he made offerings
at the temples of the gods, it was of animals
made of wax : he forbade his disciples to
eat flesh. Theophrastus particularly de-
scribes the asphodel and its virtues ; and
Mago, the celebrated Carthaginian writer on
husbandry, gave minute directions for its cul-
tivation. Dionysius also wrote on this vege-
table, one species of which he considered the
male, and the other the female plant. Pliny
tells us that these plants were so productive,

38 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

that it was not uncommon to see eighty bulbs
or roots clustered together. The seed of this
vegetable was also eaten when parched or
fried, and it was generally planted by the
Roman husbandmen before the gates of their
farms, with the superstitious idea that it
would preserve the place from charms and
sorceries. According to the fiction of Lucian,
asphodels are eaten by the ghosts of the
condemned in the infernal regions. Among
the physicians of ancient celebrity who wrote
on this plant, Nicander recommends it as an
antidote against the poison of serpents and
scorpions, if either the seeds or roots be
drunk in wine ; and asserts, that by laying
the plant under the pillow, these and other
reptiles will be kept from the bed : this was
a most important discovery for the armies,
who were obliged to sleep in fields abounding
with creatures whose bite or sting was deadly.
Dioscorides and iEtius prescribed the wine
in which asphodel roots were boiled as an
excellent diuretic. Galen says, the roots
burnt to ashes and mixed with the fat of
ducks, are the best remedy for alopecy, and
that it will recover the hair that has fallen
off by that disease. Xenocrates affirmed,
that a decoction of the root in vinegar was

ASPHODEL. 39

a cure for the ring-worm, &c. We are
informed, that Chrysermus the physician
boiled the root in wine, and by it cured the
swellings of the kernels behind the ears ;
and that Sophocles used it, both boiled and
raw, with good success against the gout.
Simnus esteemed it the best diuretic drink
for the gravel, when boiled in wine. Hippo-
crates prescribed the seeds of the asphodel
against the hardness of the spleen, and the
flux which proceeds from that cause. He
also applied the root, pounded, as a liniment
for horses, or dogs, &c. afflicted with the
mange ; which, it is said, would both effect
a cure, and restore the hair.

The ancients used a liniment made of the
leaves, for wounds occasioned by serpents,
and other venomous creatures ; and the juice
of the root, mixed with oil, was applied to
burns and scalds, &c. Immense tracts of
land in Apulia are covered with asphodel,
and it is said to afford good nourishment to
sheep.* The onion-leaved asphodel grows
also in the natural state, both in Spain and
the South of France.

Dodoens, who nourished at the coin-

# Symonds in Young's Annals.

40 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES,

mencement of the sixteenth century, highly
extols the virtues of the asphodel for most
of the before-mentioned maladies ; and adds,
that a dram weight of the root, when boiled
and taken in wine, relieves the pains of the
side, the cough, the shrinkings of the sinews,
the cramp, &c.

Gerard has given us a description of six
species of asphodel, which he cultivated in
his garden, prior to 1597 ; one of which he
states to be a native of England ; but as
more modern botanists do not acknowledge
it to be indigenous to this country, we shall
give his own words : " The Lancashire as-
phodill groweth in moist and marishy places
neere vnto the towne of Lancaster in the
moorish grounds there, as also neere vnto
Maudsley and Martone, two villages not far
from thence ; where it was found by a wor-
shipfull and learned gentleman, a diligent
searcher of simples, and feruent louer of
plants, Master Thomas Hesket, who brought
the plants vnto me for the increase of my
garden. I received some plants thereof like-
wise from Master Thomas Edwards, apothe-
carie in Excester, learned and skilfull in his
profession, as also in the knowledge of plants,
unto whom I rest bounden for this plant,

ASPHODEL. 41

which he found at the foote of a hill in the
west part of England, called Bagshot hill,
neere vnto a village of the same name."

This species of asphodel has a yellow blos-
som, and was thence called the King's spear.
Gerard tells us, that the juice of the aspho-
del root cleanses and takes away the white
morphew, if the face be first rubbed with a
coarse linen cloth, and then anointed with it.
He adds, that " it is not yet found out if the
Lancaster asphodil is of use either in nourish-
ment or medicine." Ray says, this species is
a native of Sicily, where he found it growing.

The asphodel is said to be useful in driving
away rats and mice, which have so great an
antipathy to this plant, that, if their holes be
stopped up with it, they will die rather than
pass it ; and it is said, that if a house be
smoked with this root, it also banishes mice,
or proves a poison to them.

If the root is put into the water which
swine drink, it prevents their being affected
with a pestilential leprosy, or if they have
taken the disorder, it restores them to health.
It also produces the same effect, if they are
frequently washed with such a water.*

# Florentinus.

42 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

The vinegar in which the root has been
boiled, if used for washing the body, cures
scorbutic eruptions. Some roast the roots
in hot ashes, and rub their faces and hands
with them, in order to remove all blotches,
and purify the skin.

This plant will thrive in any soil, if planted
about three inches deep ; it is principally
raised by dividing the roots, as the cultiva-
tion by seed is more tedious. It blossoms
best in a damp soil, or when it is well
watered.

43

BALM, or BAUM.— MELISSA.

Natural order, Verticillata. A genus of the
Didynamia Gymnospermia class.

The Greeks called this plant nAiaaotyvWov
r) fieX'KpvXXovy melissophyllum, or melipayllum, id
est, apum folium, that is bee's leaf, from the
fondness these insects shew for this herb.
It is called melissa, from r^Xi, honey, because
bees gather much honey from its flowers.
It has also been called apiastrum, from apes,
a bee, on the same account ; and it is still
the custom to rub the hives with balm and
sugar, or honey, previously to taking a swarm ;
a practice which certainly appears to have
the effect of attaching the colony to its new
settlement. Pliny notices this method of
securing the bees in his time, and says, that
where there is plenty of balm in the garden,
there is no fear of the swarms straying ; he
tells us also, that it is a good remedy for the
sting of bees and wasps, &c. and enumerates

44 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

a long list of complaints for which it was
then considered an effectual medicine.

Virgil says, that bees which have strayed
may be brought back by the juice of this
herb.

" When you the swarms 'scaped from the hives descry,
Like a dark cloud blown through the summer sky,
Swimming the boundless ocean of the air,
They still to pools and leafy bowers repair :
There juice of balm and woodbine sprinkle round,
Strike jingling brass and tinkling cymbals sound ;
The loved perfume will sudden rest inspire,
And they, as usual, to their hives retire.

Lauderdale.

Gerard says, " Bawme is much sowen in
gardens, and oftentimes it groweth of itself
in woods and mountaines, and other wilde
places." From this we should have been
inclined to consider it a native plant ; but
that we have never met with it growing
wild. Regnault, and after him Aiton, tell
us, that it is a native of the South of Europe,
and was first cultivated in this country
about the year 1573. We have now eight
species of balm, two of which are indige-
nous to England, viz. the common Calamint,
Melissa calamintha, and the lesser Calamint,
Nepeta.

The old English herbals, as well as those

BALM. 45

of the ancients, are copious on the supposed
virtues of this plant, but of which modern
practice takes little notice. It is, however,
much esteemed by the common people of
this country, who take it in the manner of
tea, and it is thought to be good in disorders
of the head and stomach, as also in hypo-
chondriac and hysteric complaints.

The infusion of this plant is better when
made from the green herb, than when dried,
which is contrary to the general rule in re-
gard to other plants.

Without being misled by the high en-
comiums which our herbalists have bestowed
on balm, we think it is not duly appreciated
at present.

Hoffman contrived a process for obtaining
the virtues of this plant, which affords its
principles better than any other, and gives
two medicines to the physician, unknown
before, but of great value. He took a large
quantity of the leaves of balm, fresh picked
from the stalks, and filling a glass vessel more
than half full with them, fixing the stopple
carefully in, he put the vessel into a dunghill,
where he let it remain three months. At the
end of this time he took it out, and found the
whole reduced to a kind of poultice. This

46

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

being distilled in a retort, yielded first an
empyreumatic liquor, but afterwards, when
the fire was increased, a black and stinking
oil came over, in form of thin lamina, spread-
ing itself over the surface of the liquor.
There remained at the bottom of the retort,
a black and burnt mass, resembling a coal,
which, being thrown on burning charcoal,
had very much the smell of the common
tobacco.

In this first distillation, no volatile salt ap-
peared; but the empyreumatic liquor being
examined, was found very sharp and acrid
on the tongue, and of a sharp and pungent
smell. Spirit of vitriol being mixed with it,
it afforded no effervescence ; but on the mix-
ing it with spirit of hartshorn, spirit of urine,
or the like, a small ebullition was always pro-
duced, though it lasted but a few moments.

This liquor, rectified by a second distilla-
tion, affords the volatile salt of balm, which is
a fine white and pellucid substance, adhering
to the neck of the glass in form of fine
white and striated crystal ; and a yellow
aethereal oil, of a very penetrating smell,
and sharp taste, becomes separated by the
same rectification. These are both found to
be very powerful medicines, the salt as a

BALM. 47

sudorific, and the oil as a high cordial, a
carminative, and a deobstruent.

In France, the women bruise the young
shoots of balm, and make them into cakes
with sugar, eggs, and rose-water, which
they give to the mother in child-birth, as
a strengthener. It has also been thought
beneficial to those who are troubled with
the palpitation of the heart.

48

BARLEY.— HORDEUM.

Natural order > Gramma. A genus of the
Triandria Digynia class.

The generic name seems either horridum,
from horres, on account of its long awns or
beards ; or, as it was anciently written for-
deum, rather from 4>epj3w, to feed or nourish,
whence ^opj3^ and forbea, and changing the
b into d, for deum* The name is, however,
derived by Junius from the Hebrew *n.

Barley is evidently a native of a warmer
climate than Britain, for in this moist atmo-
sphere it is observed to degenerate, when
either neglected or left to a poor soil. Dr.
Plott speaks of barley and rye growing in the
same ear alternately.

We have the best authority for its having
been cultivated in Syria so long back as 3132
years ; therefore that part of the world may
be fairly fixed as its native soil.

# Vossius.

BARLEY. 4J)

" Ruth gleaned in the field until even, and
beat out that she had gleaned ; and it was
about an ephah of barley."

— " So she kept fast by the maidens of
Boaz, to glean unto the end of barley harvest,
and of wheat harvest."

— " Behold he winnoweth barley to-night
in the threshing-floor." *

In the seventh chapter of the second book
of Kings, we learn what proportion barley
bore in price to wheaten flour in Samaria,
about 892 years b. c.

" To-morrow, about this time, shall a mea-
sure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two
measures of barley for a shekel."

We have also very early accounts of this
corn having been cultivated in Egypt; and it
is supposed to have been used before any
other sort of grain.

Artemidorus says, it was the first food which
the gods imparted to mankind -f . Pliny says,
" In Chalica (an island belonging to the
Rhodians) there is one place so fruitful, that
the barley, which was sown in proper time,
is mowed and committed to the ground a se-
cond time, which is ready to cut again with
the other corn."

* Ruth, 1312 r. c. f Plut. Marcello, Livius, lib. 27.

VOL. I. E

50 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

" The russet field rose high with waving grain ;
With bended sickles stand the reaper train.
Here stretch'd in ranks the levell'd swarths are found,
Sheaves heap'd on sheaves here thicken up the ground.
With sweeping stroke the mowers strew the lands ;
The gatherers follow, and collect in bands ;
And last the children, in whose arms are borne
(Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn.
The rustic monarch of the field descries,
With silent glee, the heaps around him rise.
A ready banquet on the turf is laid ;
Beneath an ample oak's extended shade
The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare ;
The reapers' due repast, the women's care."

Pope's Homer.

Barley (husked), says Pliny, was the most
ancient food in old times, as will appear by
the ordinary custom of the Athenians, accord-
ing to the testimony of Menander, as also
by the sirname given to sword-fencers, who
from their allowance or pension of barley
were called H or dear it, barleymen.* This
naturalist farther observes, that of all grains
barley is the softest, and least subject to ca-
sualties, and produces fruit speedily and pro-
fitably.

The meal so highly commended by the
Greeks, was prepared from barley in the fol-

«

lowing manner. It was steeped in water,

# Book xviii. chap. 7.

BARLEY. 51

and then dried for one night; the succeeding
day it was parched or fried, and afterwards
ground in a mill, or pounded in a mortar ;
the meal was then mixed with coriander and
other seeds, with a small portion of salt :
when intended to keep, it was put into new
earthen vessels.

It was not until after the Romans had
learnt to cultivate wheat, and to make bread,
that they gave barley to their cattle. They
made barley-meal into balls, which they put
down the throats of their horses and asses,
after the manner of fattening fowls ; which
was said to make them strong and lusty.

Barley continued to be the food of the
poor, who were not able to procure better
provision ; and in the Roman camp, as Ve-
getius has informed us, soldiers who had
been guilty of any offence, were fed with bar-
ley, instead of bread corn.*

An example may also be found in the second
Punic war, when the cohorts who lost their
standards had an allowance of barley assigned
by Marcellus. And Augustus Caesar com-
monly punished the cohorts which gave
ground to the enemy, by a decimation, and
by allowing them no provision but barley, f

* De Re Militari, lib. i. cap. 13. + Sueton. chap. 24.

e 2

52 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

We find that the Romans obtained barley
from Egypt and other parts of Africa, and
Spain. It was also grown in France, as Colu-
mella calls one variety of barley Galaticum.
There are no means of ascertaining whether
barley was cultivated in Britain, when the
Romans first discovered this country ; but as
Caesar found corn growing on the coast of
Kent, it is probable that this species of grain
had been obtained from Gaul. It might
have been introduced by the Phoenicians in
exchange for British tin. The Romans
knew perfectly well that corn was as easily
obtained in cold as in warm climes ; and it
is remarked by Pliny, as a phenomenon, that
extreme heat and cold have the same effect
in producing corn. Thracia is, he says, ex-
ceedingly cold, and thereby plentiful in corn :
Egypt and other parts of Africa are hot,
and yet abound in corn, although not so
copiously.

We know from good authorities, that the
Romans soon procured corn in England, and
were even enabled to send it thence to
Italy.

It is not within the limits of this work to
go into the detail of the cultivation of corn,
which has been so properly attended to by

BARLEY. 53

the Agricultural Society, and so ably dilated
on by various writers; but we must not omit
an important observation that was made by
Pliny, and which seems worthy of being
attended to : That barley yields the better
groats if it be taken whilst it is somewhat
green, rather than when it has arrived at its
full ripeness.

" Lo, how the arable with bailey grain

Stands thick, o'er-shadow'd, to the thirsty hind
Transporting prospect ! Philips's Cider.

The invention of malt-liquor appears to
have originated from the attention which an
eastern monarch paid to the health of his
army, as both Hippocrates and Xenophon
inform us, that Cyrus, having called his sol-
diers together, exhorted them to drink water
wherein parched barley had been steeped,
which they called Maza. In all probability
this was to counteract the bad effects of im-
pure water in warm climates, as Pliny* states,
that if water be nitrous, brackish, and bitter,
by putting fried barley-meal into it, it will in
less than two hours be purified and sweet,
and that it may then be drunk with safety ;
and this, says he, is the reason that barley-
meal is generally put in bags and strainers

i

* Book xx iv. c. 1.

54 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

through which we pass our wines, that they
may be refined and drawn the sooner. This
information may be serviceable to nautical
men, and to those who travel in tropical
climes.

In the retreat of the ten thousand, Xeno-
phon thus describes the beer which he found
in some Armenian villages : " Beer (literally
barley-wine) in jars, in which the malt or bar-
ley itself was in them up to the brim, and with
it reeds, some large and others small, without
joints. These, when any one wras dry, he
was to take into his mouth and suck. The
liquor was very strong, when unmixed with
water, and exceeding pleasant to those who
were accustomed to it."

Diodorus Siculus tells us, that Osiris, that
is, the Egyptian Bacchus, was the inventor of
malt-liquor, as a relief to those countries
where vines did not succeed, which is the
reason assigned by Herodotus for the Egyp-
tians using it. This was also the liquor
used in France, till the time of the Emperor
Probus, when vines were first planted there.
Pliny says, they called it Cervisia, a word
probably derived from Cervoise, which among
the ancient Gauls signified beer *.

# Spelman.

BARLEY. 55

Tacitus mentions a sort of beer in use
among the ancient Germans, made of barley
or of wheat.

The fertility of the Egyptian soil in grain,
and its unfitness for the vine, induced the
people of that country to make a sort of
wine or ale from barley, which was drunk
by those who could not afford to purchase
the juice of grapes.*

The principal use of barley in this country,
is for making beer; a beverage too well known,
from the peasant to the monarch, to require
any eulogium on its agreeable and salutary
qualities : we shall, therefore, only observe,
that it is an European beverage of greater
antiquity than wine. It was drunk in Italy,
Spain, and in France, before they had learnt
the cultivation of the vine, or the making of
wine.

Ovid notices a sweet drink used by pea-
sants, which was made by boiling roasted
barley-meal in water.

" The Goddess knocking at the little door,
'Twas open'd by a woman, old and poor,
\fy ho, when she bes^d for water, oave her ale
Brew'd long, but well preserved from being stale."

The word ale is from the Saxon eale ;

* Conf. Athenocus, sub finem lib. 1 . Arbuthnot.

56

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

and beer is a word derived from the Welsh
bir.

Pope says of beer, as a satire on Welsted :

" Flow, Welsted ! flow, like thine inspirer beer,
Though stale, not ripe ; though thin, yet never clear;
So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull ;
Heady, not strong; and flowing, though not full. "

For some years past the brewing of porter
has nearly superseded that of ale in the me-
tropolis; but from whence this modern word
is derived, we are unable to conclude ; unless
it is so called after that useful body of men
who are its principal consumers.

The extent to which porter-brewing is
carried, in London, may be conceived by
the dreadful accident which happened at the
brewhouses of Mr. Henry Meux, in the parish
of St. Giles. In the month of October 1814,
one of the large porter-vats by some accident
burst, when, from its enormous bulk, the por-
ter rushed with such an impetuous current,
that the adjoining streets resembled rivers
that had burst their banks, and the surround-
ing houses were so instantly filled with this
liquor, that the inhabitants, who had no means
of escape, were drowned as they sat at break-
fast. The vat was nearlv 100 feet in circum-

BARLEY. * 57

ferjnce, 36 feet over, 22£ feet in height, and
contained 3556 barrels, or 128,016 gallons,
and caused the death of eight persons by its
bursting.

It is generally a custom with brewers
to give entertainments in these immense vats
when first built, and before being used ; large
parties are often entertained in them with a
dinner or a ball ; and it has a curious effect to
look down on the party thus situated, which
gives the idea of the Lilliputians having pos-
sessed themselves of the casks of the people
of Brobdignag.

Wine made from malt, when kept to a pro-
per age, has as good a body, and a flavour
nearly as agreeable, as the generality of
Madeira wines.

The wort of malt is an excellent antiscor-
butic. Barley was used by the ancients for
many medicinal purposes. Galen, in his book
of the Faculties of Simples, says barley is not
so heating as wheat, and that it has a little abs-
tersive, or cleansing quality. The ladies, in
old times, mixed the meal of this corn with
honey and vinegar, to take away freckles and
other spots on the flesh.

Dr. James says, barley, however prepared,

58 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

never heats the body, but moistens or dries,
according to its various ways of preparation.
Thus, when it is boiled, as in a ptisan, it mois-
tens ; when it is torrified, as in polenta, it
dries. Barley differs from wheat, as it ge-
nerates a mild and detergent juice, whereas
that of wheat is thick and viscid, and some-
what of an obstruent quality.

There are various ways of preparing bar-
ley, either as simple or medicinal aliment. A
cataplasm made of barley-flour and butter, is
an anodyne remedy against all kinds of pain.
The polenta of barley, says Sim.Paulli, boiled
in vinegar, and strained through a linen cloth,
frequently mitigates the intolerable pain of
the teeth, being used as a collution, or, rather,
held for some time in the mouth.

Pearl barley and French barley are only
barley freed from the husk by a mill ; the
distinction between the two being, that the
pearl barley is reduced to the size of small-
shot, all but the very heart of the grain being
ground away.

Barley-water is a decoction of either of
these, and is reputed soft and lubricating ; a
very useful drink in many disorders, and is
recommended to be taken with nitre in low

BARLEY. 59

fevers. Its use is of great antiquity, as Hip-
pocrates wrote a whole book on the merits of
gruel made of barley.

The French or Scotch barley is principally
used to thicken broth and soup.

60 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

BASIL.— OCIMUM.

Natural order, Verticillata, A genus of the
Didynamia Gymnospermia class.

Fabulous history informs us that this plant
originated from the death of Ocimus, who
first ordained the combats in honour of Pallas,
and being killed by Cyclodemas, a famous
gladiator, was immediately metamorphosed
into the plant which bears his name.

The Greeks, who seldom gave names to
plants without an appropriate meaning, called
it axifjLQV ab wkvs, quia cito crescit, from the
speedy springing of the seed, which is usually
within three or four days, if the weather be
hot and dry. It was also called Basilicum,
from Bac-itevs, rex, a king, from which the
English name is derived, and whence also it
is styled a royal plant.

The difficulty of overcoming superstitious
prejudices is fully exemplified in this fra-
grant herb. It was an opinion among the
ancients, that if basil was pounded and put

BASIL. 61

under a stone, it would breed serpents ; from
this notion its use was decried ; — and when it
was transplanted into our climate, which was
found too cold for serpents, these reptiles
degenerated into worms and maggots, which,
we are told, this vegetable will engender, if
it be only chewed, and put into the sun.

Basil was condemned by Chrysippus, more
than two hundred years b. c. as being hurtful
to the stomach, a suppressor of urine, an
enemy to the sight, and a robber of the wits.
Diodorus added, that the eating of this plant
caused cutaneous insects ; and the Africans
were persuaded that no person could survive
if he were stung by a scorpion on the same
day that he had eaten basil.

We notice the story told by Hollerus of
this plant, to shew how far superstition and
credulity carried the ill effects of basil. He
relates, that an Italian by frequent smelling
this herb, bred a scorpion in his brain.

Notwithstanding these impressions were
so much against reason, and the decided
opinion of the Roman physicians as to the
beneficial qualities of the plant, it never be-
came a favourite in medicine, and has been
but little used for culinary purposes, although
Philistis, Plistonicus, and others, extolled its

62 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

virtues, and recommended its use, as strongly
as it had been formerly condemned.*

Galen says, basil was eaten by many per-
sons in his time, being corrected with oil
and vinegar, and that it was esteemed ser-
viceable to women, to dry up their milk.

The Romans sowed the seeds of this plant
with maledictions and ill words, believing
that the more it was cursed, the better it
would prosper ; and when they wished for a
crop, they trod it down with their feet, and
prayed to the gods that it might not vege-
tate.-f*

Lord Bacon says, in his Natural History,
" It is strange which is reported, that basil
too much exposed to the sun, doth turn into
wild thyme : although these two herbs seem
to have small affinity ; but basil is almost
the only pot-herb, that hath fat and succulent
leaves ; which oiliness if it be drawn forth
by the sun, it is likely it will make a very
great change. "j

Gerard describes six species of basil in his
Herbal, that were cultivated in England
prior to 1597 ; and he agrees with Simeon

* Plin. book xx. chap. 12 and 13.

t Pliny. % Century 6.

BASIL. 63

Zethy, that " the smell of this plant is good
for the heart and for the head : that the
seede cureth the infirmities of the heart,
taketh away sorrowfulnesse which commeth
of melancholie, and maketh a man merrie
and glad."

Basil leaves a grateful smell when stroked
with the hand ; and it was said that the hand
of a fair lady made it thrive. Farmers who
had learnt to compliment in the reigns of
Queen Mary and Elizabeth, planted it in
pots to offer to their landladies, or others
who visited the farm. It is thus noticed by
Tusser :

" Fine Basil desireth it may be hir lot

to grow as a gilleflower, trim in a pot :
That ladies and gentils, for whom you do serve,
may help her as needeth, poore life to preserue."

Schroder, and other medical writers of
latter days, give it the virtue of cleansing the
lungs of phlegm.

It is used as an ingredient in the aqua
bryonies composita, or hysteric water.

Aiton mentions thirteen species of basil,
now cultivated in this country, the earliest
of which was in 1548. It is a native of the
South of Europe, as well as the East Indies,

64

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES

and some parts of Africa ; and is found also,
growing naturally, in Persia.

The French are now so partial to the
flavour and qualities of this plant, that its
leaves enter into the composition of almost
all their soups and sauces.

65

BEAN.— FABA.

Natural order, Papilionacece. A genus of the
Diadelphia Decandria class.

The Bean was called in Greek Kvapos,
by the Falisci, a people of Hetruria (now
Tuscany), Haba ; whence the name Faba
seems to be taken. Martinius derives the
word from Ww, to feed; as if it were Paba;
Isidorus from pdyta, to eat.

The flowers of this pulse, which are of the
butterfly kind, emit a most agreeable per-
fume.

" Long let us walk

Where the breeze blows from yon extended field
Of blossom'd beans. Arabia cannot boast
A fuller gale of joy than liberal thence
Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravish'd soul."

Thomson.

Of all the pulse kind, this held the first
rank in ancient times. We find the Athe-
nians used beans sodden, in their feasts de-
dicated to Apollo; and the Romans presented

VOL. I. F

66

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

beans as an oblation in their solemn sacrifice
called Fabaria, a festival held in honour of
Carna, wife of Janus. Pliny informs us, that
they offered cakes made of bean meal unto
certain gods and goddesses, in these ancient
rites and ceremonies. Lempriere states,
that bacon was added to the beans in the
offerings to Carna, not so much to gratify
the palate of the goddess, as to represent the
simplicity of their ancestors.

One of the most noble and powerful fa-
milies of Rome derived the name of Fabii
from some of their ancestors having culti-
vated the bean called Faba.

The meal of beans is the heaviest made
from pulse, and was called in Latin lomentum.
This was mingled with frumentic corn, whole,
and so eaten by the ancients; but they
sometimes, by way of having a dainty, bruised
it first : it was considered a strong food, and
was generally eaten with gruel or pottage.
It was thought to dull the senses and under-
standing, and to cause troublesome dreams.
Pythagoras expressly forbade beans to be
eaten by his disciples, because he supposed
them to have been produced from the same
putrid matter from which, at the creation of
the world, man was formed. The Romans at

BEAN. 67

one time believed, that the souls of such
as were departed, resided in beans ; there-
fore they were eaten at funerals and obse-
quies of the dead.

Varro relates, that the great priests or
sacrificers, called Flamines, abstained from
beans on this account, as also from a suppo-
sition that certain letters or characters were
to be seen in the flowers, that indicated
heaviness and signs of death. Clemens
Alexandrinus attributes the abstinence from
beans to the opinion that they occasioned
sterility ; which is confirmed by Theophras-
tus, who extends the effects even to the
plants. Cicero suggests another reason for
this abstinence, viz. that beans are great
enemies to tranquillity of mind ; for which
reason Amphiaraus is said to have abstained
from them, even before Pythagoras, that he
might enjoy a clearer divination by his
dreams.

The Egyptian priests held it a crime to
look at beans, judging the very sight un-
clean. The Flamen Dialis was not per-
mitted even to mention the name. Lucian
introduces a philosopher in hell saying, that
to eat beans, and to eat our father's head,

were equal crimes.

f2

68

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

The ancients made use of beans in gather-
ing the votes of the people, and for electing
the magistrates. A white bean signified ab-
solution, and a black one condemnation.
From this practice, we imagine, was derived
the plan of black-balling obnoxious persons.

The Roman husbandmen had a religious
ceremony respecting this pulse, somewhat
remarkable ; when they sowed corn of any
kind, they took care to bring some beans
from the field, for good luck's sake, super-
stitiously thinking that by such means their
corn would return home again to them ;
these beans were then called Refrince or
Re/erina. The Romans carried their super-
stition even farther, for they thought that
beans mixed with goods offered for sale at
the ports, would infallibly bring good luck
to the seller.

Columella notices them in his time as
food for the peasants only : —

" And herbs they mix with beans for vulgar fare."

Pliny states that the sowing of beans
is equal to manure for land, and enriches
it exceedingly ; and that in the vicinity of
Macedonia and Thessaly, the custom was
to plough them into the ground just as
they began to bloom. This author adds,

BEAN. 69

that beans grew spontaneously in most places
without sowing ; particularly in certain
islands lying within the northern ocean ;
from whence they have derived the name
of FabaricB. They grew wild also throughout
Mauritania (now Morocco) in Africa ; but
these Pliny characterizes as so hard and
tough, that they could not be boiled tender.
From Mazagan (a settlement of the Por-
tuguese, on the coast of Morocco), we have
obtained the bean so called, and it is by far
the best sort for an early crop. It may
be observed of seeds in general, that those
brought from warm climates will fruit
earlier than those of cold countries. It
must therefore be desirable to have the
seeds constantly renewed at intervals of a
few years, since the bean will naturally be-
come a later variety, as it grows accustomed
to the soil and climate of this kingdom.

Gerard states, that the garden bean is
the same in all respects as the field bean,
the one having been improved only by the
fertility of the soil : — we perfectly coincide
in this opinion, as the ancient authors men-
tion but one kind of the bean called Faba.
Virgil says, that if beans are soaked in lees,
or dregs of oil and nitre, before they are

70 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

planted, they will produce seeds of a far
greater size. Other ancient authors state,
that if they are steeped for three days in
water mixed with urine, they grow more ra-
pidly, and the seed will be larger.

Beans were used medicinally by the an-
cients : when bruised and boiled with garlic
they were said to cure coughs that were
thought past other remedy.

The meal or flour of beans, called lomentwn
by the Romans, was a celebrated cosmetic
with the ladies, in former times, as it was
thought to possess the virtue of smoothing
the skin and taking away wrinkles.

Beans are nowT seldom, if ever, used as food,
in this improved country, in their dried state ;
but when sent to table young, they are gene-
rally admired and esteemed a proper vegeta-
ble with bacon.

The ancients, with Dodonseus, Casp. Hoff-
man, and others of the moderns, tell us that
beans are flatulent, and the greener they are,
the more flatulent, and consequently the
more difficult of concoction : " However we,"
says Ray, "do not find this to be true, though
we frequently feed upon beans in the sum-
mer : nor do we approve of the opinion of
Dodonaeus, who prefers the old and dry

BEAN. 71

beans before the green ones, because he
thinks them less flatulent ; but with Tragus,
leave them to our horses : nor do I see why
they should not fatten men as well as swine,
and other animals."

Dr. Mundy, in his Treatise on Foods, says,
that he knew a peasant, who in a great dearth
of provisions fed his children with nothing
but boiled beans ; and yet you would hardly
see boys of a better colour or habit of body ;
which proves, that dry beans afford a copious
nutriment, when the stomach is once accus-
tomed to bear them.

Dodonaeus says, that beans, with their
skins, or husks, are neither slow, nor very
quick, in passing through the body ; but
that without their husks they are binding.
We agree in this opinion, knowing that in
wheat, the flour, separated from the bran,
binds the more powerfully, and that the
bran is detersive, and promotes the passage
of the flour : hence brown bread is the
most wholesome, particularly to persons
of feverish habits. Dr. James says, " we are of
opinion, with Tragus, that the young beans are
wholesome aliment, and generate good juice."

The prevailing opinion is, that beans are
a flatulent and coarse food, better suited to

72 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

the laborious, than the sedentary class of
society. Mr. Boyle has several experiments
of beans, treated pneumatically, to shew the
great plenty of air they afford, on which
their flatulency depends. The expansion of
a bean, says this author, is found so consider-
able in growing, that it is capable of raising a
plug clogged with an hundred pounds
weight.

The green pods boiled, after the beans are
taken out, is a dish that many people prefer
to the beans ; they should be served with
parsley and butter. The young leaves of
beans, boiled in broth, are esteemed highly
emollient.

The varieties of beans recommended are,
the early Aldridge, early Mazagan, dwarf fan>
green Genoa, sword, long-podded, and the
white-blossomed Windsor.

We have found it an excellent plan, in
procuring late beans, to cut down the stalks
after the crop is gathered for the kitchen ;
they then soon sprout up again, and, if
showery weather succeeds, yield a better
supply than is obtained by late planting. In
the summer of 1820, the author had some
Windsor beans so much blighted, that they
produced but little more than the original

BEAN. 73

seed; but when cut down, they yielded an
excellent crop in the month of November.

This species of pulse is extremely prolific
when planted in suitable soil. A single He-
ligoland horse-bean, planted in the garden
of Beaulieu poor-house, in the year 1821,
produced 126 pods, which contained 399
good beans fit for seed ; and had the plant
not been blown down by the wind in the
midst of its bloom, there is reason to sup-
pose it would have produced nearly double
the quantity.

Field beans are cultivated exclusively for
horses.

Beans make one of the finest of all baits
for fish, if prepared in the following manner :
Steep them in warm water for about six hours;
then boil them in river-water in a new earthen
pot, glazed in the inside ; when about half
boiled, to a quart of beans add two ounces
of honey, and about a grain of musk ; after
which let them boil for a short time. Select
a clear part of the water, and throw in a few
of these beans early in the morning, and
again at evening, for two or three days,
which will draw the fish together, and they
may be taken in a casting net in great
numbers.

74 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

The ashes of bean-stalks make good and
clear glass.

KIDNEY BEAN.— PHASEOLUS.

A leguminous plant. In Botany it is ar-
ranged in the same class and order as the
bean Faba.

This pulse is generally, but improperly
called French bean, for the old French name
of this pulse, Fives de Home, evidently
proves it not to have been a native of France.
We also find, that it was called the Roman
bean in our language, about the time of
Queen Elizabeth. Gerard gives it also the
name of Sperage bean, and says it is called
Faselles, or long peason. The Dutch at that
time (1596) called them Turcks-boonen, viz.
Turk's bean. From thence, but more parti-
cularly from the account of the great Roman
naturalist, we may conclude this excellent
and wholesome vegetable is a native of the
eastern extremity of Europe, or that part of
Asia now belonging to the Turks ; for Pliny
in the 7th chapter of his 18th book, men-
tions these beans, and says, those of Sesama

BEAN. 75

and Iris are red, resembling blood. He
also in his 12th chapter of the same book
calls them Phaseoli, and says the pod is to be
eaten with the seed : from this laconic notice
we may assume that they were but little
esteemed at that time in Italy, where lupines
were then so much admired as food.

The French name of Haricot for this pulse
originated from their being much used by
their cooks in the composition of a dish so
called.

The English name of Kidney-bean was
given on account of the seed being somewhat
of a kidney shape.

We conceive it probable, that these beans
were first introduced to this country from
the Netherlands about the year 1509, when
gardening first began to be attended to in
England ; the white Dutch kidney-bean
having been the earliest sort known in this
kingdom.

Gerard mentions a considerable variety that
was cultivated in England in his time, and says,
" The fruit and pods of kidney-beans boyled
togither before they be ripe, and buttered,
and so eaten with their pods, are exceeding
delicate meate, and do not ingender winde as
the other pulse doe." This medical herba-

76 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

list adds, " they are gently laxative, and in-
gender good bloode."

The dwarf-beans are the most generally
cultivated at present, as the running varieties
require tall sticks, which add considerably to
the expense , of cultivation. But of all the
varieties none exceed the scarlet runners in
point of agreeable flavour and tenderness ;
they are also the most productive, and afford
a succession of pods until checked by the
frost. It is rather remarkable, that although
this variety has been cultivated in England
since 1633, yet there still exists a prejudice
against these beans ; some, on account of
their size, consider them old. The author re-
members their being planted in many parts
of the country, merely as an ornament to
cover walls and to form arbours, without an
idea of cooking the pods for the table.

The French carried this prejudice to an
extent equal to the superstition of the an-
cients respecting the bean, Faba. Some years
back a lady of our acquaintance took some
seeds of the scarlet runners to Jamaica, and
by planting them in her garden on the moun-
tains, they were brought to tolerable perfec-
tion ; but her gardener, who was an old

BEAN. 77

Frenchman, would not by any persuasion
allow them to be eaten, on account of the
scarlet or blood colour of the blossom. The
family thought it more prudent to deprive
themselves of the promised delicacy than to
lose a valuable servant, whose superstition
prohibited him from serving a master who
could eat a vegetable producing (as he styled
it) a bloody flower.

The dwarf kidney-bean being easily forced
in a hot-bed, and growing freely in the house,
now forms an important and profitable article
to the market-gardener, and enables the ve-
getable epicurean to indulge his appetite
with these beans nearly throughout the whole
year. It is one of the least hurtful luxuries
of the table ; and nothing adds more to the
elegant arrangement of a dinner than early
and rare vegetables.

Kidney-beans are preserved in salt for
winter-use, and the young pods of the scarlet
runners make an excellent pickle.

The white kind are used in the ripe and
dry state by foreign cooks in their haricots,
particularly in the neighbourhood of Rome,
where its cultivation forms an important ar-
ticle, the seed affording great part of their

78 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Lent food, in the shape of haricot, fageoli,
and caravansas.

The seed of the large kidney-bean, five
haricot, sliced and stewed in milk, is a fre-
quent dish at the farm-houses in Flanders.

19

BEET.— BETA.

Natural order, Holorai. A genus of the
Pentandria Digynia class.

It takes its name from the shape of its
seed vessel, which, when it swells with seed,
has the form of the letter so called in the
Greek alphabet.

It appears to be a native of Sicily, as the
Greeks, according to Pliny, had as well as
the black, a white beet, which also they
called Sicilian beet.

The Grecians held this root in great esteem,
as it was their custom to offer it, on silver, to
Apollo in his temple at Delphos. They used
also to cut the leaves in preference to lettuce,
and observed the method of laying a small
weight on the plant, to make it cabbage.

Pliny says, of all garden herbs, beets are
the lightest roots; that they are eaten (as
well as the leaves) with lentils and beans,
and the best way to eat them is with mustard,

80 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

&c, to give a taste to their dull flatness.
The seed, says this author, has a strange and
wonderful quality above the rest, for it will
not all come up in one year, but some in the
first, others in the second, and the rest in
the third year.

The Roman physicians held the roots more
hurtful than the leaves.

The beet was first cultivated in this
country in the year 1548, a period when
many valuable plants were introduced, to
gratify a luxurious monarch. Cicla, the white
variety, was brought to England from Portu-
gal, in 1570. It is observed, that the larger
the roots grow, the more tender they will be;
and the deeper their colour, the more they
are esteemed. The roots of the beet are
either baked or boiled, and eaten with salad;
they also make an agreeable pickle. They
are said, however, to be prejudicial to the
stomach, and to afford little nourishment.
The juice both of the roots and leaves is
said to be a powerful errhine, occasioning a
copious discharge of mucus, and thereby
greatly relieving the head-ache.

From the roots of this plant, sugar has
been extracted; by boiling them when taken j
out of the earth, slicing them when cold,

BEET. 81

and afterwards pressing out the juice, which
is filtered, evaporated, and the sugar procured
by crystallization. The process at length,
may be found in the New Annual Register
for 1800, and in the 18th volume of the
Transactions of the Society for the Encou-
ragement of Arts, &c. in London.

The most successful manufacturer of sugar
from the beet-root was M. Achard of Berlin,
who pursued the process altogether in a large
way, and so satisfactorily, that a reward was
bestowed upon him by the Prussian govern-
ment for his elaborate experiments. It was
expected that this process would enable
Europe to supply itself with sugar from its
own soil, and to be no longer dependent on
the West Indies ; but this project was for
many years relinquished, until necessity com-
pelled the French to renew it, when Napo-
leon adopted the policy of prohibiting the
importation of all colonial produce. The
French government then gave large premiums
to the greatest growers of beet, and encou-
raged the making sugar from this root, and
in which they succeeded so far as to obtain a
good sugar; but it was done at an expense
that could only insure its duration so long as

VOL. I. G

82 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

his power could prevent the introduction of
foreign sugar, which could be sold at more
moderate prices.

The beet is one of the five emollient herbs,
but the root is more frequently used to gar-
nish dishes, than for any medicinal purpose.

83

BORAGE.— BORAGO.

Natural order, Asperifolice. A genus of the
Pentandria Monogynia class.

The name is derived from cor and ago, on
account of its supposed cordial qualities.

According to Pliny, the ancient Romans
called it Buglossus, from the Greek EuyAwo-aos,
because the leaf is like an ox-tongue. It
was also called Euphrosynon ; for when put
into a cup of wine, it made those who
drank of it merry.

It is said to have been originally brought
from Aleppo ; but it grows so freely in this
country, that many authors deem it an indi-
genous plant. Parkinson states, that it
grew in Kent.

The whole herb is succulent and very
mucilaginous, having a peculiarly faint smell
when bruised. Its flowers are of the number
of the four cordial ones of the shops, and it
has been recommended as a medicine of great
efficacy in malignant and pestilential fevers,

G Z

84 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

and against the bite of poisonous animals.
It has always been esteemed as an excellent
cooling cordial in all febrile cases ; and may
be justly regarded as a proper simple to be
used in an over-heated state of the blood : it
is generally administered in decoctions and
infusions with other cooling medicines.

Coles, and M. Valmont Bomare, say, these
flowers have no virtue when dry, therefore it
is better, in the winter, to use the roots,
which, being fresh, possess all the qualities
of the blossoms.

Water distilled from both the leaves and
flowers of this plant, has been formerly kept
in the shops, as well as a conserve of the
blossoms ; but these are very little regarded in
modern practice, especially in England, where
most diseases (says Brown) proceed rather
from inaction and the viscidity of the juices.

By the experiments of M. Margraaf, in
1747, it appears, that the juice of this plant
affords a true nitre. The clarified juice of
borage evaporated by a water-bath, in a con-
sistency of thick honey, becomes saponaceous,
and will dissolve in part in spirit of wine.
The juice of the borage, distilled at a naked
fire, bloats itself out considerably, and yields
an insipid phlegm, which is soon followed by

BORAGE. 85

an alkaline volatile spirit, very penetrating, and
then an empyreumatic, fetid, and heavy oil ;
there remains a very light coal, which is re-
duced with some difficulty into ashes. These
give an alkali, such as the most part of vege-
tables furnish : the coal itself, before the
incineration, furnishes a great deal of nitre,
some little marine salt, and an alkaline salt
of a deliquescent nature. M. Bucquet says,
it is clear, that of all these principles, the
juice of the borage contains only the phlegm,
the oily part, the nitre, the marine salt, the
fixed alkali, and the earthy part. As to the
volatile alkali, it is the produce of the fire,
which has formed it at the expense of the
fixed alkali, and of the oil ; because this pro-
duce, though very volatile, only passes after
the phlegm, and when the decomposition is
already advanced ; for, operate how you may
to separate the salts contained in the borage,
you will never find volatile alkali.
' This plant divides thick and vulgar hu-
mours, attenuates the blood, re-establishes
secretions, and excretions, and is useful in all
illnesses where it is essential to avoid hot
remedies ; as in pleurisy, peripneumony, &c.
It is esteemed diuretic, emollient, and ex-
pectorant.

86

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Lord Bacon observes, that "the leaf of
the borage hath an excellent spirit, to re-
press the fuliginous vapour of dusky melan-
choly, and so to cure madness : But never-
theless, if the leaf be infused long, it yieldeth
forth but a raw substance, of no virtue ; but
if the borage stay a small time, and be often
changed with fresh, it will make a sovereign
drink for melancholy passions."

There is an old verse on this plant, which
says,

" Ego Borago gaudia semper ago/'

which has been thus paraphrased :

" I Borage bring courage."

Gerard informs us, that in Queen Eliza-
beth's time, both the leaves and flowers of
this plant were eaten in salad, " to exhila-
rate and make the mind glad." There is, says
he, also many things made of them ; " vsed
euerywhere for the comfort of the heart, for
the driuing away of sorrowe, and increasing
the joie of the mind. Sirrupe made of
the flowers of borage, comforteth the heart,
purgeth melancholie, quieteth the phrenticke
or lunaticke person. The leaves eaten raw
do ingender good bloode, and when boiled
in honey and water, they cure hoarseness."

BORAGE. 87

With all the advantages which this herb
is said to possess, it is now nearly neglected,
and but seldom used in England either in
salads or as a pot-herb ; it is principally cul-
tivated in our gardens to make cool tankards,
which are a pleasant and wholesome summer
drink.

88 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

BURNET.— POTERIUM.

Natural order, Miscellanece. A genus of the
Monozcia Polyandria class.

The ancient name of this plant cannot
be fixed with any degree of certainty ; but
it is thought by the best etymological
herbalists, that we have been able to consult,
that it is the plant which the Greeks
called UifjoriveM, and that it is likewise
the Sideritis Secunda of Dioscorides. It has
been called in Latin, Pimpinella, Pempinula,
and Peponella, from the likeness of the
scent to that of melons or pompions ; while
others give the same name to some species
of saxifrage. Old medical writers called it
Sorbastrella and Sanguinaria, but mostly
Sanguisorba, quod sanguineos fluxus sistat,
as it was supposed to stop fluxes of blood.
Some of the ancient botanists called it
Bipinella or Bipenida, from the leaves being
placed opposite each other like wings.

The origin of the English name must be

BURNET. 89

left to conjecture ; the oblong spike of
its flowers forms, in some degree, a miniature
resemblance of the bur of the dock ; and from
thence it may probably have been derived.

The common burnet, Poteriwn Sanguisorba,
is an indigenous perennial plant of England,
and is found growing on chalky lands and
heathy commons. We find it was cultivated
in our gardens as long back as we can trace
any other herb or vegetable with certainty.
Gerard says, " it is pleasant to be eaten in
sallads, in which it is thought to make the
heart merry and glad, as also being put into
wine, to which it yeeldeth a certaine grace in
the drinking."

Our forefathers seem to have been as
anxious to have herbs added to their wine,
as the present generation are desirous to
obtain it pure.

Coles says, (in 1657,) " Burnet is a friend
to the heart, liver, and other principall parts
of a man's body : two or three of the stalks
with leaves put into a cup of wine, espe-
cially French wine, as all know, give a won-
derful fine relish to it, and besides is a great
means to quicken the spirits, refresh the
heart, and make it merry, driving away
melancholy.' '

90 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

It is still accounted cordial and sudorific,
and on that account is often put into cool
tankards.

We have now several species and many
varieties of burnet in our botanical gardens;
but it is seldom used for culinary purposes.

91

CABBAGE.— BRASSICA.

Natural order, Cruciferce. A genus of the
Tetr adynamia Siliquosa class.

Theophrastus and the earlier Greek au-
thors called this vegetable 'Pctqxzvo?, Raphanus,
from the seed bearing a resemblance to that of
the radish. It was named by later writers
Kfa//tCtf, and attice, Kopx^n, or Koja//,£A>?, as
it was thought to injure the eye-sight, which
is signified by Columella in these words, oculis
inimica Coramble ; but he afterwards contra-
dicts himself, and states that it is good for
dim eyes.

The Roman name, Brassica, came, as is
supposed, from prceseco, because it was cut off
from the stalk : it was also called Caulis in
Latin, on account of the goodness of its stalks,
and from which the English name Cole, Col-
wort, or Colewort, is derived. The word Cab-
bage, by which all the varieties of this plant
are now improperly called, means the firm
head or ball that is formed by the leaves turn-

92 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

ing close over each other; from that circum-
stance we say the cole has cabbaged, the lettuce
has cabbaged, or the tailor has cabbaged.

" Your tailor, instead of shreds, cabbages
whole yards of cloth*."

From thence arose the cant word applied
to tailors, who formerly worked at the private
houses of their customers, where they were
often accused of cabbaging; which means the
rolling up pieces of cloth, instead of the list
and shreds, which they claim as their due.

The Greeks held the cabbage in great
esteem, and their fables deduce its origin
from the father of their gods; for they inform
us, that Jupiter labouring to explain two ora-
cles which contradicted each other, perspired,
and from this divine perspiration the cole-
wort sprang.

The inference to be drawn from this fable
is, that they considered it a plant which had
been brought to its state of perfection by
cultivation and the sweat of the brow.

The most ancient Greek authors mention
three kinds of cole, the crisped or ruffed,
which they called Selinas or Selinoides, from its

# Arbuthnot's History of John Bull.

CABBAGE. 93

resemblance to parsley; the second was called
Lea, and the third Corambe *.

This vegetable was so highly regarded by
the ancients, that Chrysippus and Dieuches,
two physicians, each wrote books on the pro-
perties of this plant, as well as Pythagoras
and Cato, the latter of whom in later times
amply set forth the praises of this pot-herb.

It is related, that the ancient Romans,
having expelled physicians out of their terri-
tories, preserved their health for six hundred
years, and soothed their infirmities by using
and applying this vegetable as their only me-
dicine in every disease.

The verse of Columella informs us that he
considered it a universal pot-herb.

u That herb, which o'er the whole terrestrial globe
Doth flourish, and in great abundance yields
To low plebeian, and the haughty king,
In winter, cabbage ; and green sprouts in spring/'

Pliny, in speaking of the spring sprouts of
cole, says, " Pleasant and sweet as these crops
were thought by other men, yet Apicius (that
notable glutton) loathed them, and by his
example Drusus Caesar held them in no

# Plin. book xx. c. 19.

94 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

esteem, but thought them a base and homely
food; for which nice and dainty tooth of his,"
says this author, " he was well checked and
stented by his father, Tiberius the emperor.
I dwell long on this vegetable," says Pliny,
" because it is in so great request in the
kitchen and among our riotous gluttons."

We find that the Greeks as well as the
Romans esteemed it good to be eaten raw, to
prevent the effects of excessive indulgence
in wine : it was also thought to clear the
brains of the intoxicated, and make them
sober.

It is observed by Pliny, that as coleworts
may be cut at all times of the year for our
use, so may they be sown and set all the year
through ; and yet, says this author, the most
appropriate season is after the autumnal equi-
nox. He adds, after the first cutting, they
yield abundance of delicate tops ; so there is
no herb in that regard so productive, until,
in the end, its own fertility produces its death.
We learn from this naturalist their manner of
cultivating them, as well as from whence the
Romans obtained these useful plants. Many
of the ancients, when they transplanted coles,
put sea-weeds under the roots, or else nitre
powdered, as much as they could take up

CABBAGE. Q5

with three fingers, imagining that they would
the sooner come to maturity ; others threw
trefoil and nitre mixed upon the leaves for
the same purpose \ it was also thought to
make them boil green.

Cabbage will not, at the present day,
bring a price to enable the growTer to use
nitre; but we have often been surprised that
sea- weed should not have been more used on
the coast as a garden manure, when the ad-
vantage of the saline particles is so generally
acknowledged.

The ancients manured their land with
asses dung, where they intended to plant coles.
" If you would have very fine coleworts,
both for sweet taste and for great cabbage,"
observes Pliny, " first let the seed be sown in
ground thoroughly digged more than once
or twice, and well manured ; secondly, you
must cut off the tender spring and young
stalks that seem to put out far from the
ground, and such as run too high ; thirdly, you
must raise mould or manure up to them, so
that there may be no more above the ground
than the very top :" these kinds of coles, he
says, are justly called Tritiana, for the three-
fold care about them. "There are," continues
he, " many kinds of coleworts in Rome, such

96 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

as that of Cumes, which bears leaves spread-
ing flat along the ground, and opening in
the head ; those of Aricia are tall, and send
forth numerous buds. The colewort Pompe-
ianum, so called from the town Pompeii,
also grows high, and sends out many tender
sprouts." The coles of Bruzze, or Calabria,
like the winter best, and are nourished by
the hard season ; their leaves are described
as being very large, their stalks small, and
their taste acrid. The Sabellian coles, with
curled and ruffed leaves, are mentioned as
having a small stem, which supports heads
of a wonderful size: these were reputed the
sweetest.

" It is not long," says the same author,
" since we have procured a kind of cabbage-
cole from the vale of Aricia with an exceed-
ingly great head and an infinite number of
leaves, which gather round and close toge-
ther." These he calls Lacuturres, from the
place whence they came ; he adds, there are
some coles, which stretch out into a round
shape, others extend in breadth, and are
very full of fleshy brawns ; some are described
as bearing a head twelve inches thick, and
yet it was observed, that none put forth more
tender buds than these. It was noticed that

CABBAGE. 97

all the varieties eat sweeter for being touched
with the frost. With all the veneration
we have for the great naturalist of Rome,
we cannot agree with him when he states,
that the seeds of a very old cabbage will
produce turnips, and that the seeds also of
an old turnip will produce coleworts.* The
Romans were not aware that plants so
nearly affined would mix their species by
impregnation, and produce mongrel plants.
This was unfortunately not known in England
until it had ruined and broke the heart of
poor Ball, the Brentford gardener ; for which
see Pomarium Britannicum.-jf

We find that the Romans planted the
sprouts as well as the young plants. Colu-
mella tells us that the latter should be re-
moved when they have attained six leaves.
The ancients often steeped them in oil and
salt before they put them over the fire to
boil; and it was observed by them, that if
any brass pot or kettle was ever so much
furred, and however hard to get off, if a
cabbage was boiled in it, the fur would peel
from the sides without difficulty.

It is also related that a physician, having

# Book xix. chap. 10. t P. 373.

VOL. I. II

98 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

a mess of coleworts upon his table before
him, and being suddenly sent for to visit a
patient, he covered, at his departure, his
dish with another, and found it at his return
bedewed with moisture : observing from this
circumstance, that the extraction of humidi-
ty was very easy, he bent his study so far
that way, as to give being to the art of dis-
tillation.

The ancients were firmly persuaded that
there was a sympathy in plants, as well as in
animals. "The vine, says one of their authors,
by a secret antipathy in nature, especially
avoids the cabbage, if it has room to decline
from it ; but in case it cannot shift away, it
dies for very grief." Pliny* says, the cole-
worts and the vine have so mortal a hatred
to each other, that if a vine stand near a
colewort, it will be sensibly perceived that
the vine shrinks away from it ; and yet this
wort, which causes the vine thus to retire
and die, if it chance to grow near origan,
margiram, or cyclamen sowbread, will soon
wither and die in its turn. The cause is
evident, for where two plants are neighboured
that require the same juices to support them,

# Book xxiv. chap. 1.

CABBAGE. 99

the weaker must give way to the one that
has the greater power to suck up the nutri-
tious moisture.

Ancient authors have handed down to us
the various uses, which they made of this
plant in medicine, some of which we notice
as a matter of curiosity, more than with a view
of recommending these experiments.

The Greeks, as well as the Romans, used
the juice of coleworts with honey as an eye-
salve; they also made a liniment of this
plant, which was used to assuage the swellings
of the glands, as also for the hard swellings of
women's breasts. A liniment was also made
of cabbage and brimstone, which was used
to bring bruises to their natural colour, or
prevent their turning black.

Philistian recommended the juice with
goats' milk, salt, and honey, for the cramp,
or stiff necks.

Apollodorus says, that either the seed or
the juice of this plant, taken in drink, is a
good remedy for those who have eaten
poisonous mushrooms.

Hippocrates recommended this vegetable
to mothers who were nurses.

Cato advises coleworts to be stamped
raw with vinegar, honey, rue, mint, and the

H 2

100 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

roots of laser, as a cure for the head-ache,
and many other complaints, not even omit-
ting the gout.

Erasistratus, and all his school, resounded
again (says Pliny) with the praises of cole-
wort, and averred, that there was nothing in
the world better for the stomach, and nothing
more wholesome for the sinews ; they, there-
fore, prescribed it for the palsy, and all
tremblings of the limbs, and those that retch
up blood.

It was observed by the ancients, that this
vegetable was light of digestion, and that it
clarified all the senses, when ordinarily eaten.

Gerard is the oldest English author who
has written fully on this useful vegetable ;
he mentions the white cabbage cole, the red
cabbage cole, the curled garden cole: the
Savoie cole is, he says, numbered among the
headed coleworts or cabbages : he notices the
curdled Savoy, but says the " Swolen cole-
wort of all others is the strangest, and which
I received from a worshipfull marchant of
London, Master Nicholas Lete, who brought
the seed out of France ; who is greatly in
love with rare and faire flowers and plants;
for which he doth carefully send into Syria,
having a servant there at Alepo, and in many

CABBAGE. 101

other countries ; for the which myself and
likewise the whole lande are much bound
vnto." The same author says, " Rape cole
is another variety ; they were called in Latin
Caulo-rapum and Rapo-caulis, participating of
two plants, the coleworts and turnips, from
whence they derive their name. They grow
in Italy, Spain, and some places in Germanie,
from whence I have received seeds for my
garden." " They must," says he, " be care-
fully set and sowen as musk melons and
cucumbers."

This variety has now become one of our
hardiest field plants.

The principal cabbages now cultivated in
this country are, the early Battersea, early
Dwarf, early York, imperial Penton, Sugar-
loaf, Drum-head, red Dutch, purple Turnip,
Savoy, green Savoy, and yellow Savoy. The
German cabbage is grown to so great a size
in Holland, that a single head often weighs
forty pounds, and remains perfectly sweet
and tender.

CAULIFLOWER.— BRASSICA FLORIDA.

This plant was first called Cole florie and
Colieflorie, and is said to have been derived

102 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

from caulis a stalk, and fero to bear. Gerard
says, " The white cabbage is best next to
the cole flourey ; yet Cato doth chiefly com-
mend the russed cole, but he knew neither
the whites, nor the cole flourey, for if he
had, his censure had been otherwise." But
we find it noticed by the Roman herbalist of
later days, who observes, that of all kinds of
coleworts, the sweetest and pleasantest to
the taste is the cole florie, although of no
value in medicine, and unwholesome, as
being hard of digestion, and an enemy to
the kidneys.

Pierre Pompes says, cauliflower " comes to
us in Paris, by way of Marseilles, from the
Isle of Cyprus, which is the only place I know
of where it seeds." From this account it
would appear, that cauliflowers were not
much cultivated in France in 1694, when his
work was published ; and the French have
at present no distinct name for this vegetable,
but call it Choufleur, viz. cabbage flower.

Cauliflowers are now cultivated in this
country with such care and success, that they
exceed, in goodness and magnitude, all in
Europe. Our gardeners furnish us with an
early and a late variety, both of which are
much esteemed at table, either plain boiled

CABUAGE. 1()3

and served with meat, or when dressed with
sauce after the French fashion. It also makes
a favourite pickle.

BROCOLI.-BRASS1CA BOTRYTIS C YiVIOSA.

This plant appears to \)e an accidental
mixture of the common cabbage and the
cauliflower ; and it is said, that it grows in no
part of the world to such perfection, as in
the neighbourhood of Portsmouth. Our va-
rieties of this vegetable are, the Cape, early
purple, late purple, early white, late white,
and the Siberian. Brocoli occupies a large
space in the garden, where it requires near a
year to perfect its heads ; but repays us for
the time and space by its early arrival in the
spring.

SEA-KALE.— CORAMBLE MARITIMA.

" Now let sea cabbage also come,

Though, to the eyes a foe, it blunts the sight."

Columella.

Kale, or agreeably to our oldest writers,
Sea Colewort, is an excellent vegetable, indi-
genous to our southern shores.

104 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Valmount Bomare, calls it Chou Marin
sauvage d'Angleterre.

Gerard observes, in his Herbal, that
" The sea colewort groweth naturally vpon
the bayche and brimmes of the sea, where
there is no earth to be seene, but sand and
rowling pebble stones. I found it growing
between Whystable and the Isle of Thanet,
neere the brincke of the sea ; and in many
places neare to Colchester, and elsewhere by
the sea-side/'

It is often found, at the present time,
growing out of the crevices of our highest
cliffs, and this is observed to be the most
delicate ; but it is only procured with the
greatest danger, by boys who let themselves
down by means of a rope, which is lowered
or shifted by others standing on the top, the
very sight of which makes the most indif-
ferent observer tremble, while it excites the
wonder of others, that so great a risk should
be ventured for so small a reward as a dish
of this marine vegetable.

Sea kale is now cultivated in all good
gardens, and forms a profitable article with
market-gardeners ; as, when forced, it meets
a ready sale, and bears a high price in the
metropolis.

CABBAGE. 105

It appears, that the Romans had not at-
tempted to raise this vegetable in their gar-
dens in the time of Pliny, who calls it Hal-
myridia, and says it grows only on the sea-
coast. He observes, provision is made of them
to serve in long voyages at sea, for as soon as
they are cut up, they are put into barrels
where oil has lately been kept, and then
stopped up close, that no air come to them.

The different opinions as to the qualities
of cabbage in general, are as various as the
authors are numerous ; we notice these con-
tradictory opinions without falling into the
enthusiasm of one party, or the prejudice of
others, as experience teaches us, that the
same vegetable diet which affords medicine
to one constitution, may be venomous to an-
other, and that to preserve our health, we
should change our diet with our habits, as
we change our garments with the seasons.

All the species of cabbage are now gene-
rally supposed to be hard of digestion, to
afford little nourishment, and to produce
flatulencies. They tend strongly to putre-
faction, and run into this state sooner than
almost any other vegetable ; when putrefied,
their smell is likewise the most offensive,

106 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

greatly resembling that of putrid animal sub-
stance. They are now out of use as medi-
cine, although so much recommended by
ancient writers. Etmuller says, they have
much nitre in their composition, which makes
them diuretic. The authors of the Schola
Salernitana make them of very different qua-
lities; and will have them both to astringe
and relax the bowels ; and say also, they
prevent the intoxication occasioned by spi-
ritous liquors.

Bartholine extols cabbage in these words :
" The common cabbage of the country peo-
ple is justly preferable to other pot-herbs,
since, both raw and boiled, it is possessed of
such salutary qualities, as to prevent occasion
for the medicines used in the shops. For
this reason, when a certain foreign physician
came into Denmark with a design to settle,
and saw the gardens of the country people
so well stocked with cabbage, he, with good
reason, prognosticated small encouragement
for himself in that part of the world. It
keeps the stomach in an easy and soluble
state ; and a decoction of the tops of its ten-
der shoots discharges such an incredible
quantity of bile and phlegm, that no medi-
cine proves a quicker, a safer, or a more effi-

CABBAGE. 10/

cacious purge, hellebore and scammony not
excepted."*

Hoffman says, the common red cabbage is
evidently possessed of a medical quality ;
and abounds with a juice, which, by its ni-
trous, sweet, emollient, laxative, aperitive,
attenuating, and stimulating qualities, pro-
motes those excretions which are absolutely
necessary to the preservation of health. For
this, it is not only a preservative against
diseases, especially of the chronical kind, but
also contributes very considerably to their
cure.

The juice of cabbage is of such a nature,
says Dr. James, as not only to afford a suffi-
cient supply of nourishment to the body,
but also to correct the acrid salts of the
juices, allay the acrimony of the blood,
cleanse the intestines, and scour the kidneys.
For this reason cabbage is highly salutary
in disorders of the breast, if baked in a close
vessel in an oven, adding sugar or honey to
it, after it is taken out ; for by this means
it will, in the space of half an hour, become
a jelly, or thick juice, which, used as a lamba-
tive, is of singular efficacy in dry coughs, &c.

# Lib. de Medicina Danorum Domest. Dissert. 1.

I

108 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. J

A decoction of cabbage, with an addition
of raisins, was formerly much used by preach-
ers and pleaders, in hoarseness, and defects
of voice, arising from too long speaking.

The juice of cabbage is said to be a lax-
ative, and the substance an astringent: hence
the proverb in the school of Salerno :

" Jus caulis solvit, cujus substantia stringit."

The Dutch and the Germans make great
use of cabbage; and in Berne, there is scarcely
an inhabitant who does not eat of it at least
once every day.

In this country it is brought to table plain
boiled, or stewed with beef, also fried with
beef, and it is one of the vegetables that
form our spring soup. Force meagre cabbage
is an excellent dish, and both the red and
the white make a good pickle.

Dr. R. James says, cabbage is agreeable
to the stomach, if it be eaten slightly boiled;
for after thorough boiling it binds, and much
more so if twice boiled. We cannot here
pass over the advice of Bruyerinus, respect-
ing the preparing cabbage for the table. " I
must," says he, " expose an error, which is
no less common than pernicious, in preparing
cabbage. Most people, in consequence of

CABBAGE. 109

the ignorance of their cooks, eat it after it
has been long boiled, a circumstance which
does not a little diminish both its grateful
taste and salutary qualities. But I observe,
that those who have a more polite and ele-
gant turn, order their cabbage to be slightly
boiled, put into dishes, and seasoned with
salt and oil; by which method they assume a
beautiful green colour, become grateful to
the taste, and proper for keeping the body
soluble. This circumstance ought not to be
forgot by those who are lovers of cabbage."

The ancients boiled their cabbage with
nitre, which rendered it at once more grate-
ful to the palate, and more agreeable to the
eye.

The summer cabbage is said to be more
acrimonious and hurtful to the stomach,
than that which is eaten in the winter.
The use of this vegetable in food has been
affirmed by some authors, to be good for
dulness of sight, and tremblings of the
limbs.

Simon Pauli tells us, that he knew a young
girl, who, in the space of fourteen days, had
an incredible number of warts taken off one
of her hands, by anointing them with the
juice of cabbage, which was allowed to dry
on them.

110 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

From the nature of the organization of
these plants, and the diversity of powers
they possess, to receive nourishment in
the superabundance which high cultivation
affords them, they undergo more rapid
changes than most plants ; this is particularly
observable in the species called cauliflower,
which often in a few days branches from the
principal stalk, with such force and numbers,
as to form a solid head of snowy tender
buds, which are afterwards forced to a consi-
derable height before the blossoms open.

In the Economicfal Journal of France, the
following method of guarding cabbages from
the depradation of caterpillars, is stated to
be infallible; and may, perhaps, be equally
serviceable against those which infect other
vegetables.

Sow a belt of hemp-seed round the borders
of the ground where the cabbages are planted,
and although the neighbourhood be infected
with caterpillars, the space inclosed by the
hemp will be perfectly free, and not one
of these vermin will approach it.

We have known brocoli preserved from
the injury of the severest winters, by being
taken out of the ground late in the autumn,
and replanted in a slanting direction. This
experiment was made in the year 1819, with

CABBAGE. Ill

such success, that they all flowered in the fol-
lowing spring, although there was scarcely a
single head out in all the extensive planta-
tions at Fulham, that survived the incle-
mency of that winter.

112 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

CAPER BUSH.— CAPPARIS.

Natural order, Putaminece. A genus of the
Polyandria Monogynia class.

This shrub, or bush, the flower-buds of
which, when pickled, form such an agreeable
sauce to our boiled mutton, is not a native of
Europe, being originally brought out of
Egypt. Theophrastus, who wrote about 300
years before the birth of Christ, was of an
opinion, that the caper bush was of so wild
a nature as not to bear cultivation. Pliny,
in after-ages, entertained the same idea re-
specting the citrus tree, and says it will not
live out of its native country. The Roman
naturalist as little thought that his native
valleys would be covered with the fragrant
orange, as the Lesbian philosopher expected
the ruins of the temples would be overrun by
the trailings of the caper bush. This plant
seems to have sprung from a dry sandy soil ;
and since its migration into Europe has fixed

CAPERS. 1 13

itself in old walls and the fissures of rocks,
generally taking a horizontal direction.

Pliny directs the seeds to be sown in san-
dy ground, and that a bank of stone- work
should be raised for it to spread on : he says,
those who eat capers daily, need not fear the
palsy or the spleen. The Romans used the
root, when bruised, to take off the marks of
the leprosy, and to remove glandular swell-
ings ; the seeds pounded in vinegar were an
esteemed remedy for the tooth-ache. Pliny
cautions his countrymen to beware how they
eat foreign capers, excepting those of Egypt,
as he says those of Arabia are poisonous,
that the African capers are hurtful to the
gums, and those which are grown in Apulia
cause sickness, and injure the stomach.*

Dodoens says, the capers that grow in
Africa, Arabia, Libya, and other hot coun-
tries, are apt to cause ulcers in the mouth,
and that they consume and eat away the
flesh even to the bone ; but, he adds, those of
Spain and Italy are not so strong, and when
brought to us preserved in salt and water,
being washed and eaten with vinegar, are
both meat and medicine, as they create

# Book xiii. c. 23, book xix. c. 8, and book xx. c, 15.

VOL. 1. ]

114 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

appetite, although they give but little nou-
rishment.

Capers appear to have been eaten in
greater abundance in the time of Queen
Elizabeth than at present. Gerard says,
" They are eaten boiled, (the salt first
washed off,) with oile and vinegar, as other
sallads be, and somtimes are boiled with
meate." This author adds, " In these our
daies diuers vse to cherish the caper, and to
set it in dry and stony places : myselfe, at
the impression heereof, planted some seedes
in the brick wals of my garden, which as
yet (1597) doe spring and growe greene ;
the successe I expect."

In the garden of Camden House, at Ken-
sington, there was a remarkable fine caper
tree, which had endured the open air of this
climate for the greater part of a century,
and, though not within the reach of any ar-
tificial heat, produced flowers and fruit every
year. This has been termed a real curiosity,
and should induce the inhabitants of the
warmer parts of Devonshire, Sussex, and
Kent, to cultivate the caper bush, where they
have chalk-pits, cliffs, or old walls.

As the caper sauce is more familiar to us
at our tables, than the plant is in our gar-

CAPERS. 115

dens, it may be remarked, that it is not a
capsule or seed, which is pickled ; but the
bud of the flower just before it is ready to
blossom, when the branches are stripped of
their buds and leaves, and afterwards sepa-
rated by passing through a sieve, when they
are dried in the shade, and then pickled
either in salt or vinegar, and brought to us
in barrels, principally from Italy and Toulon.
The small Majorca capers that are brought
in a salt pickle are esteemed by many per-
sons. Capers are considered an aperient
that excites appetite, and assists digestion ;
and they sometimes enter into compositions
for diseases of the spleen and liver.

Benivenius, De Abditis Morborum Causis,
chap. 105, informs us, that he cured a patient,
labouring under disorders of the spleen, only
by the use of capers, ordering him to drink
forge-water for a year ; after he had been
harassed with this distemper for seven years,
consulted many physicians, and tried many
remedies to no purpose. " Externally," says
Ettmuller, " the pickle of capers is applied
to the side, under the left hypochondrium,
with linen cloths, or a sponge, for discussing
swellings of the spleen. If to this mustard-
seed is added, that the vinegar may be im-

i2

116 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

pregnated with its volatile salt, it is an excel-
lent remedy in disorders of the spleen."

The austere bitterish taste of capers suf-
ficiently convinces us of their astringent and
corroborating virtues ; and if we consider
the qualities they derive from the vinegar
and salt, we may easily conceive, that they
are of a resolvent and inciding nature : for
this reason, they are recommended as pickles
with food, in order to strengthen a languid
appetite ; and are principally beneficial to
those whose stomachs abound with gross
pituitous humours, or who have weak sto-
machs, and want a due appetite. They are
also good for obstructions of the viscera, espe-
cially those of the spleen; for the palsy, and
convulsions arising from a superfluity of
peccant humours. They are also highly re-
commended in long and chronical fevers. *

Laurentius Joubert recommends them in
the plague, seasoned with salt, gently boiled
in water, and eaten with vinegar ; " for," says
he, " they excite an appetite, and open ob-
structions, if there are any in the body." For
this reason they ought not only to be allowed
in pestilential cases, but also recommended
because they resist putrefaction.

* Prosp. Alpin. Hist. Nat.

CAPERS. 117

According to Simeon Sethi, " Capers are
possessed of different qualities ; such as bit-
terness, by which they absterge, cleanse,
and incide ; acridness, by which they heat,
dissipate, and attenuate; and acidity, by
which they inspissate, and prove astringent."

We have procured four new species of this
plant from the West Indies ; but, as these na-
turally require the stove, we can only expect
from them the gratification of our curiosity,
in a sight of the living plants of the west-
ern world.

118 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

GUINEA PEPPER.— CAPSICUM.

Natural order, Litridce. A genus of the
Pentandria Monogynia class.

The generic name of this plant is derived
from a Greek word, signifying to bite, on
account of the biting heat of its fruit ; some
take it from capsa, a chest.

This herbaceous plant was brought to
Europe by the Spaniards, and we have ac-
counts of its being cultivated in this country
as early as the reign of Edward the Sixth,
although it seldom ripens its pods with us
unaided by artificial heat ; for plants, like
men, have

" constitutions fitted for that spot

Where Providence, all wise, has fiVd their lot."

There are many varieties of the capsicum
in hot countries, where Nature has sported
so much in the form of the fruit, that it is
almost endless to trace the shapes and
figures which the different kinds assume.
They are principally distinguished by the

GUINEA PEPPER. 119

size, colour, or shape of the pods, which
are hollow, and divided into two or three
cells, containing kidney-shaped, round, or
beaked smooth seeds.

From the rich and varied colour of the
fruit, this plant is cultivated among our
ornamental housed exotics ; but it is also
grown in considerable quantities by the
market gardeners for the supply of London,
where it is much used in pickles, seasonings,
and made-dishes, as both the capsula and
seeds of the whole tribe are full of a warm
acrid oil, the heat of which being im-
parted to the stomach is thought to pro-
mote digestion, assist the tonic motion of
the bowels, invigorate the blood, and correct
the flatulency of vegetable aliments.

" Capsicum has all the virtues of the Ori-
ental spices, without producing those com-
plaints of the head which they often oc-
casion. In food it prevents flatulency from
being caused by vegetables ; but its abuse
occasions visceral obstructions, especially of
the liver. In dropsical complaints, or others
where chalybeates are prescribed, a minute
portion of powdered capsicum is an excel-
lent addition. In lethargic affections, this
warm and active stimulant might be of ser-

120 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

vice. In tropical fevers, a coma and deli-
rium are common attendants, and in such
cases, cataplasms of capsicum have a speedy
and happy effect ; they redden the parts,
but seldom blister unless kept too long.
In ophthalmia, from relaxation of the mem-
branes and coats of the eyes, the diluted
juice of the capsicum is a sovereign remedy ;
and I have often witnessed its virtues in
many obstinate cases of this sort. In some
parts of South America, the Indians prick
the loins and bellies of hectic patients, with
thorns dipped in the juice of capsicum.

Of late, capsicum has been successfully
used in particular cases of the yellow fever.
It settles the stomach, abates bilious vomit-
ings, and even milcena, the morbus niger
of Hippocrates, or black vomit, has been
cured by it. The form it is given in is either
the green pepper, or the genuine powder
capsicum. Three parts of the green bonnet
pepper, and two parts crumbs of bread,
made into a large pill, and given every two
hours or oftener, till the stomach is settled.
Or, three grains genuine powder Cayenne
pepper, made into a firm pill, and completely
coated with white wafer, to be given as above.
This medicine has been given to patients in

GUINEA PEPPER. 121

the end of the yellow fever, when debility
and extreme weakness had taken place, and
with the happiest effect. It warms and sti-
mulates the stomach, brings on a genial
warmth and diaphoresis, and assists greatly
in giving a favourable turn to this disorder."*

In recent pleuritic stitches, a poultice of
bruised pepper applied to the place affected,
frequently changed, removes the complaint ;
and the berries bruised and mixed with lard,
are recommended to be rubbed on paralytic
limbs.

The following receipt is the famous pepper
medicine for the cure of malignant influenza
and sore throats ; which has been found
highly efficacious, and is recommended as a
powerful diaphoretic, stimulant, and anti-
septic.

Take two table spoonfuls of small red
pepper, or three of common Cayenne pepper,
add two of fine salt, and beat them into a
paste ; add half a pint of boiling water,
strain off the liquor when cold, and add to it
half a pint of very sharp vinegar. Give a
table spoonful every half hour as a dose for
an adult, and so in proportion for younger

* Wright.

122 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

patients. Perhaps this medicine might merit
a trial in the yellow fever.*

The general mode of preparing Cayenne
pepper is by gathering the bird peppers
when ripe, drying them in the sun, powder-
ing and mixing them with salt, which, when
well dried, is put into close corked bottles,
for the purpose of excluding the air, which
disposes the salt to liquefy, and therefore is
thought by some an improper ingredient in
the composition. This is sometimes called
Cayenne butter, and is in general esteem for
the excellent relish it gives to different
dishes.

The mixture called Man-dram is made
from these peppers, in the following manner,
and seldom fails to provoke the most languid
appetite : the ingredients are, sliced cucum-
bers, eschalots or onions cut very small, a
little lime-juice and Madeira wine, with a few
pods of bird or bonnet pepper well mashed
and mixed with the liquor.

For the purpose of pickling, the bell and
goat kinds are considered the best : they are
to be gathered before they arrive at their full
size, while their skin is tender : they are to

* Lunan.

GUINEA PEPPER. 123

be slit down on one side, and the seeds taken
out, after which they should be soaked in
salt and water for twenty -four hours, and the
water changed at the end of the first twelve
hours. When they are taken out of this,
they should be drained, put into bottles or
jars, and boiled vinegar, after being allowed
to cool, poured upon them in sufficient
quantity to cover them. The vessels should
then be closely stopped for a few weeks,
They are esteemed the wholesomest pickle
in the world. The pepper vinegar, with
barley water and honey, is a good mouth or
throat gargle.

The following is a receipt for making what
is called Cayenne pepper pot : " Take the
ripe bird peppers, dry them well in the sun,
then put them into an earthen or stone pot,
mixing flour between every stratum of pods,
and put them into an oven after the baking
of bread, that they may be thoroughly dried :
after which they must be well cleansed from
the flour ; and if any stalks remain adhering
to the pods, they should be taken off, and
the pods reduced to a fine powder : to every
ounce of this add a pound of wheat flour,
and as much leaven as is sufficient for the
quantity intended. After this has been pro-

124 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

perly mixed and wrought, it should be made
into small cakes, and baked in the same
manner as common cakes of the same size :
then cut them into small parts, and bake
them again, that they may be as dry and hard
as biscuit ; which being powdered and sifted,
is to be kept for use." This is prodigiously
hot and acrimonious, and by some recom-
mended as a medicine for flatulencies. If the
ripe pods of capsicum are thrown into the fire,
they will raise strong and noisome vapours,
which occasion vehement sneezing, coughing,
and often vomiting in those near the place,
or in the room where they are burned. Some
persons have mixed the powder of the pods
with snuff, to give to others for diversion :
but where the quantity is considerable, there
may be danger in using it; for it will occa-
sion such violent fits of sneezing as may
break the blood-vessels of the head.

A small quantity of the capsicum powder
has sometimes given almost immediate relief
in the tooth-ache, when arising from a carious
cause : it is to be applied to the part affected
by introducing it into the cavity of the carious
tooth.

Capsicum Peppers. — These are all much
of the same nature. The large hollow sort,

GUINEA PEPPER. 125

called bell pepper, picked while green, is
an excellent relishing pickle or sauce for
meat ; the other small red peppers, when ripe,
taken and dried in the sun, and then ground
with salt and pepper, close stopped in a bottle,
are an excellent relisher to sauces for fish or
flesh, and commonly called Cayenne butter.
All these sorts of pepper are of a much more
burning nature than white or black pepper.
Some punish their slaves by putting the juice
of these peppers into their eyes, which is
an unspeakable pain for a little while ; and
yet it is said that some Indians will put it
into their eyes before they go to strike fish,
to make them see clear.*

Near St. Michael de Sopa, in the vale of
Aricia, they cultivate the agi, that is, Guinea
pepper ; where there are several farms which
have no other product but this pepper.
The Spaniards of Peru are so generally ad-
dicted to that sort of spice, that they can
dress no meat without it, though it is so
very hot, that it can only be endured by
those who are well used to it.-f

* Lunan. t Barham, p. 30.

126 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

CARAWAY.— C ARUM.

Natural order, Umbellatce. A genus of the
Pentandria Digynia class.

Modern botanists pronounce this plant to
be a native of Britain, and from its growing
so freely in our island we might have claimed
it as indigenous to our soil, but the origin of
its name, and the positive manner in which
Pliny mentions from whence it sprang, refute
this opinion.

Pliny says, " The caraway is a stranger,
and it is named from its native soil, Caria:"
the same author states, that the second in
quality came from Phrygia, — both countries
in Asia Minor.* He says, it will grow in
most places, and that its seed is in great de-
mand in the kitchen for culinary purposes.
Dioscorides, who wrote on medicinal herbs
in the time of Antony, to whom he was phy-
sician, states likewise that it is called Carum,

* Pliny, book xix. chap. 8.

CARAWAY. 127

from the seed having been first brought from
Caria ; and from the Latin the other Euro-
pean names seem to have been derived. The
Italians call it Caro, the Spanish Caravea,
the French Carvi, the English Caruwaie, now
corrupted to Caraway. As it was used by
the Romans as a domestic spice, they, in all
probability, were the first who sowed it in
the British soil. Gerard takes no notice of
its growing wild in England, but says, it
grows abundantly in Germany and Bohemia,
in fat and fruitful fields. The people of
these countries are naturally fond of hot
spicy food, and therefore make great use of
this wholesome seed in bread, comfits, con-
fections, &c. &c. Ray says, this plant grows
wild in several places of Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire, but we presume that it is the re-
mains of former cultivation.

It is one of the greater hot seeds, and is
esteemed stomachic, carminative, and diu-
retic ; it dispels wind, and strengthens diges-
tion ; is good for the dizziness in the head,
and weakness of sight. Our distillers use it
in forming a cordial spirit. When young, it
is an excellent salad herb.

The seed-cake formed one of the rural
entertainments that the old English farmers

128 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

made to reward their servants, at the end of
wheat-sowing, and which Tusser mentions
next to the festival of harvest-home :

'*. Wife, sometime this week, if the weather hold cleer,
an end of wheat-sowing we make for this yeere :
Remember thou, therefore, though I do it not,
the seed-cake, the pastries, and furmenty-pot."

We regret to find, that refinement has so
far crept into the farm-houses, as to banish
this feast, and in many instances, even the
harvest-supper. We cannot see these old
customs abolished, which time has almost
made sacred, without feelings of regret ; and
we are satisfied, that the master loses none
of his importance by joining in these annual
feasts and rustic sports, but, on the contrary,
attaches his servants to the interests of his
family, and keeps them from the habit of fre-
quenting public ale-houses ; therefore, every
good subject, who is solicitous for the pros-
perity of the farmer and happiness of the
husbandman, will be glad to see Thomson's
festive descriptions realized :

<(

Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn,
Mature and perfect, from his dark retreat
Of thirty years;" ■

CARAWAY. 129

" Nor wanting; is

the smoking sirloin stretch'd immense

From side to side ; in which, with desperate knife,
They deep incision make, and talk the while
Of England's glory, ne'er to be defaced."

Autumn.

The Romans held their rural festivities
with religious mirth, and which had great ana-
logy to the customs of old English farmers.

" But, first of all, Immortal Powers adore,
With annual rites great Ceres' aid implore,
With joy her altars on the grass restore.

•& ^t- ^fc ^- ~y- ~v- «v-

*7t* "71* TT VK* "W* "«* "7^

Then you and all your village neighbours join,
And offer honey, mix'd with milk and wine,
To Ceres' name ; in solemn pomp lead thrice
Around the fields the destined sacrifice.
With all your rural train in chorus sing,
And to your homes with vows the goddess bring :
Nor is it lawful to unload the ground,
Till you perform those rites with joyful sound,
And dancing, sing her praise, with oaken garlands crown'd."

Vihgil, Georgics, book i.

This elegant poet tells us, at the end of
the second book of the Georgics, that the
ancient farmers entered into the holyday
sports of their domestics.

" When harmless holydays inspire,

He and his friends, around a cheerful fire,

Upon the grass their careless limbs recline,

To Bacchus quaff, and pour out sprightly wine ;

VOL. I. K

130 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Then with a prize provokes his shepherds' art,

To see who best can throw the winged dart ;

Or else, with moist'ning oil their joints prepares,

And for the wrestling prize the brawny shoulders bares. "

The root of the cultivated caraway is of a
pleasant sweet taste, and was formerly pre-
ferred by many persons to parsnips, having
the faculty of warming and comforting a cold
weak stomach. We cannot account for the
cause of its having fallen so entirely into
neglect, but from the great variety of new
favourites, with which modern gardens are
filled.

131

CARROT.— DAUCUS.

A genus of the Tentandria Digynia class.
It is a biennial plant, belonging to the nu-
merous Umbellated family .

Actvxos, Dioscor. Daucus, Plin. from dcctoa,
as some think, on account of its hot taste.

The wild carrot, Daucus Carota, is indi-
genous to our soil, the seed of which, it is
said, when sown in manured ground, will pro-
duce good roots the second or third year ;
but Miller tells us that he could not suc-
ceed in obtaining good carrots from the seed
of the Daucus Carota.

The best kind of carrots appear to have
been natives of Candia, where, according to
Pliny, the finest and most esteemed carrots
were to be found ; and the next to them
in Achaia.* This author observes, that in
whatever country they grow, the best are
produced in sound dry ground ; that wild
carrots are to be found in most countries,
but never in a poor hungry soil.

# Book xxv. c. 9.
K 2

132 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Theophrastus states, in the ninth book of
his History of Plants, that carrots grow in
Arcadia, but that the best are found in
Sparta.

Petronius Diodotus reckoned four kinds of
this root, but there is reason to think he in-
cluded the parsnip with them.

The ancients used the seed both of the
wild and the cultivated carrot, as an internal
medicine against the bite of serpents ; they
also gave it to animals that had been stung
by them ; a dram weight in wine was
thought a sufficient dose.

Gerard calls these plants Daucus Cretensis
verus, or Candie carrots, and says, " that the
true Daucus of Dioscorides does not grow
in Candia only, but is found vpon the
mountains of Germanie, and vpon the hils
and rocks of Iura, about Geneua, from
whence it hath been sent and conueied by
one friendly herbarist unto another, into
sundrie regions." This author describes
the Pastinaca sativa temdfolia, yellow or
garden carrot, which, he says, " are so wen
in the field and in gardens, where other
pot-herbs are : they require a loose and well-
manured soil." He adds, " that in his time,
the yellow carrot was most commonly boiled

CARROT. L33

to be eaten with fat meat, but that he did
not esteem it to be a very nourishing food."

By later authors, carrots are said to have
been introduced into this country by the
Flemings, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
and that they were first sown about Sand-
wich in Kent.

We now cultivate many varieties, so as to
suit various soils, and to supply the kitchen
regularly at all seasons of the year.

The early red horn carrot is the forward -
est sort in ripening, and best adapted for
forcing. The white carrot, or carotte
blanche, of the French, is but little known
in our markets, and seldom grown, excepting
by those families who are fond of French
dishes, as it is much used in their pottage,
and is certainly a very delicate root, but
is best adapted for summer and autumnal
use, as it does not keep so well through
the winter as the common carrot.

The French consider the carotte violette,
purple carrot, to be the sweetest of all the
kinds ; but it is generally found to run to
seed the year it is sown.

The garden carrot delights in a warm
sandy or light soil, which should be dug-
deep, that the roots may better run down ;

134 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

for if they meet with any obstruction, they
grow forked. Carrots should not be sown
on land that has been much dunged the same
year, as it causes them to be worm-eaten,
but when they are sown on fresh ground
well prepared, a heavy crop may be ex-
pected.

The seeds should be sown on a calm day,
as, from their light and feathery nature, it is
impossible to sow them regularly when the
air is agitated : it is also a good practice to
mix the seeds with sand, in order that they
may not adhere together in sowing.

Mr. Billing, an ingenious farmer in Nor-
folk, obtained from twenty acres and a half,
510 loads of carrots, which he found equal
in use and effect to a thousand load of tur-
nips, or 300 loads of hay. Some of them
measured two feet in length and from twelve
to fourteen inches round. Cows, sheep, hogs,
and horses, become fond of this food; and as
they are greatly nourished by them, its cul-
ture may be worthy the attention of those
farmers whose lands are suitable to its
growth.

Four pounds of carrot-seed is considered
enough to sow an acre of land.

CARROT. L35

Martyn says, " It is greatly to be wished,
that the culture of this root was extended to
every part of England, where the soil is pro-
per for the purpose ; for there is scarce any
root yet known which more deserves it, be-
ing a very hearty good food for most sorts of
animals. One acre of carrots, if well planted,
will fatten a greater number of sheep or bul-
locks, than three acres of turnips, and the
flesh of these animals will be firmer and
better tasted. I have known these roots
cultivated for feeding deer in parks, which
has proved of excellent use in hard winters,
when there has been a scarcity of other food ;
at which times great numbers of deer have
perished for want, and those which have
escaped, have been so much reduced, as not
to recover their flesh the following summer ;
whereas, those fed with carrots have been
kept in good condition all the winter, and,
upon the growth of the grass in the spring,
have been fat early in the season, which is
an advantage, where the grass is generally
backward in its growth.

" There is also an advantage in the culti-
vation of this root over that of the turnip,
because the crop is not so liable to fail ; for

136 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

as the carrots are sown in the spring, the
plants generally come up well: whereas tur-
nips are frequently destroyed by the flies at
their first coming up, and in dry autumns
they are attacked by caterpillars, which in
a short time devour whole fields."

Carrots are generally served to table with
boiled meats : they make an excellent soup,
and form an agreeable pudding. In some
parts of the country they are sent to table
with fish of every description.

Dr. James says, carrots are one of the
most considerable culinary roots ; that they
strengthen and fatten the body, and are a
very proper food for consumptive persons.
They are somewhat flatulent, but are
thought to render the body soluble, and to
contribute to the cure of a cough.

In the Historia Plant arum, ascribed to
Boerhaave, we read that this root is much
celebrated for its virtues against the stone,
and nephritic disorders.

The seeds of wild carrots are esteemed
one of the most powerful diuretics we are
acquainted with, of our own growth. They
are given in disorders of the breast and
lungs, in pleurisies, in stranguries, and in

CARROT. 137

the stone and gravel. Helmont informs us,
that he knew a gentleman who was seized
with a fit of the stone every fifteen days,
freed from the attacks of his disorder for
several years, by means of an infusion of car-
rot-seed in clear malt liquor. An infusion of
them in white wine is excellent in hysteri-
cal complaints.

The roots of the garden carrots are now
much used as a poultice for running can-
cers, &c.

Sugar is found in this root, but in less
quantities than in the parsnip, or the beet.
A very good spirit may be distilled from
carrots. An acre of these roots, allowing
the produce to be twenty tons, will produce
240 gallons of spirits, which is considerably
more than can be obtained from five quarters
of barley.*

Parkinson tells us that the gentlewomen
of former days, decorated their hats or heads
with the leaves of the wild carrot, which in
autumn are exceedingly beautiful. This
would rather shew the simplicity of our an-
cestors than their want of taste ; as we have

* Hornby in Young's Annals.

138 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

seen ladies' dresses trimmed with the curled
leaves of the garden parsley, and which were
not more admired for their novelty than for
the elegance they displayed.

Flowers may be cut out of large carrots
that closely resemble ranunculuses, without
the least aid of colouring.

139

CHAMOMILE.— ANTHEMIS.

Natural order, Compositce discoides. A genus
of the Si/ngenesia Poiygamia superflua class.

This herb is the Avftepis of Dioscorides,
and the Av^e/mov of Theophrastus. It was
called Leucanthemis, and Leucanthemus, from
the whiteness of the double blossom : others
named it Eranthemon, because it flourished
so early in the spring ; and on account of its
savour resembling an apple, it was called
Chamxmelon, from which the English name
is derived.

Ancient story informs us, that this plant
took its generic name from Athemis, a virgin
shepherdess, who kept her flock near Cuma,
and not far from the cave where one of the
Sibyls delivered her oracles. Athemis fre-
quently assisted at these ceremonies, and
being present when the fate of lovers was
to be decided, was so frightened by Arphor-
les bursting abruptly into the cave to know
his doom, that she died on the spot, and was

140 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

instantly changed into a plant bearing flow-
ers, which received her name.*

It is a curious circumstance, that the first
person who appears to have praised and re-
commended this herb in medicine, lived to a
very advanced age without ever knowing a
day's illness. Asclepiades pledged himself
to cease to act as a physician if he should
ever be known to be sick. Mithridates, king
of Pontus, entertained so high an opinion of
his skill, that he sent ambassadors to him with
great offers of reward to tempt him to reside
at his court, but which proposal was rejected
by the Bithynian, who gave the preference
to Rome ; where he became the founder of
a sect in physic which bore his name.-f*

The ancient physicians considered the
flowers and leaves of the chamomile as a
diuretic which was salutary in cases of stone
and gravel. They made them into trochischs
or lozenges, which were for spasmodic dis-
orders, as well as for the jaundice and com-
plaints of the liver, and they pounded the
leaves with the roots and flowers as a remedy
against the sting of serpents and other rep-
tiles. The Romans preserved the dried

# Liger. f Plin. b. vii. c. 37, and b. xxii. c 21.

CHAMOMILE. 141

flowers, as well as the leaves, both for medi-
cine and for winter garlands.

The common single chamomiles are es-
teemed in medicine as being more effective
than the double flowers, having a greater
quantity of the yellow thrum, in which lies
the strength of the flower, although the lat-
ter blossoms are generally brought to market
in preference. The leaves of the plant are
commended before the blossoms, as a diges-
tive, laxative, emollient, and diuretic medi-
cine. The flowers are given in infusion as a
gentle emetic; they are also used in emol-
lient decoctions, to assuage pain.

Dr. R. James says, " Chamomile is a plant
of many virtues, being stomachic, hepa-
tic, nervine, emollient, and carminative; it
strengthens the stomach and bowels, helps
the cholic, jaundice, and stone, &c. It is
good against quartan and other agues. Out-
wardly, it is used in fomentations for inflam-
mations and tumours ; applied hot to the
sides, it helps the pains thereof."

The powder of dried chamomile-flowers
was used in the time of Dioscorides to cure
intermitting fevers : Riverius prescribed it
on the same occasion. Morton, and Dr. Eli-
sha Coysh, both affirm, that they have cured

142 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

fevers with chamomile flowers reduced to
fine powder ; and it is still a common febri-
fuge with the Scotch and Irish.

It is said that no simple in the Materia
Medico, is possessed of a quality more friend-
ly and beneficial to the intestines than cha-
momile flowers.

Boerhaave says, " The essential oil of
chamomile, made into pills with a bit of
bread, and given two hours before meals,
after fasting a considerable time, is a certain
cure for worms."

Gerard informs us that chamomile flowers
were formerly used in the bath to rarify the
skin, open the pores, and produce perspira-
tion; " and were," says he, " planted in gar-
dens both for pleasure and profit." The
double-blossomed variety makes a pretty
edging for the borders of cottage gardens.
• The Hortus Kewensis notices twenty va-
rieties as known to the English gardeners,
one-fourth of which are native plants ; and
the kind most esteemed for medical purposes
is found abundantly on many of our com-
mons.

It is said, that a stone taken out of the hu-
man body, on being wrapped in chamomile,
will in a short time dissolve. Hence, says

CHAMOMILE. 143

Coles, it is evidently an excellent remedy for
that complaint, if the syrup or decoction of
the flowers be taken in a morning, fasting.

This plant is remarkable for beginning to
flower at the top of the branches, whereas
others that do not open all at one time, begin
at the bottom ; and the flowers, which are
composed of white petals set in a yellow
disk, yield by distillation a fine sky-blue oil.

144 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

CHERVIL.— SCANDIX.

Natural order, Umbettatce. A genus of the
Pentandria Digynia class.

The Greeks called this herb Xa^'puAAo*/,
Cheer ephyllum, either from its numerous
leaves, or, as most old herbalists suppose,
from the cheerfulness, or joy and gladness,
which, they affirm, the leaves of this plant
produced in those who ate them. The
Latins followed the same word, with little
variation, as Columella calls it ChcErophyllum.
Most of the European languages seem to
have derived the name of this vegetable
from the same source ; the Dutch calling it
Kervell, the Germans Korffol, the Italians
Cerefoglio, the French du Cerfeuil, and by
our oldest botanists it is written Cheruill.

The garden chervil, Scandix cerefolium, is
said to be a native of the Austrian Nether-
lands. Aiton ranks it among: the indigenous
plants of England ; Gerard takes no notice
of its country, but says, " The common cher-

CHERVIL. 145

uill groweth in gardens with other pot-
herbs : it prospereth in a ground that is
dunged and something moist." He adds,
" The great sweet cheruill groweth in my
garden, and in the gardens of other men
who haue been diligent in these matters."

Parkinson says, " It is sown in gardens to
serve as a sallet herbe : the other (Cerefolium
sylvestre) groweth wilde in their vineyards
and orchards beyond sea, and in many of
the meadowes of our owne land, and by the
hedge-sides, as also on heathes."

The ancients held this herb in the highest
esteem. Pliny tells us, that the Syrians,
who were great gardeners, cultivated it as a
food, that they ate it both boiled and raw,
and that they considered it capable of eradi-
cating most chronical distempers.

This was evidently the species called
Venus's comb, Scandix pecten, or what was
formerly called Shepherd's needle, as Pliny
observes, that it was often called Gingidium,
viz. tooth-pick chervil.

The garden chervil is a small annual
plant, with winged leaves ; when young,
somewhat resembling parsley, but as it runs
to seed it bears more the appearance of hem-
lock. This herb is grateful to the palate,

VOL. I.

146 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

and is much cultivated by the French and
Dutch, who are so fond of it, that they have
hardly a soup or salad but the leaves of
chervil make part of the composition ; and it
certainly is often found a more agreeable
and mild addition to seasonings, than the
parsley which is so universally used by the
English cooks. We have found a small
quantity of this herb an improvement to a
lettuce salad, as its moderately warm qua-
lity in some degree qualifies the coolness of
the latter plant. It is said to be aperient
and diuretic.

The herbalists of ancient days are lavish
in the praise of this vegetable ; both Dio-
scorides and Galen thought it good for the
stomach, and serviceable in complaints of
the liver, &c.

Chervil should be sown early in the
spring, and it will be found to scatter its
seed for the autumnal crop, without further
trouble than keeping it from weeds.

The roots of this plant were formerly
eaten. Gerard says, " I do vse to eate them
with oile and vinegar, being first boiled,
which is very good for old people that are
dull and without courage: it reioiceth and
comforteth the heart, and increaseth their;
strength."

14?

CINNAMON, CINNAMOMUM, AND
CASSIA.— CASSIA.

Natural order, Holoracea. A genus of the
Enneandria Monogynia class.

Cinnamomum or Cinnamum, among the
Latins, is the same with the KiwocfJLov and
KivctfjLov, or KivvdfJLoofjLov, of the Greeks. This
last name is derived from KiwafjLov and a/z^oy,
or from the Hebrew word D*p or j— Dp which
signifies a cane or reed, and the a^^ov of
the Greeks.

This tree, the spicy bark of which was
so much esteemed by the ancients, on ac-
count of the sweet odour it afforded in their
solemn sacrifices, and is now so justly re-
garded for its astringent quality in medicine,
is a species of the laurel, Laurus, and a na-
tive of the East Indies ; the cinnamon being
principally confined to the Island of Ceylon,
whence it might justly be styled the Ceylon
laurel.

It seems natural to man to covet things

difficult to obtain, and to estimate their

l2

148 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

value more by their rarity than their qua-
lity ; this desire appears to form a necessary
part of our constitution, wisely ordained to
stimulate industry and promote communi-
cation.

The spices of the torrid zone had found
their way into the land of Canaan at a very
early period, at least 1728 years before the
birth of Christ, as we read in the time of
Jacob, that they were become an article
of commerce. The Ishmaelitish merchants
were going into Egypt with their camels
laden with spicery, when Joseph was sold by
his brethren.*

Moses made the holy anointing oil of pure
myrrh, sweet cinnamon, cassia, and sweet
calamus. *j-

Spice appears to have been highly es-
teemed by the Hebrews in the time of
Solomon. The Queen of Sheba, in her visit
to that monarch, carried a present of spices,
gold, and precious stones ; " besides that
he had of the merchantmen, and of the
traffic of the spice merchants, and of all the
kings of Arabia, and of the governors of
the country." % Solomon notices this spice as

* Gen. c.xxxvii. v. 25. t Exodus, c. xxxvi. v. 23.
J 1 Kings, c. x. v. 15.

CINNAMON. 149

a luxurious perfume ; "I have perfumed
my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon."*

From the great distance the Eastern mer-
chants had to travel over desert sands, and
the dangers they had to surmount, together
with the duties they were obliged to pay
at certain cities, the price of cinnamon was
much enhanced ; and the fabulous stories
told of this aromatic drug appear to have
been invented for the purpose of exciting
wonder, and adding to its rarity. The coun-
try from whence cinnamon came, also, ap-
pears to have been concealed in great mys-
tery, as well as the spice itself, even in the
time of Herodotus, who relates that it fell
from the nests of the phoenix, and other
fowls which fed on venison, and built on
trees situated on the highest rocks, in the
country where Bacchus was nourished. It is
farther related, that the cinnamon was ob-
tained from these nests, by beating them
down with arrows headed with lead.

The cassia was said to be brought from
a country surrounded with marshes, and
guarded by terrible bats, armed with dread-
ful talons, and accompanied by flying dragons.

# Prov. c. vii.

150 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Pliny tells us, that the cinnamon grew in
that part of /Ethiopia now called Abyssinia,
and that the sale of it was confined to the
King of the Gebanites, by whom it was
taxed and then sold in open market to the
merchants at a price fixed by that sovereign.
" In old times," says Pliny, " it sold for one
thousand denarii per pound, but it afterwards
rose to one thousand five hundred denarii,
owing to the forest of cinnamon being burnt
down by the wrath of the Troglodites, their
barbarous neighbours." This proves that the
cinnamon tree was not anciently confined to
Asia, much less to the Island of Ceylon.
The same author informs us that the /Ethio-
pians bought up all the cinnamon of their
neighbours, and transported it to other coun-
tries, in small punts or boats, without either
helm, rudder, or sail, and only one man to a
boat. They chose the dead of the winter for
the voyage, when the south-east winds blew,
and on which alone their safe arrival must
have depended, as these winds drove them
through the Gulfs. They doubled the point
of Argest, and coasted along to the port of
Ocila, the principal town of the Gebanites.
It took them five years to make one voyage
and to return. This will naturally account

CINNAMON. 1.51

for the high price of cinnamon in Syria, as
well as in Europe. Added to this, one third
of the cinnamon was annually burnt, as an
offering to the sun, by these idolatrous peo-
ple, who, before they commenced barking
the branches of the cinnamon-trees, made
great offerings of oxen, goats, and rams, to
their god Assabinus, (the Jupiter of the
Arabians,) who was considered the patron of
these trees. It was contrary to their reli-
gion to commence stripping the cinnamon
either before sun-rising, or to continue it
after his setting. When this harvest finished,
the bark was divided by their priest into
three lots, one of which remained on the
spot until it became so dry as to be set in
flames by the sun, and so consumed.

The Emperor Vespasian, in all probability,
first observed the high regard paid to cinna-
mon by the inhabitants of Palestine, in their
places of worship, and which he seems to
have imitated at Rome ; for on his return
from the former country, he dedicated to the
Goddess of Peace, in one of the temples of
the Capitol, garlands and chaplets of cinna-
mon, inclosed in polished gold.

In the temple built on Mount Palatine,
by the Empress Augusta, in honour of Au-

152 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

gustus Caesar, her husband, was placed a
root of the cinnamon-tree, of great weight,
set in a cup of gold, which yielded, yearly,
several drops of sap, that congealed into a
gum. This I have seen, says Pliny, and it
remained in the same situation until the
temple was consumed by fire.

The Ceylonese draw from the roots of these
trees, a liquor, which, as it hardens, becomes
a true camphor. This anecdote, therefore,
confirms the opinion, that the cinnamon now
in use is the same as that of the ancients,
although some authors state, that the cinna-
mon so highly extolled by the Israelites, is
now unknown. We agree, that the tree
which anciently grew in Ethiopia, might
have been of a more fragrant quality than
that produced in Ceylon.

The species of camphor obtained from the
root of the cinnamon-tree is called Baros by
the Indians, and is considered by far the best
for medical purposes ; and in some parts it
is gathered and kept only for the use of the
kings, who use it as a cordial medicine, it
being esteemed of a singular and uncommon
efficacy.

Nievhoff, who accompanied the embassy
which the Dutch made to China in the year

CINNAMON. 153

16*55-6, tells us, that there are great quanti-
ties of cinnamon-trees in the province of
Quangsi, particularly near the city of Cin-
chew. He says, these trees differ in no re-
spect from those of Ceylon, excepting that
the scent is stronger, and the flavour hotter.
He adds, that these cinnamon-trees are
about the size of orange-trees, and have
many long straight branches, whose leaves
have some analogy to those of the laurel.
This tree bears a white well-scented flower,
followed by a fruit of the size of an acorn,
but which is not much regarded except by
the birds. A kind of pigeon that feeds on
this fruit, is the chief agent in propagating
these trees in Ceylon; for, in carrying the
fruit to a distance to its young, it often drops
it in various places, where it takes root.

NievhofF says, it is the nature of these
trees to renew their bark in about three years,
when they may be peeled a second time; but
it appears to be the present practice in Cey-
lon to cut the trees down to the root as
soon as they are barked, and from the trunk
new shoots spring up, which in five or six
years become trees fit for barking. When the
cinnamon is freshly taken from the tree, it is
flat, and has little taste, smell, or colour ; but

154 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

it twists or convolves, as it dries, into the
form of a hollow stick or cane, and by thus
exhaling its superfluous humidity, it ac-
quires a sweet brisk smell, and a sharp pun-
gent taste. Some of the trees produce a
blossom as red as scarlet; and Seba tells us,
that he has found them with a blue flower.

The blossoms of the cinnamon are small,
and generally white; they grow in large
bunches at the extremity of the branches ;
their perfume is something like that of the
lily of the valley. The leaf is longer and nar-
rower than that of the common bay-tree; the
body grows to twenty or thirty feet in height.

The fruit or berries are said to be an
excellent carminative. When boiled in water,
they yield an oil, which, as it cools, hardens,
and becomes as white and firm as tallow, and
is called cinnamon wax, of which they made
candles, that were only allowed to be burnt
in the king's palace.

When the Dutch possessed Ceylon, they
were so jealous of these trees, which afforded
them such a valuable article of commerce,
that the fruit and young plants were forbid-
den, by an order of the States, to be sent
from thence, lest other powers should avail

CINNAMON. 153

themselves of the advantages derived from
them. They destroyed all the cinnamon
trees about the kingdom of Cochin, and
thus for a long time kept the whole of this
aromatic spice in their own hands, and ex-
clusively supplied all Europe, in the same
manner as the eastern nations were anciently
served by the Gebanites.

Cinnamon is now understood to be that
which comes only from Ceylon; that brought
from Java, Sumatra, and Malabar, being
considered cassia. NievhofF says, these trees
grow in such abundance in Ceylon, that it
would more than supply all the world, if
the inhabitants of that island were not some-
times to burn whole woods.

We presume, likewise, that cinnamon is
much less in demand now than in ancient
times, when it was so much used at the altars
and the funeral piles, as well as by those
nations which embalmed their dead.

Bauhine writes, in the sixteenth century,
" that the powder called the Pulvis Ducis
is used by many, which consists of cinnamon
and sugar; and is of so grateful a taste,
that, with an addition of wine, it is used as a
sauce in the entertainments of grandees,

156 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

whose luxury is (says he) grown to such an
exorbitant height, that they use the most
delicious medicines as common aliments."

The best cinnamon is of a bright brown
colour, of a brisk agreeable taste. Its quali-
ties are to heat and to dry, to fortify the spi-
rits, and to help digestion ; but its principal
use in medicine is as an astringent, with which
intention it is prescribed in diarrhoeas, and
weaknesses of the stomach. It is much used
for adding a grateful and agreeable taste to
various kinds of aliments, principally by boil-
ing it among them. Bauhine expressly af-
firms, that whatever virtues the ancients as-
cribed to their Cinnamomum and Cassia, justly
belong to our cinnamon, since it is of an
aromatic, stimulating, and corroborating qua-
lity. Hence it is classed among the stoma-
chics and uterine medicines, and affords sin-
gular relief to women afflicted with a loss of
strength, or a lax state of the fibres. In a
word, whatever can be said of the use or abuse
of aromatics, may be justly applied to cinna-
mon ; for, according to Boerhaave, in his
Chim. vol. i. cinnamon, the most excellent of
all other aromatics, is possessed of the same
common virtues with them, though in a
higher degree.

CINNAMON. 157

Its taste is exquisitely grateful, and its
smell so highly fragrant, that it diffuses itself
not only over all the island of Ceylon, but
also, when the winds blow from the land, over
a large tract of the ocean ; so that, according
to Jurgen Anderstn, quoted by Dexbachius,
" the sailors are sensible of the smell of cin-
namon at six or eight miles distance from the
shore."

Cinnamon mixed with honey, and used as
an ointment, is said to remove freckles and
other cutaneous blemishes of the face.

An oil is extracted from this bark, called
the essence of cinnamon, which is an excel-
lent cardiac. The Chinese, as well as the
islanders of Ceylon, distil from the green
bark and flowers of this tree, a liquor similar
to our cinnamon water, which is applied to
several useful purposes.

The cinnamon-tree was first cultivated in
this country in the year 1768.

158 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

COTTON.— GOSSYPIUM.

Natural order, Malvacece, or Columniferce.
A genus of the Monadelphia Polyandria
class.

We are not able to discover on what ac-
count the Greeks named this plant Hvhov and
Too-aiTiov, Xylum and Gossipium. Serapio calls
it Coto, from whence we seem to have derived
the English word Cotton.

There are six distinct species of this plant
now discovered; the most common and im-
portant of which is the Xylon herbaceum, or
herby cotton. The vegetable floss is formed
in the interior of the blossom of the plant,
and surrounds and intermixes with the seeds,
when the petals decay.

The cotton down, which is of a nature be-
tween wool, silk, and flax, now forms a
principal branch of a tree that is happily
cultivated in this country; and lest it should
be forgotten, that Commerce is not an indi-
genous plant of England, we will venture to

COTTON. 159

remind the reader, that it is an exotic of the
most tender nature, that requires the con-
tinual care and attention of man to ensure
its growth.

There has seldom been more than one
large plant known to exist in an age: this,
when destroyed, gives rise to its cultivation
in some distant part of the globe, where its
blossoms beautify, and its fruit enriches the
country that nourishes it. Commerce is a
native of no particular country, and only
thrives in a soil that is manured by honour,
equity, and justice. The wisest monarchs
have nourished it, and the best servants of
thrones have protected it. The Kings of
Tyre planted it by the water, and it made
their city a great nation, and their merchant-
men, princes. " By thy great wisdom and
thy traffic, hast thou increased thy riches."*

Solomon obtained a branch of this plant
from Tyre, through which he made himself
the richest monarch of the universe, and his
little kingdom the admiration of the world.
Alexander sowed its seed in the city to
which he gave his own name, and Constan-
tine transplanted it into Constantinople. Ed-
ward the First planted it on the banks of the

# Ezekiel.

160 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Thames about the year 1296. It was then a
small plant cultivated only by the Hamburgh
Company. Elizabeth lived to see it blos-
som through the nourishment which her en-
lightened mind procured, not only from the
original soil of the Levant, but from the east-
ern and the newly discovered western world,
as well as from the north. The succeeding
reigns have enjoyed the fruit, except when
it has been blighted by intestine troubles, or
cankered by monopoly ; a disease that stints
the growth, and nourishes caterpillars.

But, to leave allegory and ideal plants, we
travel into the land of Ham, from whence
the Gossipium plant originated. It is sup-
posed that anciently it grew only in Upper
Egypt ; but on this we cannot decide so po-
sitively as we can affirm that the Egyptians
were the people who first made cloth from
cotton wool.

The Israelites, who must have learnt the
art while in bondage, in all probability were
the first who cultivated this plant in the land
of Canaan.

From Arabia it would naturally travel
towards China, through all the countries that
lie below the 40th degree of north latitude;
but, as a species of the cotton plant has

COTTON. 101

been found in the same latitude in America,
it confirms the opinion that most plants
spring spontaneously within a given distance
of the Poles, and that their varieties originate
from the nature of the soil, or accidental im-
pregnation from plants of a similar species.

The Phoenicians, who were the fathers of
trade, and the Greeks, who were the sons of
art, would, from their intercourse with Egypt,
transplant the Gossypiurn to their own isles.

Pliny says, in his Natural History*, that in
the higher parts of Egypt, towards Arabia,
there grows a shrub or bush that produces
cotton, which is called by some Gossypiurn,
and by others Xylon. He says, the plant is
small, and bears a fruit resembling the bearded
nut or filbert, out of the inner shell or husk
of which the downy cotton breaks forth,
which is easily spun, and is superior, for
whiteness and softness, to any flax in the
world. Of this cotton, he adds, the Egyptian
priests of old times delighted to have their
sacred robes made. This cloth was called
Xylina. The same author informs usf, that
in an island in the Persian gulf, there were
cotton-trees that produced fruit as large

# Book xix. c. 1. f Book xii. c. 10 8c 11.

VOL. I. M

162 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

as quinces, which opened when ripe, and
were full of down, from which was made fine
and costly cloth like linen ; and that in an
island in the same gulf, called Tylos, there
was another kind of cotton tree, called Gossam-
pines, that was very productive. Theophras-
tus also mentions these trees #, which we
presume to be the Arbor turn, or tree cotton,
and which seem also the same that Virgil
notices :

" Or Ethiopian forests, bearing wool,

Or leaves from whence the Seres fleeces pull."

This species is a perennial plant or shrub,
and was cultivated as a curiosity in this
country as long back as 1694.

Nievhoff, who was in China in the year
1655, says, cotton grows in great abundance
in that country, and was then one of the
principal articles of its trade. The seeds
had been introduced into that empire about
500 years previously. Siam produces the
most beautiful cotton ; hose and other arti-
cles, manufactured from this down, exceeding
even silk for lustre and beauty. The seed
of this silky cotton has been sown in the
Antilles, where the plants flourish, and yield
this delicate floss in abundance.

* Book iv. c. 9.

COTTON. 1()3

The Turks have long had possession of
that part of the Eastern world from whence
the common cotton springs. They cultivate
this annual plant in the neighbourhood of
Damascus and Jerusalem, as also in the Isle
of Cyprus. It is likewise cultivated in Can-
dia, Lemnos, Malta, Sicily, and Naples. This
variety of the cotton plant is sown in the
spring, on land that has been ploughed
and prepared for the purpose; and is cut
down when ripe, in the same manner as
our harvest. The seed of the cotton is
about the size of that of tares, and of rather
a clammy nature, which causes it to adhere
to the downy substance with which it is
mixed, and from which it is separated by
the little machines, which discharge the seed
on one side, and the cotton on the other.
Smyrna alone has furnished us with 10,000
bales of cotton wool per annum. This coun-
try formerly took great quantities of cotton-
yarn from the Turks ; but our manufactories
are now so complete, that even the spinning
is done by machinery, which enables us to
get it turned into thread, both more regu-
larly and cheaper than the indolence of
the Turks can furnish it ; but we still import
some cotton-yarn from the Mahometans,

M 2

164 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

which, being drawn from the distaff, has great
advantage over the yarn which is spun by
machinery for making candle-wicks, par-
ticularly those of sperm and wax, as the
fine threads being drawn straighter, are not
so liable to spring out in burning, which
causes the candles made of other cotton to
gutter and burn irregularly.

It appears that we had made some pro-
gress in the manufactory of cotton in Queen
Elizabeth's reign, as Gerard observes in his
History of Plants, " To speake of the com-
modities of the wool of this plant, it were
superfluous ; common experience, and the
daily vse and benefit we receive by it, doth
shew ; so that it were impertinent to our
history, to speake of the making of fustian,
bombasies, and many other things that are
made of the wooll thereof."

This author appears to have been the first
who attempted to cultivate the Gossipium
plant in England, for he says that, " it grow-
eth about Tripolis and Alepo in Syria, from
whence the factor of a worshipful merchant
in London, Master Nicholas Lete, did send j
vnto his said master diuers pounds weight '
of the seede, whereof some were committed !

COTTON. 165

to the earth at the impression hereof: the
success we leave to the Lord. Notwith-
standing, my selfe, three yeares past, did
sowe of the seedes, which did grow very
frankly, but perished before it came to per-
fection, by reason of the colde frostes that
overtooke it in the time of flo wring."

The cotton manufactory alone has raised
Manchester from an humble town to a place
of the first importance. It has for near
two centuries been increasing in size and
in trade; and the perfection to which ovir
machinery and the industry of the people
have arrived, within these last fifty years,
has multiplied the inhabitants, and increased
the trade from the supply of its neighbour-
hood with a few domestic articles, to fur-
nishing the most distant countries, as well as
the most sumptuous courts, with its useful
and elegant productions.

Calico, or cotton cloth, is now generally
become a substitute for linen cloth through-
out the kingdom, not only for the finer parts
of female dress, but even for domestic pur-
poses, where strength and durability are re-
quired. Calico is so called from Callicut,
a city on the coast of Malabar, being the

166 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

first place at which the Portuguese landed
when they discovered the Indian trade. The
Spaniards still call it C allien.

The demand for printed calicoes becoming
common, induced some persons to attempt
the art in London, about the year 1676; and
in 1722, an act was passed to promote the
consumption of our own manufactures, which
prohibited the use of foreign calicoes, that
were either dyed or printed, to be used as
apparel or furniture, under a penalty of five
pounds to the informer for every offence ;
and drapers selling such calico, forfeited
twenty pounds.* The effect of this act was
this : it drove the calico printers to imitate
the India chintzes, by printing Irish and
Scotch linens ; which was continued until
the making of cloth from cotton was estab-
lished in England.

The manufacture of calicoes and muslins
of every description, with that of velvets, fus-
tians, counterpanes, &c. is now carried on to
such an extent, and brought to such perfec-
tion, that it is supposed that the neighbour-
hood of Manchester could supply the whole

#

7 Geo. I. Stat. i. cap. 7.

COTTON. 167

world with these goods ; which, instead of
being imported from the East, are at present
shipped for the Indies in great quantities. By
the aid of our machinery we also produce
from cotton, lace of so even a fabric, and at
prices so infinitely below what it can be made
for in linen thread, that it has in a great
measure superseded the use of real lace.

Manchester, being the centre and heart of
the cotton-trade, has either given birth to, or
attracted genius from all quarters of the nation,
to assist in the necessary operations for form-
ing fabrics as numerous as their embellishing
colours are various, in which the arts of the
engineer, the mechanic, and the artist, as well
as the spinner, the weaver, the bleacher, the
dyer, the stainer, and the chemist, are all
called into action.

This vegetable wool, that employs so great
a portion of our population, is imported in a
raw useless state, and is advantageously ex-
ported, after being stamped with British art
and industry.

The following account of a pound weight
of unmanufactured cotton strikingly evinces
the importance of the trade and employ af-
forded by this vegetable : " The cotton-wool

168 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

eame from the East Indies to London ; from
London it went to Manchester, where it was
manufactured into yarn ; from Manchester it
was sent to Paisley, where it was woven ; it
was then sent to Ayrshire, where it was tam-
boured ; it came back to Paisley, and was
there veined; afterwards it was sent to Dum-
barton, where it was hand-sewed, and again
brought to Paisley ; whence it was sent to
Renfrew to be bleached, and was returned to
Paisley ; whence it went to Glasgow and was
finished; and from Glasgow was sent per
coach to London. The time occupied in
bringing this article to market was three
years, from its being packed in India till it ar-
rived in cloth at the merchant's warehouse in
London : it must have been conveyed 5000
miles by sea, and about 920 by land; and con-
tributed to support not less than 150 people,
by which the value had been increased 2000
per cent."*

So wide and so beneficially is the influence
of the cotton-trade spread, that, to the know-
ledge of the author of this work, one indivi-
dual in the metropolis pays annually from
ten to twelve thousand pounds for the article

* Monthly Magazine.

COTTON. 169

of silver-gilt wire, which he prepares lor the
manufacturers of Paisley, to be woven in the
corner of each demy of muslin, in imitation
of the Indian custom.

The cotton-wool is not only used for ge-
nuine articles, but is employed to adulterate,
or as a substitute for silk; and even many of
our linen cloths have a considerable portion
of cotton in their composition.

Cotton cloth, like that of linen, when de-
cayed, is transformed into paper for printing.

The seed of the cotton-plant intoxicates
parrots. Old medical authors mention the
seeds as being a good remedy against coughs,
and of a singularly stimulating quality.

Leewenhoek accounts for cotton producing
inflammation, when applied to wounds in lieu
of linen, by a discovery which he made in
examining the cotton with a microscope.
The fibres were found to have two flat sides,
whence he concludes that each of its minute
parts must have two acute angles or edges ;
which acute edges being not only thinner
and more subtle than the globules, whereof
the fleshy filaments consist, but also more
firm and stiff than any of the globulous flesh,
it follows that, upon the application of cot-
ton to a wound, its edges must not only

170 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

hurt and wound the globules of the flesh, but
also cut incessantly the new matter brought
to them to produce new flesh ; and that with
more ease, as this matter, not having attained
the firmness and consistence of flesh, is the
less able to resist its attacks ; whereas the
linen ordinarily used in wounds, being com-
posed of little round parts, very close to each
other, forms large masses, and is thus inca-
pable of hurting the globular parts of the
flesh.

171

EARTH or GROUND NUT.— BUNIUM.

Natural order, Umbellatce. Bulbocastanum. A
genus of the Pentandria Digynia class.

There are two species of this plant indi-
genous to our soil, although they are now as
little known to the English, as the Arachis
of South America.

The general inclosures, and the high state
of the cultivation of our country, have made
many of our wild plants as rare as exotics.

They have changed their English name
almost with every British herbist, and have
been nearly as often latinized ; but we do not
find that any attempt has been made in this
country to change their nature by cultivation.

In addition to the names above, they are
called Kipper nuts, Earth Chesnuts, and Pig
nuts.

" I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts.v*

Turner mentions them in his " Compleat

* Caliban, in the Tempest.

172 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Herbal' as growing in Richmond heath, and
in Coome parke. They are soon after noticed
by Gerard, who says, "These herbes do growe
in pastures and corne fleldes almost euery
where : there is a field adjoining to Highgate,
on the right side of the middle of the village,
couered ouer with the same ; and likewise in
the next flelde vnto the conduit heads by
Maribone, neer the way that leadeth to
Paddington by London, and in diuers other
places." He adds, " these roots be eaten
rawe, or rosted in the embers."

Dodoens, who was physician to Charles
the Fifth, of celebrated memory, mentions in
his Herbal, that there is great store of these
earth-nuts in some places in England ; he
says also, that they grow in Holland and in
Zealand, particularly by the river Zoom near
Barrow, in Brabant. This author informs us
that they were cultivated at Brabant, in the
gardens of the herbalist ; and that they were
boiled in many parts of Holland and Zealand,
and eaten with meat as turnips or parsnips :
they are, says this physician, as nutritious as
the latter roots, but harder of digestion than
the turnip. Both this author and Gerard
mention earth-nuts as an excellent diuretic,
and good for the bladder and kidneys. The

EARTH OR GROUND NUT. 173

seeds of the plant are more powerful as a
medicine than the roots.

They are to be found in considerable
quantities at Henfleld in Sussex, growing in
a poor sandy soil, which produced broom
spontaneously ; particularly in July and Au-
gust when they are in blossom : the flowers
are like those of parsley or fennel, but smaller,
and seldom exceeding a foot in height ; the
leaves are something between those two
plants ; being less thready than the fennel,
and not so connected as the parsley. The
root is about the size of a Barcelona nut, and
in appearance like the Jerusalem artichoke ;
the taste very similar to the chesnut, but
more oily.

The American ground-nut, or Pindars,
Arachis, is of the order of Papilionacece, and
of the Diadelphia Decandria class.

The manner in which this nut is propa-
gated is very singular : as the flowers fall off,
the young pods are forced into the ground
by a natural motion of the stalk, where they
are entirely buried, and the pods are not to
be discovered without digging for them.
They are, says Lunan, very agreeable nuts,
and deserve to be more generally cultivated

174 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

than they are ; when roasted, ground, and
boiled, they make a good substitute for cho-
colate. This author says, in his Hortus
Jamaicensis, that he first saw them growing
in a negro's plantation, who affirmed, that
they grew in great plenty in his country ;
these nuts have been cultivated in Jamaica,
where they prosper, and are called Gub-a-gubs
by the slaves.

They are of the size, colour, and shape
of a filbert, are covered over in the ground
with a thin cistus or skin, which contains two
or three of them, and many of the cistuses,
with their nuts or kernels, are to be found
growing to the roots of one plant. When
they are ripe and fit to dig up, the cistus
that contains them is dry, like a withered
leaf, which is taken off, and leaves a kernel
reddish without side, and very white within,
tasting like an almond, and accounted by
some as good as a pistachio ; they are very
nourishing, and accounted provocatives. It
is said, that if eaten in quantities, these nuts
cause the head-ache. Lunan contradicts this
assertion, and says he never knew any such ef-
fect produced, even in those who chiefly lived
upon them ; for masters of ships often feed
negroes with them all their voyage ; and that

EARTH OR GROUND NUT. 175

he had often eaten of them plentifully, and
with pleasure, and never found that effect.
They may be eaten raw, roasted, or boiled.
The oil drawn from them by expression is as
good as oil of almonds ; and the nut beaten
and applied as a poultice, takes away the
sting of scorpions, wasps, or bees.

These plants were first brought from
Africa to the West India islands. In south-
ern climates vast crops of these nuts are
said to be produced from light, sandy, and
indifferent soils.

Dr. Brownrigg, of North Carolina, trans-
mitted some account of the value of these
nuts to the Royal Society. From a quantity
of them, first bruised, and put into canvass
bags, he expressed a pure, clear, well-tasted
oil, useful for the same purposes as the oil of
olive or almonds.

From specimens, both of the seeds and oil,
produced before the Society, it appeared,
that neither of them were subject to turn
rancid by keeping. The oil, in particular,
which had been sent from Carolina eight
months before, without any extraordinary
care, and had undergone the heat of the
summer, remained perfectly sweet and good.

A bushel of them yielded (in Carolina),

176 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

without heat, one gallon of oil ; and with
heat, a much larger quantity, but of inferior
quality. It has been justly supposed, that?
from a successful prosecution of this manu-
facture, the Colonies may not only be able
to supply their own consumption, in lieu of
the olive oil annually imported from Europe,
but even make it a considerable article of
export.

177

EGG PLANT, on VEGETABLE EGG.
— MELONGENA.

Natural order, Luridce. A genus of the
Pentandria Monogynia class.

This plant is a species of Solatium, or
night-shade, of which there are at least
sixty-six species. It is a native of the East
Indies, and has acquired its present English
name from the shape and appearance of its
fruit, which is attached to the stem, and set
in a cornered cup similar to the berry of
the potatoe ; those that are white, perfectly
resemble an egg, from the size of that of a
pigeon to a swan's. Some of the varieties
bear fruit of a purple or violet colour, others
variegated. These vegetable eggs have one
cell filled with compressed roundish seeds.

They were formerly called Mala insana,
viz. mad or raging apples, from the resem-
blance they were supposed to bear to the
male mandrake of Theophrastus, which is
stated to have caused madness; whereas, in
reality, they cause no ill, nor excite any syr.ip-

VOL. I. N

178 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

toms of madness, but are used by the Italians,
Spaniards, and French, in their sauces and
sweetmeats. In these countries, as well as
in Barbary, they are planted in the kitchen-
garden, and are often boiled with fat flesh,
to which they add scraped cheese ; and they
are preserved through the winter, either in
honey, vinegar, or salt pickle. When the
fruit is just ripe, they eat it dressed with
spices, &c. It is thought to be the Bdingel
of the Portuguese, the Tongu of Angola, and
the Macumba of Congo. This plant has
been supposed to induce a sopor and mad-
ness, whence it takes its name.*

There are several varieties of them culti-
vated in the gardens of the West Indies, and
one kind, called Badinjan or Banjham, often
produces fruit in that climate weighing
from seven to ten pounds each. Lunan says,
in his Hortus Jamaicensis, " I planted, about
twenty years ago, half an acre of ground with
them, on which my slaves fed, and were well
pleased with the food ; they eat something
like a squash, but better than any of the
pumpkin kind." He adds, " they are boiled
or fried ; but the best way is to parboil them,
taking off their outer skin, which is somewhat

# Hist. Plant, adscript. Boerhaave.

EGG PLANT. 179

bitter, and then fry them in oil or butter;
they are also sliced and pickled for a few
hours, and then boiled green, or served in the
same manner as mashed turnips ; either way,"
says Lunan, " they are an agreeable food, and
accounted to be aphrodisiac, and to cure
sterility : when boiled with wine and pepper,
they taste like artichokes." A lady who has
many years resided in Jamaica, favoured the
author with the following receipt for dress-
ing vegetable eggs : — The inside, after being
scooped out, to be fried either in oil or but-
ter, and the outside to be boiled whole, and
when drained, to be filled with the fried
parts, and sent to table apparently whole,
as a dish of eggs. She informed him, that
when dressed in the common way, they
should be cut into slices, and soaked in salt
and water for a few hours, to extract the
bitter taste.

The French make great use of the purple
variety of this egg-shaped fruit, which they
call Aubergine, and which is as common as
the love-apple in the vegetable markets of
Paris. Their favourite method of dressing
them, is by taking out the seeds with a scoop,
filling the cavity with sweet herbs, and then
frying them whole.

180 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

In England, the egg plant is principally
cultivated for its singular and curious appear-
ance, few families even knowing that they
are proper for aliment, excepting those who
have resided on the Continent, or who have
studied the natural history of plants. They
are rarely brought into the London markets,
and then so eagerly secured by foreign cooks,
that they are seldom seen exposed for sale.

The manner of propagating them, in this
country, is to sow the seeds in March, upon
a moderately hot bed ; and when the plants
are come up, they are to be thinned by
planting them in another hot-bed, at four
inches asunder, watering, and shading them
till they have taken root. They must after-
wards have as much air as the season will
allow, and in May they should be trans-
planted into a warm border, at about two
feet from each other. About the middle of
July the fruit will appear, when they require
watering to enlarge the eggs, which ripen
about the end of August.*

It is not exactly known at what period
this plant was first cultivated in England,
but certainly it was previous to 1596, as

* Miller.

EGG PLANT. 1 8 1

Gerard says, in the first edition of his Herbal,
" This plant groweth in Egypt almost euery-
where, in sandie fieldes, euen of itselfe,
bringing foorth fruite of the bigness of a
great cucumber. We haue had the same in
our London gardens, where it hath borne
flowers, but the winter approaching before
the time of ripening, it perished ; notwith-
standing it came to beare fruite of the bigness
of a goose egge, one extraordinarie tempe-
rate yeere, as I did see in the garden of a
worshipfull merchant, Master Haruie, in
Lime-street, but neuer to full ripeness."
" It is better," continues this author, " to
haue this plante in the garden, for your
pleasure, and the rarenesse thereof, than for
any virtue or good qualities yet known. I
rather wish Englishmen to content them-
selues with the meate and sauce of our own
countrey, than with fruite and sauce eaten
with such perill : for, doubtless, these apples
have a mischeeuous quality ; the use thereof
is vtterly to be forsaken."

With this caution, we cannot be surprised
that the Melongena should have been in our
gardens for two hundred and twenty years
without reaching our tables.

182

FENNEL.— FCENICULUM.

Natural order, Umbellatce. A genus of the
Pentandria Digynia class. Linnaus has
joined this genus to Anethum or DHL

" Sylvanus comes with rustic honours crown'd,
Fennel and lilies do his brows surround."

Virgil.

Foeniculum, Metpa&fpv, seems to be derived
from f allium, hay ; because, when withered
and dried like hay, it was formerly preserved
in like manner against winter. Others think
it was so called because when sown it returns
the seed magno cum fanore, with vast in-
terest. Marathrum, Ma'paS^or, is by some
derived from ^.aja/Vo^a/, to wither, because,
when dry and withered, it was much used in
seasoning a great variety of things.

The French writers on herbs state, that this
plant was originally brought from Syria ; but
the English botanists consider it a native of
this country.

FENNEL. 183

It seems fond of the sea side, and is found
growing in a natural state at Feversham in
Kent. It may also be seen growing wild in
great abundance on the banks of the river
Adur, near the Sussex Pad, between Brigh-
ton and Worthing : this wild fennel is pre-
cisely the same as that of the garden. The
sweet fennel, Faniculum dulce, probably is the
kind alluded to by the naturalists of France
as coming from Syria and the Azores : this
variety soon degenerates in our soil into the
common fennel, which justifies the supposi-
tion, that the common fennel may not be an
aboriginal of England, but that it is more
probably changed from the seed anciently
sown in this country.

The Italians consider the sweet kind of
fennel to be a native of the Azores islands.
It has long been cultivated in Italy as a salad
herb, under the title of Finochia; but the
English in general have not yet acquired a
relish for it ; although it eats very tender
and crisp, when earthed up as celery, which
should be done at least fourteen days before
it is used.

We procure the seed from Italy, which
should be done annually. The first crop

184 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

may be sown in March, in a light rich earth,
the second in April, and continued until
July, with the same management as celery.

The common fennel is now but little used
for culinary purposes, except as a sauce for
mackarel. The French epicures keep their
fish in the leaves of fennel, to make them
firm. It is also used in France in water-
suche, and all fish soups.

The whole of the plant is good in soup or
broth. It was formerly the practice to boil
fennel with all fish, and it never would have
been discontinued, had its virtues been more
generally known; for it consumes the phleg-
matic humour, in which most fish abound,
and which greatly annoys many persons who
are fond of boiled fish. Our fishmongers
should at all times have a plentiful supply of
this hardy and wholesome herb, every part
of which agrees with the stomach.

It is one of the five opening roots : it is
recommended in broth to cleanse the blood,
and remove obstructions of the liver, and to
clear and improve the complexion after the
jaundice, and other sickness.

The seed is one of the greater carmina-
tive seeds; and, boiled in barley- water, is good

FENNEL. 185

for nurses, as it is said to increase milk and
make it more wholesome for the child— a virtue
attributed also to the leaves. The seeds are
also recommended for those who are troubled
with shortness of breath, and wheezzing, oc-
casioned by stoppage of the lungs. Its
leaves in decoction strengthen the sight ; its
juice, taken fasting, is said to cure intermit-
tent fevers. It is a sudorific and carmina-
tive, facilitates digestion when chewed ; and
is a specific in malignant putrid fevers.

There is a simple water made from the
leaves, and an essential oil from the seed and
leaves. Neumann says, " The oil obtained
from the leaves on the upper part of the
plant is much finer, lighter, and more subtle,
than the oil obtained from the lower leaves.
The former oil swims on water, and the latter
sinks. There is also a strong water, or kind
of brandy, made of the seeds of fennel, called
fennel water.

Snakes and serpents delight in fennel, and
seem to eat it medicinally before they cast off
their old skins. Pliny says, the ancient phy-
sicians observed that the serpents, having
wounded the fennel stalk, cleared their eyes
with the juice, and whereby they learnt that

186 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

this herb hath the singular property of cleans-
ing our sight, and taking away the film or
web from our eyes : he adds, that the only
time to obtain the juice is when the stalk is
nearly full grown : it was administered with
honey.

Induced by these observations, the author
planted fennel on a bank in his shrubbery,
where he had frequently seen snakes ; but for
want of that time and caution, which it re-
quires to watch these reptiles, he has never
seen them bite this herb, but has often found
the stalks not only wounded, but eaten near-
ly half through, either by these, or some
other animals.

The Romans drank the seeds of fennel in
wine, as a remedy for the sting of scorpions
or serpents. They considered this vegetable
as a sovereign remedy for the liver. The
root boiled in wine was esteemed for the drop-
sy, as were the seeds for the stone and gravel.

Petridtus, in his work entitled Ophiaca,
Mycton, in his treatise named Rhizotomu-
mena, and Nicander, maintain, that there is
not a better counterpoison against the venom
of serpents than wild fennel.

In putrid fevers, attended with a malig-

FENNEL. 187

nity, we shall hardly find a plant more aperi-
tive and discussive, by means of sweat, than
fennel ; whence nothing can be more proper
in the small-pox and measles, than a decoc-
tion of the herb, or its seeds or roots*. Ray
says, fennel is excellent for preventing abor-
tions.

Joannes Crats, physician to the Emperor
of Germany, says, he saw a monk, who was
cured by his tutor, in nine days, of a cata-
ract, by only applying the roots of fennel,
boiled in wine, with the decoction, to the
eyes.

It is also said, that the steam of the de-
coction of fennel is an excellent cleanser
for the eyes, and that it strengthens the
sight.

Boerhaave says, that this root agrees in
taste, smell, and medicinal quality, with the
celebrated ginseng of the Chinese; from
which, however, it appears to differ very
considerably.

Pliny states, that fennel was cultivated as
a garden herb by the Romans, and that it
was so much used in the kitchen, that there
were few meats seasoned, or vinegar sauces

* Sim. PauW.

188 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

served-up, without it. That the bakers
used it to give a pleasant taste to their
bread, by placing it under their loaves, when
they were put into the oven. A good house-
wife, says this excellent author, will go into
her herb garden, instead of a spice-shop, for
her seasonings, and thus preserve the health
of her family, by saving her purse.

189

FLAX, or LINE.— LINUM.

Natural order, Grecinales. A genus of the
Pentandria Pentagynia class.

The Greeks called this vegetable Alvov,
and the Latins had no other name for it than
Linum, both in its growing state and when
prepared for the spinner ; hence the Italians
and Spaniards have derived the word Lino ;
and the French, Lin. The ancient Britons
called it Lyne from the same source. The
word Flax is derived from the Saxon Fleax\ or
Flex; but we still term it Linseed and Linen
cloth, although when speaking of the plant
we call it Flax.

We know twenty-two species of linum,
four of which are said to be indigenous to
our soil.

The flax is scarcely superior in appearance
to the common grass ; yet on no other vege-
table has the ingenuity of man been so ex-
tensively employed, or exerted with such
success.

190 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Without the aid of flax, this island might
have remained unknown and unpeopled. Its
assistance enabled the European sailor to
discover a new world, and people to whom
we must have remained strangers but for the
fibres of this herb, and from whose territories
we have since enriched our isle with the
most useful roots, the most luxurious fruits,
and ornamental plants. It was with flax that
we first made wings to our vessels, with
which we travelled with the swiftness of the
eagle, and extended our commerce to the
most distant parts of the globe.

Daedalus is said to have been the inventor
of sails for ships, by which he fled from Crete,
to escape from the revenge of the incensed
Minos, who had condemned him to be con-
fined in the labyrinth which he had con-
structed. Daedalus arrived safe in Sicily,
where he was hospitably received by Cocalus,
king of that island. From this circumstance
the ancient allegory states, that he made
himself wings. This was at least 1350 years
before Christ ; and we find that sails were
certainly used before Homers time, who says

the winds aloud

one wmus aiuuu

Howl o'er the niasts, and sing through every shroud.'

FLAX, OR LINE. 191

At that period the use of hemp was not dis-
covered.

Flax is a slender plant, that seldom exceeds
two feet and a half in height. From its
fibrous bark we procure the comfort of linen,
and the beauty of lace ; its very rags are
manufactured into the most exquisite of all
our luxuries, viz. the paper that enables
distant friends to hold converse, and commu-
nicates the wisdom of the learned of every
age and language.

How the fibrous qualities of this plant
were first discovered, it is beyond the powers
of research to ascertain ; probably the ear-
liest use of this pliable plant was to twist
into bands for the purpose of attaching pro-
ductive vines to unfruitful trees. Thus
Milton describes the employment of our first
parents :

" or they led the vine

To wed her elm ; she 'spoused, about him twines

Her marriageable arms, and with her brings

Her dower, adopted clusters, to adorn

His barren leaves."

Book 5.

As man multiplied, the necessity of en-
snaring wild animals and securing domes-
tic ones, would naturally call his attention
to the formation of a cord ; and when once a

192 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

band was formed of the whole plant, it would
easily be discovered that the fibres were the
part that afforded the strength.

When New Holland was first discovered,
it was observed that the natives, who sub-
sisted principally on fish, had invented a
kind of net made of the fibres of flax, by in-
serting the loops into each other without a
knot ; yet these people had not the least idea
of forming a covering, even to protect them-
selves from the inclemency of the weather,
and were so barbarously ignorant as not to
have the least knowledge of the art of culti-
vating plants or fruits of any description.

The making and use of linen cloth ap-
pears to have been invented previously to
the Deluge, as we read that Noah slept in
a tent.*

Egypt, which appears to be the country
that Ham, the second son of Noah, resorted
to, from its being called in Scripture, the
Land of Ham, soon became the garden of
the East, and the seat of arts.

" Israel also came into Egypt, and Jacob
sojourned in the Land of Ham."-f*

Ham is supposed to have led a pastoral
life, but his son Misraim, who is mentioned

# Gen. c. ix. v. 21 f Psalm cv. v. 23.

FLAX, OR LINE. 1}).)

in profane history by the appellation of
Men£s, assumed the style of king, and built
the town of Memphis. His wife Lsis, whom
some suppose to be the same as Io, is said to
have taught the art of agriculture, and em-
ployed herself diligently in cultivating the
earth, for which she was deified, and the
worship of lsis became universal in Egypt.
The priests of this goddess were clothed
in linen garments.

About 300 years after the flood, Abram
and his family went into Egypt to avoid the
famine ; and on their return the following
year, the book of Genesis notices, that Lot,
the nephew of Abram, had flocks and herds,
and tents.

Pharaoh arrayed Joseph in vestures of fine
linen ; and when Moses called down the
plague of hail upon Egypt, it destroyed the
flax.

" And the flax and the barley was smitten ;
for the barley was in the ear, and the flax
was boiled."*

That the art of weaving had attained a
wonderful perfection in Egypt in those days,
we learn both from profane and sacred
history.

* Exodus, c. ix. 31 .
vol. i. o

194- CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

The Israelites appear to have carried the
art with them when they were delivered
from bondage ; for they were commanded
in the wilderness to make offerings for the
tabernacle, of " blue, and purple, and scarlet,
and fine linen, and goats' hair."

" Thou shalt make the tabernacle with
ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue,
and purple, and scarlet ; with cherubims of
cunning work shalt thou make them."*

In the 28th chapter of the same book, we
have a description of the holy garments for
Aaron, which were of fine linen. " And thou
shalt embroider the coat of fine linen, and
thou shalt make the mitre of fine linen, and
thou shalt make the girdle of needle-work."

" And all the women that were wise-
hearted did spin with their hands, and
brought that which they had spun, both of
blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of
fine linen. And all the women, whose
heart stirred them up in wisdom, spun goats'
hair."-j'

Egypt continued to be celebrated as the
country of flax and linen in the days of
Solomon, whose merchants traded thither

* Exod. chap. xxvi. 1. f Exod. chap. xxxv. 25, 26.

FLAX, OR LINE. 195

nearly a thousand years after the time that
Abram visited that land.

" And Solomon had horses brought out
of Egypt, and linen yarn: the king's mer-
chants received linen yarn at a price." *

" I have decked my bed with coverings of
tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen
of Egypt."*f*

The prophet Isaiah notices this manufac-
ture of the Egyptians, about 250 years
later than Solomon. This prophet menaces
Egypt with a drought of so terrible a kind,
that it should interrupt every kind of labour.

" Moreover, they that work in fine flax,
they that weave net-works, shall be con-
founded, j"

Ezekiel the prophet, in his description of
the riches and the merchandize of Tyre,
speaks of the productions of Egypt, about
150 years after Isaiah.

" Fine linen with broidered work from
Egypt, was that which thou spreadedst
forth to be thy sail.§"

From the Egyptian linen, the principal
garments of the priests of the heathens,
as well as those of the Israelites, were formed.

* 1 Kings, chap. x. 28. f Proverbs, chap. vii. 16.

X Isaiah, chap. xix. 9. § Ezekiel, chap, xxvii. 7.

o 2

196 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

The Eastern kings and princes were also
habited in linen, therefore flax formed a con-
siderable branch of the trade of Egypt ; and
their method of making fine linen, was
carried to such a wonderful perfection, that
the threads which were drawn out of them
were almost imperceptible to the keenest
eye. Pliny states, that some of the thread
made from flax was finer and more even,
if possible, than the web of a spider, and
yet so strong, that it would give a sound
nearly as loud as a lute-string. This author
states in the first chapter of his nineteenth
book, that he had seen an Egyptian net
made of so fine a thread, that, notwithstand-
ing every cord in the mesh was made of
150 threads twisted, yet it could be drawn
through the ring of a finger. "I have known,"
says this writer, " one man who could carry
about as many of these nets, as would encom-
pass a whole forest." He adds, that Julius
Lupus, who was governor of Egypt, pos-
sessed one of these nets ; but that the most J
extraordinary net-work was that which was ;
shewn in the temple of Minerva, in the Isle
of Rhodes ; every thread of which was twisted ''
365 times double, agreeably to the number
of days in the year. This singularly curious ;

FLAX, OR LINE. If)/

piece of workmanship had formerly belonged
to Amasis, who from a common soldier be-
came King of Egypt, about 526 years before
the Christian aera.

The author has now in his possession a
piece of linen cloth, which was woven in
Egypt as long back as the Trojan war. It
will naturally be surmised, that it is a part
of the envelope of a mummy. In comparing
this cloth to that of our linen of the same
fineness, and examining them through a
microscope, it is observed, that the warp of
the ancient linen is not so close as that of
the present make, but that the woof is
pressed much closer : it would consequently
be more durable, wear softer, and be less
susceptible of soil, than modern linen
cloth.

The Athenians, who were an Egyptian
colony from Sais, followed the custom of
their ancestors, by applying themselves to
raising flax for linen cloth : they therefore
worshiped Minerva, who was also styled
Ergatis, or the workwoman, for her excel-
lency in spinning and weaving ; and who
is supposed to be no other than the Egyp-
tian Isis ; for the Egyptians, to remind the
people of the importance of their linen

198 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

manufactory, exposed in their festivals an
image, bearing in its right hand the beam
or instrument round which the weavers rolled
the warp of their cloth. This image was
called Minerva, from Manevra, a weaver's
loom. The name of Athene, that is also
given to this goddess, is the very word de-
noting in Egypt the flaxen thread used in
their looms. Near this figure, which was
intended to warn the inhabitants of the ap-
proach of the weaving or winter season, they
placed another of an insect, whose industry
is supposed to have given rise to this art,
and to which they gave the name of Arachne,
(from arach, to make linen cloth) to denote
its application. All these emblems, trans-
planted to Greece, were by the genius of a
people fond of the marvellous, converted
into real objects, and indeed afforded ample
room for the imagination of their poets to
invent the fable of the transformation of
Arachne into a spider. Ovid, who has set this
story in a beautiful light, says, Arachne was

" One at the loom so exquisitely skill'd,
That to the goddess she refused to yield.
Low was her birth, and small her native town,
She from her art alone obtained renown.

t£ $F ^p ^ 9r ^ ^

FLAX, OR LINE. l.()J)

" Oft to admire the niceness of her skill,

The nymphs would quit their fountain, shade, or hill."

After Minerva had accepted the challenge
of Arachne, the poet thus elegantly describes
their work :

" Straight to their posts appointed both repair,
And fix their threaded looms with equal care :
Around the solid beam the web is tied,
While hollow canes the parting warp divide ;
Through which with nimble flight the shuttles play,
And for the woof prepare a ready way ;
The woof and warp unite, press'd by the toothy slay.

Thus both, their mantles button'd to their breast,
Their skilful fingers ply with willing haste,
And work'd with pleasure : while they cheer the eye
With glowing purple of the Tyrian dye :
Or, justly intermixing shades with light,
Their colouring insensibly unite.
As when a shower transpierced with sunny rays
Its mighty arch along the heaven displays ;
From whence a thousand different colours rise,
Whose fine transition cheats the clearest eyes :
So like the intermingled shading seems,
And only differs in the last extremes.
Then threads of gold both artfully dispose,
And, as each part in just proportion rose,
Some antique fable in their work disclose."

The Greeks made a linen of so fine a
fabric, from the flax which they cultivated
near Elis, (now Belvedere,) that it sold by
weight, at the price of gold. This is the

200 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

flax which Pliny calls Byssus, and from which
a kind of lawn or tiffany was made. The
same author says, a flax is now found out
which will not consume in the fire ; this he
calls living flax, and says, he saw at a great
feast, all the table-cloths, napkins, and
towels, thrown into the fire, which received
a cleanness and lustre from the flames, which
no water could have given it. This kind of
cloth was used at the royal obsequies and
funerals, to wrap round the corpse as a
shroud or sheet, in order to preserve the
ashes of the body from mixing with those of
the wood of the funeral pile. Pliny adds,
that this flax grew in the deserts of India,
where the country is parched and burnt with
the sun : he says, it is difficult to be found,
and as hard to be woven, being in short fibres.
In its natural state, the colour was reddish,
but by burning it became bright : it was
esteemed as precious as oriental pearls. It
does not appear by this account, that the
Romans were acquainted with its being a
mineral substance.

The art of making this fossil linen is nearly
lost, although John Baptist Porta, the inven-
tor of the camera-obscura, assures us, that in
his time (from 1445 to 1515) the spinning of

FLAX, OR LINE. 201

asbestos was a thing known to every body
at Venice ; and it is said to be still in use by
the Princes of Tartary, in burning their dead.

A handkerchief made of this substance,
which Dr. Plot judges to be of a nature be-
tween stone and earth, was long since pre-
sented to the Royal Society of London.
This has given several proofs of its resisting
fire ; and when taken out red hot, it did
not burn a piece of white paper, on which it
was laid.

The asbestos is found in the island of An-
glesey in Wales, and in Aberdeenshire in
Scotland, in some parts of France, in Tar-
tary, Siberia, and several other places ; and
were there a demand for this incombustible
cloth, or a price given equal to the trouble of
manufacturing it, we should soon recover the
art, and have it on sale in the shops of our
metropolis.

But to return to flaxen linen : by looking
back into history we shall find, that it was
used for other purposes than garments at a
very early period ; for the stupendous tem-
ples of the heathens, and the courts of their
palaces in ancient times, were open buildings
surrounded with massive columns, and orna-
mented with gigantic statues of their gods,

202 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

and colossal figures of their inferior deities.
In these immense courts not only the inha-
bitants of a whole city, but often an entire
kingdom assembled, to celebrate a festival,
or to obey the mandate of their sovereign.
As the art of weaving became more known,
these gorgeous edifices were occasionally
hung with rich curtains of linen cloth, to
shade and protect the guest from the sun or
weather. The first chapter of the book of
Esther describes the feast which King Aha-
suerus gave in the third year of his reign
to all the princes and servants of the 127
provinces over which he reigned, from Ethi-
opia to India. This feast lasted 180 days,
at the expiration of which he feasted all
the people that were in Shusham, "both
great and small," for seven days, " in the
court of the garden of the king's palace,"
where were white, green, and blue hangings,
fastened with cords of fine linen and purple,
to silver rings and pillars of marble.

The Romans appear to have derived this
idea from the Egyptians, as Lentulus Spin-
ther was the first who caused the great am-
phitheatre at Rome to be covered with fine
curtains. This was about the period when
Antony was in Egypt ; and Pliny observes,

FLAX, OR LINE. 203

that the sails of the ship in which Antony
and Cleopatra came to Actium, were dyed
purple.

Julius Caesar caused the Forum at Rome
to be covered with fine curtains ; as also
the whole of the principal street called
Sacra, from his own dwelling to the cliff1 of
the Capitol. This sumptuous sight, says
Pliny, was beheld with great wonder and
admiration.

Marcellus, during his iEdileship, upon the
calends (or first) of August, caused the Ro-
man Forum to be hung and canopied with
curtains, that those who came to plead at
the bar might stand under shade. " What a
change," says Pliny, " since the days of Cato
the Censor, who advised that the said Forum
should be paved over with caltrops, to keep
away the lawyers and busy pleaders."

Nero caused the amphitheatre to be co-
vered with curtains of a sky-blue, spangled
with stars.

We now see the rustics of our own country
enjoying their pipe and their ale beneath the
linen canopy in a rural fair, as proud of their
liberty as the Eastern monarchs were of their
temples, or the Romans of their dictatorship.

204 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

" 'Tis liberty that crowns Britannia's isle,
And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains
smile," Addison.

Spain was celebrated for her manufactory
of linen as early as the birth of Christ. The
Spaniards were the inventors of fine Cyprus
or clear lawn, which was made from the flax
of Arragon and Catalonia. France then pro-
duced a flax from which sails were made :
Holland and Flanders produced linen cloth
at the same period. The Germans of those
days carried on the spinning and weaving of
linen in vaults and caves under ground, which
was also the practice of the people of Lom-
bardy in the time of Pliny.*

The fine muslins of the East Indies were
also made by persons kept under ground,
who were never allowed to see the light.
Children were entombed from their infancy
in these dark abodes, in order to gratify the
vanity of the wealthy with a finer thread
than could be drawn by the eye that was
blessed with the sight of day. Our East
India Company has suppressed this subterra-
neous weaving. The art is now happily lost,
and no Christian can wish its revival.

Linen was not worn by the Hebrews,

* Book xix. c. 1.

FLAX, OR LINE. 205

Greeks, or Romans, as any part of their or-
dinary dress : their under-tunics were made
of fine wool or hair ; and hence arose the
occasion for frequent bathing. It has been
observed that the introduction of linen shirts
has been found to lessen the prevalence of
leprosy.

The Emperor Alexander Severus, who was
murdered in the year 235 a. d. was the first
person who wore a linen shirt : but the gene-
ral use of so necessary a garment did not
become common till long after him.

The making of linen cloth in England was
probably introduced by the Romans, who
certainly cultivated flax in this country.

Before Britain had become so great a com-
mercial nation, each town or village had its
weaver, and every good housewife was ex-
pected to furnish her family with linen
of her own spinning. The farmers' daughters
were early instructed in this art, and their
female domestics filled up all their vacant
hours at the distaff or wheel. Tusser, in his
advice to the farmer, for. May, says,

" Good flax and good hemp, for to haue of liir owne,
In May a good huswife wil see it be sown :
And afterward trim it, to serue at a need,
The fimble to spin, and the carle for his seed."

206 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

In the same author's directions for July, he

says,

" Now pluck up thy flax, for thy maidens to spin,
First see it dried, and timely got in."

Flax has for many ages employed and en-
riched the French nation. Their city of
Cambray first manufactured that beautiful
linen called from thence Cambric, for pur-
chase of which, England for many years con-
tributed not less than 200,000/. per annum.

In the reign of George the Second several
salutary laws were enacted to prevent this
great loss of our wealth; and an Act passed
in the 4th of George the Third, c. 26, to regu-
late the cambric manufactory, not long be-
fore introduced into Winchelsea in Sussex,
but which soon failed, and was abolished.
Laws have been made to prevent the selling
and wearing of French cambrics and lawns
in England, but which have only established
their fame as being superior to our own.

The fine fibres of this plant have also af-
forded the French, as well as the Flemings,
a valuable article for commerce in their lace
of Brussels, Valenciennes, Lisle, Mechlin,
Normandy, &c. Our legislators have laid
heavy fines and duties to prevent the impor-
tation of this article of luxury, but with

FLAX, OR LINE. 207

little success, for while it is admitted at
court, it will naturally be seen in private
society. Flax is not known in China.

From the seeds of this vegetable is drawn
linseed oil, so useful to our house painters
and other artists.

"Whether their hand strike out some free design,
Where life awakes, and dawns at every line,
Or blend in beauteous tints the colour'd mass,
And from the canvass call the mimic face." Pope.

The seeds are esteemed an excellent
emollient and anodyne: they are used exter-
nally in cataplasms, to assuage the pain of in-
flamed humours : internally, a slight infusion
of linseed, by way of tea, is recommended in
coughs as an excellent pectoral, and of great
service in pleurisies, nephritic complaints,
and suppressions of urine. Cold-drawn lin-
seed oil is of great service in all diseases of
the breast and lungs, as pleurisies, peripneu-
monies, coughs, asthmas, and consumptions.
It likewise helps in the colic and stone.*

In pleuritic pains, says Raygerusf, I have
often experienced linseed oil to be the most
successful medicine I could prescribe ; for it
immediately facilitated respiration, and pro-
moted spitting. In haemoptoe, also, I ex-

* James. t Germ. An. 6 & 7.

208 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

hibited the same oil with the desired suc-
cess ; for, by its balsamatic and emplastic
virtue, it consolidates the affected parts.

The oil, boiled with honey, clears the face
and skin of spots, and all cutaneous ble-
mishes.*

Linseed oil consists of parts so subtile,
that it cannot be kept in earthen vessels,
without transudation.

The lint made from linen rags has ever
been in great use in surgical cases, from its
softness, smoothness, and flexibility ; where-
as that made from cotton can never be used
about wounds, on account of its denticulated
parts, which dispose to inflammation.-f

Formerly the seed of the flax was occasion-
ally used with corn to make bread, but it
was considered hard of digestion, and hurt-
ful to the stomach. In a scarcity of corn
which happened in Zeland in the sixteenth
century, the inhabitants of Middleburgh
had recourse to linseed, which they made
into cakes, and which caused the death of
many of the citizens who ate of it ; causing
dreadful swellings of the body and face.

* Hist. Plant, ascript. Boerhaave.

t Seethe cause of this under the article Cotton, p. 169.

FLAX, OR LINE. 209

Pliny informs us, that the peasants in Lom-
bardy and Piedmont had formerly used as
food, a sweet kind of bread or cakes made
from this seed, but which in his time was
only used in their sacrifices to the gods.

The quantity of linseed annually im-
ported into these kingdoms, was, in the year
1780, estimated to be not less than 240,000
bushels.

There is an act of parliament now in force,
which forbids the steeping of flax in rivers
or any waters where cattle are accustomed
to drink, as it is found to communicate a
poison destructive to the cattle which drink
of it, and to the fish in such waters.

VOL. I.

210 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

GINGER.— AMOUM ZINGIBER.

Natural order, Scitamitiece, and of the Mon-
andria Monogynia class.

Zingiber, by the Greeks called X"SyiQeo,
took its name from the Indian word Zengebil.

This acrid spicy-rooted plant is a native
of the East Indies. It grows naturally on the
coast of Malabar, in Bengal, and at Ceylon;
the Indians call it ZingibeL

It appears also to be indigenous to China,
where it grows wild, and is cultivated to a
great extent, particularly in the environs of
Gingi, from whence, in all probability, it
derived its name of Ginger.

This plant was introduced into New Spain
by a person named Francisco de Mendoza ;
from whence, most probably, it was carried to
the West India Islands, where it now grows
(particularly in Jamaica) so plentifully, even
in a wild state, as to induce a belief that it
was indigenous to the soil. Since its intro-

GINGER. 211

duction to Jamaica, says Lunan, it has be-
come an article of considerable export ; for
which purpose it has been generally culti-
vated.

It is calculated that the quantity of this
root consumed in Europe, is about one mil-
lion of pounds annually.

Ginger was known in England in Queen
Elizabeth's reign, as Gerard says; " Our
men which sacked Domingo in the Indies,
digged vp ginger there in sundry places
wilde." This author adds, ■? Ginger groweth
in Spaine, in the Canarie Hands, and the
Azores. Ginger," he continues, " is most
impatient of these our northern regions, as
myselfe haue found by proofe; for that there
haue been brought vnto me at seuerall times,
sundry plants thereof, fresh, greene, and
full of iuice, as well from the West Indies,
as from Barbarie and other places, which
haue sprouted and budded foorth greene
leaues in my garden in the heate of somer ;
but as soone as it hath bin but touched with
the first sharp blast of winter, it hath pre-
sently perished both blade and roote."

It appears to have been known in London
about the year 1566 or 7, and was evidently
introduced by the Dutch ; as Gerard states,

9

212 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

that about 30 years or more before he pub-
lished his account (1597), " an honest and
expert apothecarie William Dries, to satisfie
my desire, sent me from Antwerpe to Lon-
don, the picture of ginger, bicause I was
not ignorant, that there had been oft ginger
rootes brought, green, new, and full of iuice,
from the Indies to Antwerpe: and further,
that the same had budded and growne in the
said Dries' garden."

The following manner of preparing it in
Jamaica is extracted from Longs History:

" It is propagated by the smaller pieces,
prongs, or protuberances of the root* each of
which throws up two different stems : the
first bears the leaves, and rises to the height
sometimes of three feet or upwards ; but its
usual growth seldom exceeds eighteen inches.
It thrives best in a rich cool soil ; and there-
fore what has been recently cleared from
wood, is well adapted to the culture of it,
more especially as it is supposed to be a
great impoverisher of land. In such a soil
it grows so luxuriantly, that a hand, or a
large-spreading root, will weigh near a
pound. It is however remarked, that what
is produced from a clayey tenacious soil,
shrinks less in scalding; while such as is raised

GINGER. 213

in richer black moulds, loses considerably in
that operation. The land intended for the
cultivation of it, is first well cleansed with the
hoe, then slightly trenched, and planted
about the month of March or April. It ob-
tains its full height, and flowers about August
or September, and fades about the close of
the year. When the stalk is entirely wi-
thered, the roots are in the proper state for
digging. This is generally performed in
the month of January and February. After
being dug, they are picked, cleansed, and
gradually seethed or scalded in boiling water ;
they are then spread out, and exposed every
day to the sun till sufficiently dried ; and
after being divided into parcels of about one
hundred each, they are packed up in bags
for the market : this is called the black gin-
ger. The manner of scalding the roots is as
follows : a large pot or copper is fixed in the
field, or some convenient place, which is kept
full of boiling water ; the picked ginger, being
divided into small parcels, is laid in baskets,
and plunged alternately in the water, where
it is suffered to stay for the space of ten or
fifteen minutes ; it is then spread on a plat-
form for drying; but care is taken, during the
process, to change the water as soon as it

214 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

becomes much impregnated with the juice of
the root.

" The white sort differs but little from the
black roots. The difference arises wholly
from the methods of curing them. The white
is never scalded ; but instead of this easy
process, they are picked, scraped, and wash-
ed, one at a time, and then dried ; all which
requires too much pains and time for any
real advantage to be gained in the properties ;
though, being made more agreeable to the
eye, the price of the white is much higher at
market.

" When roots are intended for sugar-pre-
serve, they are dug while tender and full of
juice ; the stems at this time rarely exceed
five or six inches in height ; the root is care-
fully picked, washed, and afterwards scalded
till it is sufficiently tender ; it is then put
in cold water, and peeled and scraped gra-
dually. This operation may last three or
four days, during which it is commonly kept
in water, and the water frequently shifted, as
well for cleanliness as to extract more of the
native acrimony. After this preparation it is
laid in unglazed jars, and covered with a thin
syrup, which in two or three days is shifted,
and a richer put in : this is sorftetimes again

GINGER. 215

removed for a third, or fourth; but more than
three are seldom requisite. The shifted sy-
rups are not lost ; for, in Jamaica, they are di-
luted with water, and fermented into a plea-
sant liquor, called cool drink, with some mix-
ture of the chaw-stick, lignum vitce, and sugar.

" This root, however, either in its natural
state or candied, is esteemed a good remedy
against the cholic, loosenesses of the belly, and
windy disorders. It strengthens the stomach,
Kelps digestion, and is often added as a cor-
rector to purges ; its use in culinary prepara-
tions is well known." *

The roots of ginger appear to be much less
liable to heat the constitution than might be
expected from its penetrating warmth and
pungency of taste. It gives out the whole of
its virtue to rectified spirit, and great part of
it to water. The spiritous tincture, inspis-
sated, yields a fiery extract, smelling mode-
rately of the ginger. A syrup made from an
infusion of three or four ounces of the root,
in three pints of boiling water, is kept in the
shops. The cases in which ginger is more
immediately serviceable, are flatulent cholics,
debility and laxity of the system, and in tor-

# Long, p. 700.

216

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

pid and phlegmatic constitutions, to excite a
brisker action of the vessels.

A limpid red transparent oil, swimming
on water, is by simple distillation, got out of
these roots, agreeing in smell and taste with
ginger, only more mild. Dr. Wright says,
that ginger is good in baths and fomenta-
tions ; in complaints of the viscera, pleurisies,
and obstinate continued fevers. Infused in
rum or wine, with filings of steel, it is also
said to be useful in obstructions.

Ginger tea has been recommended in
gouty cases. The mode of making it is by
pounding the dried roots in a mortar. Begin
with a heaped tea-spoonful, taken in boiled
milk, either for supper or breakfast ; the
quantity may be increased to two, or even
three drachms. These directions were given
by Dr. Wright, to whom Sir Joseph Banks
gave the following account of its effects
upon himself, in 1784 : "I have taken two
tea-spoonfuls heaped up of ginger powdered,
in a pint of milk, boiled with bread and
sweetened with sugar, for breakfast, for more
than a year past. The weight of the ginger
is between two and three drachms. At first,
this quantity is difficult to swallow, if the
ginger is good. I was guided in the quantity

GINGER. 217

by the effect it had on my stomach ; if it
made me hiccup, the dose was too large. I
found occasionally, that it produced ardor
urince ; but this went off without any ill con-
sequences whatever. I have not yet found
it necessary to increase the dose ; but I use
rather a coarser powder than I did at first
which mixes more easily with the milk, and
probably produces rather more effect than
the fine."

" The late Lord Rivers took ginger in
large doses, for more than thirty years, and
at eighty was an upright and healthy old man.

" I have, since I used the ginger, had one
fit of the gout ; but it was confined entirely
to my extremities, and never assailed either
my head, my loins, or my stomach, and lasted
only seventeen or eighteen days ; but the
last fit I had before I took the ginger,
affected my head, my stomach, and my loins,
and lasted, with intervals, from the end of
October to January."*

The roots preserved or candied are an ex-
cellent stomachic, and comforting ; boiled in
wine, with a little cummin seed, ginger eases
the pain of the stomach, and causes sweat ;

* Sinclair's Code of Health, vol. i. page 233.

218 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

outwardly applied, mixed with cocoa-nut oil,
draws out poisons in wounds ; and rubbed
upon the stomach, comforts it, and eases
pains arising from a cold cause.*

The Indians, as well as the Chinese, eat
the root when green by way of salad, chop-
ping it small, and mixing it with herbs. Well
made ginger-bread is both agreeable and
wholesome, and many excellent receipts may
be found for making it, in the Domestic
Cookery, and other receipt-books, as well as
for making ginger-beer and ginger-wine —
drinks which have lately been very properly
introduced for the warm season of the year.

Green ginger, preserved with sugar, is
proper for old persons, and those of cold
and phlegmatic constitutions, especially when
it is new ; it is also good for viscid phlegm in
the lungs.-f*

Ginger is good for the stomach, thorax,
and the other viscera; restores lost appetite,
and resists the putrefaction and malignity of
the humours, j

Ginger absterges and dissipates infrac-
tions of the stomach and lungs, by consum-
ing the superfluous humours, and comforts

# Barham, p. 63. f James. % Dale;

GINGER. 219

and strengthens the brain and memory : it is
also of service in dulness of sight, proceed-
ing from humidity.

" This root," says Dr. 11. James, " as well as
pepper, is more used in culinary than medi-
cinal preparations ; because, among all spices,
these two have very much of an acrimonious,
and but little of an aromatic quality." Galen
infers, that ginger is not of so fine parts as
pepper, because its heat, though equally
strong, is not so soon felt, but lasts longer ;
hence, he concludes ginger to be of a grosser
and more humid or aqueous substance.

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

HEMP.— CANNABIS.

Natural order, Scabridce. A genus of the
Diozcia Peniandria class.

The Latin name of this plant is the same
as the Greek KavvacCis, from KclvclGqi, because
it prospers best near watery places.

That this fibrous plant is indigenous to
most of the European countries, as well as
to Asia Minor, we have the authority of an-
cient authors, in opposition to the statements
of some of our modern botanists, that it is a
native plant of India only. Some of our
Encyclopaedias state, that the ancients used
hemp only medicinally. Pliny is cited as
their authority. In his 19th book, chap-
ter 9- however, he informs us that hemp is
equally good for making cordage ; that the
best for the purpose of making nets, and
snares for wild beasts, was grown in Alabanda;
and that the second in quality grew near
Mylasium, both towns of Caria.

HEMP. c2'2 1

As a Phoenician colony settled there, it is
probable that these people, so celebrated for
their achievements in navigation, were the
first who discovered the use of hemp in form-
ing cables and tackle for their ships. They
were in ancient times what the Britons are at
present. Isaiah calls their country " the
merchant city, the mart of nations, whose
merchants are princes, whose traffickers are
the honourables of the earth."

Pliny states, that the hemp which grew in
some parts of Italy, and near Rosea in the
Sabines' country, grew as high as shrubs ;
that it originally grew there in the very
woods, without even sowing. It appears by
the account of this author, that the Romans
gathered the seed before the stalks, as lie
says the seed should be sown in February,
and that the thicker it is sown, the finer the
hemp grows. When the seed ripened in the
autumn, it was rubbed out and dried in the
sun, the wind, or in smoke, and the stalks
were not plucked out of the earth, until after
the vintage. " It is then," continues he,
" the work of the husbandman to peel and
cleanse it, which these people do in the
evening by candle-light." It appears to have
been diligently sorted ; as this great observer

222 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

of natural productions says, the worst part
of hemp is next to the bark or rind ; the
principal part, and that of the best quality,
was called Mesa.

Although we do not produce lawn or lace
from the fibres of hemp, yet it is a plant of
great importance to Britons, as it forms the
sails and tackle of our vessels, from the huge
cable of a ship of war, to the more humble,
but not less profitable net of the herring-
boat.

The sails and cordage of a first-rate man-
of-war, require 180,000 pounds of rough
hemp for their construction ; and it is said to
average five acres of land to produce a ton
of hemp : thus one of those monstrous towers
of human ingenuity, that

'* Stems the vast main, and bears tremendous war
To distant nations, or with sovereign sway
Awes the divided world to peace and love/'

consumes a year's produce of 424 acres of
land to furnish its necessary tackle.

From this calculation it will be seen that
Great Britain could not furnish itself with
a sufficient quantity of hemp of her own
growth to supply the immense demands of
our shipping.

HEMP. 223

In the year 1763, we imported 11,000 tons
from Russia ; and Sir John Sinclair informs
us, that in the year 1785, the quantity ex-
ported from St. Petersburg, in British ships,
amounted to 17,695 tons, which would be
the produce of 88,475 acres of land. In the
year 1788, we imported from Russia 58,464
tons, the produce of nearly 300,000 acres,
which at 20/. per ton, would net the Rus-
sians 1,269,280/. In the year 1783, France
consumed 200,000 tons of hemp, of which
more than one third was imported.

An act strongly demonstrating the folly
of laying prohibitions on articles of com-
merce, (which often strengthens those whom
it intends to disable,) was committed by the
Russians, in the year 1718, when they en-
tered into a combination with the Swedes
to deprive England of naval stores ; and
would suffer none to be exported out of
their own dominions, but in their own ships,
and at their own exorbitant prices ; which
instead of ruining our trade and navigation,
turned our attention to our colonies, and
induced us to procure from North America
not only a sufficient supply for the use of
Great Britain, but a large surplus for ex-
portation.

224 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Our government, fully aware of the im-
portant uses of hemp, has made several
salutary laws, to render its culture an object
of attention. In the year 1787, a bounty of
three pence per stone, was allowed on all
hemp raised in England, and duties have
been laid on all that is imported.

China is celebrated for its abundance of
hemp, particularly in the province of Xensi ;
but flax is not known to grow in that empire.
The excellence of the Chinese hemp was
noticed by Nievhoff, who attended the em-
bassy which the Dutch East India Company,
sent to Pekin in 1655 and 6. From this em-
bassy more information is obtained on the
policy and natural history of China, than
from any accounts since published of our
own embassies : whether this is owing to the
limited observation of our naturalists, or
to the jealous restrictions of the Chinese,
we cannot decide.

The late Mr. Elliot sent some seeds of
the Chinese hemp to Mr. Fitzgerald, vice-
president of the Society for Encouragement
of Arts : which being sown, produced plants
fourteen feet high, and nearly seven inches
in circumference. This induced Mr. Fitz-
gerald to apply to the Directors of the India

HEMP. 225

Company, to obtain some of the seeds
from China, which were procured in 1785;
but few of the plants ripened their seed
in this country. Dr. Hinton made a more
successful trial of raising the Chinese hemp
in 1787, which produced one-third more
of marketable hemp than the best English
hemp was ever known to yield on the same
quantity of ground. Few of the hemp-seeds
will vegetate if two years old; to this cir-
cumstance may be attributed the failure
of many attempts to raise this new variety
of hemp.

The English hemp is much superior in
strength to that which grows in any other
country. Suffolk is the principal county
where hemp is grown and manufactured ;
this is seldom or ever used for cordage. The
cloth made from this hemp is more durable
than the flaxen linen, as well as warmer ;
and has the advantage of becoming whiter
by age and use than that made from flax,
which will not maintain its bleached white-
ness.

We import a considerable quantity of
sheeting from Russia, which has this great
advantage over our own hempen cloth, that,
being drawn from the distaff* the fibres are

VOL. 1. Q

226 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES,

longer and less crossed than those in the
thread made by machinery.

Tusser gave this valuable hint to the far-
mers in Queen Mary's time :

" Where plots full of nettels be noisom to eie,

sow thereupon hemp-seed, and nettels wil die."

We cannot but observe, that with all the
improvements in the cultivation of this coun-
try since the days of that author, there are
still to be seen many wide hedgerows that
are the nursery of thistles and other impo-
verishing weeds, which might turn to good
account if sown with hemp, particularly if
they were allowed to be planted by the poor
cottagers, either with this valuable vegetable
or the more necessary root of the potatoe.
These poor parishioners would then have an
interest in keeping off depredators, and in
protecting the fences instead of destroying
them ; their leisure would be spent in their
own little territory instead of the ale-house,
and their children would acquire early habits
of industry in tilling a plot for themselves.

It is observed by the Rev. Thomas Rad-
cliff, in his Report on the Agriculture of
Eastern and Western Flanders, " that each
day-labourer has, in most cases, a small quan-

HEMP. 227

tity of land, from a rood to half an acre, for
his own cultivation." He adds, " Their com-
fortable supply of linen is remarkable ; there
are few of the labouring classes without many
changes. In riding with a landed proprietor
through a part of the country in which his
property was situated, a neat cottage pre-
sented itself : the clipped hedge which sur-
rounded the garden, covered with linen, very
white, suggested an inquiry, ' whether it did
not belong to a washerwoman ?' The answer
was, that it was occupied by a labourer and
his family, and that the linen was all their
own. In common times a beggar is scarcely
to be seen, except in the towns, and but few
there."

Every circumstance that is connected with
the comforts of the lower classes, and every
device that can be invented to keep them
from receiving parochial relief, should be
adopted ; for when once they have become
familiar to this aid, their natural pride for-
sakes them, and few are the instances of their
ever endeavouring to become independent of*
the agriculturist, on whom they now weigh so
heavily as to endanger the prosperity of their
support.

Frugality disappears the moment the la-

y 2

228 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

bourer cannot obtain a living on his own per-
sonal exertions; and to economize, when they
once use the public purse, seems against the
nature of their mortified spirit.

Hemp is said to possess a property which
renders it almost invaluable to the farmer as
well as the gardener : viz. that of driving
away all insects that feed upon other vege-
tables. It is a common practice in many
parts of the Continent to sow a belt of hemp
round their gardens, or any particular spot
where they wish to preserve their crops from
the mischievous attacks of flies or caterpil-
lars. We would wish this experiment to be
frequently made in turnip fields ; for, should
it succeed in protecting those crops from the
ravages of flies, as well as the cabbages from
the caterpillar, it would accomplish a most
desirable end.

It is presumed that Tusser made his ob-
servation, that, where nettles will grow, hemp
will thrive and destroy the nettle, from the
opinion of the ancients as to assimilated
juices, an opinion really not deserving the
contempt it is generally treated with by plan-
ters. Plants requiring the same nourish-
ment never thrive in neighbourhood, and the
hemp is nearly allied to the nettle ; from the

HEMP. !!{)

latter plant a tolerably good linen may be
made.

It will generally be observed, that nettles
occupy a good soil, which might be advan-
tageously metamorphosed into plots and
banks of hemp.

A Sussex manufacturer, who wrote on this
article in the Annals of Agriculture, informs
us, that hemp may be raised for many years
successively on the same ground, provided it
be well manured. The quantity of seed re-
quired to sow an acre of ground, varies from
nine to twelve pecks, according to the nature
of the soil ; the quality of the hemp also
differs with the soil. The common height
of the plant is from five to six feet. Mr.
Arthur Young informs us, that in his tour
through Catalonia in Spain, he saw extraor-
dinary crops of hemp, where the land was
well watered, and that these plants were
seven feet high. The hemp that is culti-
vated near Bischwiller, in Alsace, is often
more than twelve feet high, and upwards of
three inches in circumference.

From the class in which this plant is ar-
ranged in botany, it will be observed, that
the same seeds produce both male and fe-
male plants promiscuously : this is one of

230 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

i

the secrets, in the work of Nature, which
cannot be accounted for. The Date has the
same peculiar quality ; for, when we plant
the kernel of this fruit, it is uncertain whe-
ther the offspring will be a male or female
palm-tree.

The flowers of the fruitful hemp are her-
maphrodital, and, like the lofty palm tree, or
some of the lowly strawberry plants, produce
abortive seed, without the aid of the farina
of the barren plant. It is a curious misap-
pellation of the cultivators of hemp, who call
the fruitful plants male, and those that are
barren female; we are more surprised that
botanical writers should fall into the error,
or, rather, copy this blunder from one work
into another for so many ages, without cor-
recting a mistake that inverts the order of
Nature.

The unfruitful plants are forwarder than
the fruitful ones by a month : this is ascer-
tained by the fading of the blossoms, the
falling of the farina fecundans, and the stalks
becoming of a yellowish cast. These plants
should be drawn out and worked, if possible,
while green, the hemp being then finer than
that which is previously dried. The Abb6
Bralle, in a Treatise upon the Culture and

HEMP. 231

Management of Hemp, directs, that little
paths should be made lengthways through
the fields, at about seven feet distance from
each other, to allow a passage for the person
who pulls up the unfruitful hemp from
among the other, which requires to stand
more than a month after the barren plants
to ripen its seed. The fibres of the hemp
are prepared for spinning, by a similar pro-
cess to that of preparing flax. The beating
of hemp, which was formerly performed by
hand, is now done by a water-mill, which
raises heavy beaters, and only requires the
assistance of a boy to keep it turned. This
laborious work was formerly imposed as a
punishment for vice, in the houses of correc-
tion. Hogarth has noticed this circumstance
in one of his celebrated pictures.

It is a duty incumbent on society, not to
allow hempen rags, or even old ropes, to be
destroyed. They are carefully sorted by the
paper-maker, the finest being reserved for
the purposes of literature and correspon-
dence, while inferior sorts are selected for
the various purposes of packages and paper-
hangings.

The seed of hemp, being boiled in milk
till it cracks, is accounted good for old

232 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

coughs, and a specific for the jaundice.*
Dodoens says, that, in his day, the hemp-
seed, stamped and taken in white wine, was
highly commended as a remedy for the jaun-
dice and complaints of the liver.

The juice of the green plant, instilled into
the ears, mitigates the pains therein. -f*

Coles, in his excellent History of Plants,
notices the virtues of hemp thus laconically :
" By this cordage ships are guided, bells are
rung, beds are corded, and rogues are kept
in awe."

* Miller's Bot. Off. f Dioscorides, lib. iii. cap. 165.

233

HOP.— HUMULUS.

Natural order, Scabridce. A genus of the
Dicecia Pentandria class.

" Lo, on auxiliary poles, the hops
Ascending spiral, ranged in meet array."

Phillips's Cider.

The generic name of this plant is derived
from humus, moist earth or ground, because
the plant thrives best in such soil, but this
word is of modern origin, as is the Greek
word (ipuov, and fipvwvioc, Bryonia, Bryony,
from the form of the leaves and running of
the branches, which somewhat resemble this
latter plant. It seems to have been un-
known to the ancient Greeks, as it is unno-
ticed by their authors ; and Pliny is the first
of the Romans who makes mention of this
plant. He calls it Lupulus Salictarius, as is
supposed, from its climbing upon sallows and
other trees. This author informs us, that the
ancients made no use of the flowers, except-
ing to ornament their gardens; but that the

234 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Romans in his time ate the young tops as
a vegetable, which are, says he, more palata-
ble than nutritious.

Lobel called this plant Vitis Septentriona-
lium, the Vine of the northern regions, be-
cause we put hops in our malt drink.

The hop, of which there is but one species
discovered, is an indigenous plant of this
country, although it is generally stated to
have been first brought to this kingdom
from the Netherlands, in the year 1524. It
is probable that the Dutch gardeners, who
came to England in the reign of Henry the
Eighth, might have brought over some hop-
plants, with other roots and seeds, and that
we availed ourselves of their manner of cul-
tivating this bitter herb. From them, it ap-
pears, we also derived the name, which, in
High Dutch, is Hopffen ; and Hoppe, Hop,
and Hopcruyt in Dutch.

The first English treatise written express-
ly on the culture of hops, was by Reynolde
Scot, printed in 1574, in 63 pages, black
letter, entitled, " A perfite platforme of a
Hoppe Garden." He complains that * the
Flemmings envie our practice herin, who
altogither tende their owne profite, seeking
to impownde us in the ignorance of our com-

hop. 235

nodities, to cramme us with the wares and
ruites of their countrie, and to doe anye
hing that myght put impediment to this
mrpose, dazeling us with the discommenda-
ion of our soyle, obscuring and falsifying
he order of this mysterie, sending us into
^launders as farre as Poppering, for that
diich we may flnde at home in our own
mnksides."

Tusser, who resided in Essex during the
eigns of Henry the Eighth and his three
:hildren, has left us a faithful account of the
nanner of treating the hop in his day ; his
rerse for the month of June, says

f Whom fansie perswadeth, among other crops,
to have for his spending, sufficient of hops :
Must willingly follow, of choises to choose,
such lessons approued, or skilful do vse.

Ground grauellie, sandie, and mixed with claie,
is naughty for hops, any manner of waie :

Or if it be mingled with rubbish and stone,
for driness and barrenness, let it alone.

Choose soile for the hop, of the rottenest mould,
well doonged and wrought, as a garden plot should :

Not far from the water, (but not ouerflowne)
this lesson well noted, is meet to be knowne.

The sun in the south, or else southlie and west,
is joy to the hop, as welcommed ghest :

But wind in the north, or else northerly east,
to hop is as ill, as a fray in a feast.

236 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Meet plot for a hopyard, once found as is told,
make thereof account, as of jewel of gold :

Now dig it and leave it, the sun for to burne,
and afterwards fense it, to serue for that turne.

The hop for his profit, I thus do exalt,

it strengthened drinke, and fauoureth malt :

And being wel breued, long kep it will last,
and drawing abide, if ye draw not too fast.

For January.

If hopyard or orchard, ye mind for to haue,
for hop poles and crotches, in lopping go saue :

Which husbandly saued, may serve at a push,
and stop by so hauing, two gapes with a bush.

Remember thy hopyard, if season be drie,
Now dig it and weed it, and so let it lie :

More fennie the laier, the better his lust,

more apt to bear hops, when it crumbles like dust.

For March.

In March at the furthest, drie season or wet,
hop roots so wel chosen, let skilful go set :

The goeler and yonger, the better I loue,

wel gutted and pared, the better they proue.

Some laieth them crossewise, along in the ground,
as high as the knee, they do couer up round :

Some pricke vp a sticke, in the midst of the same,
that little round hillocke,the better to frame.

Some maketh a hollowness halfe a foot deepe,
with fower sets in it, set slantwise asleepe :

One foote from another, in order to lie,
and thereon a hillocke, as round as a pie.

hop. 237

Fiue foot from another, ech hillocke would stand
as straight as a leuelled line with the hand :

Let euery hillocke be fower foot wide,
the better to come to on euery side.

By willowes that groweth, thy hopyard without,
and also by hedges, thy meadowes about ;

Good hop hath a pleasure to climb and to spread,
if sunne may haue passage, to comfort hirhead.

For the month of April the same author
continues,

Get into thy hopyard, with plentie of poles,

amongst the same hillocks, diuide them by doles :

Three poles to a hillocke (I pass not how long)
shall yield thee more profit, set deeply and strong.

For May.

Get into thy hopyard, for now it is time

to teach Robin hop on his pole how to clime :

To follow the sunne, as his property is,

and weed him and trim him, if aught go amis.

For August.

If hops do look brownish, then are ye too slow,
if longer ye suffer those hops for to grow :

Now sooner ye gather, more profit is found,
if weather be fair, and dew off the ground.

Not breake off, but cut off, from hop the hop string,
leaue growing a little, again for the spring:

Whose hil about pared, and therewith new clad,
shal nourish more sets, against March to be had.

238 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Hop hillock discharged of euery let,

see then without breaking each pole ye out get :

Which being intangled aboue in the tops,
go carrie to such as are plucking of hops.

Take soutage or hair (that covers the kel)

set like to a manger, and fastened wel :
With poles vpon crotches, as hie as the brest,

for sauing and riddance, is husbandry best.

Some skilfullie drieth their hops on a kel,
and some on a soller, of turning them wel ;

Kel dried wil abide foul weather and faire,
where drying and lying in loft doo despaire.

Some close them vp drie, in a hogshead or fat,
yet canuas or soutage, is better than that:

By drying and laying, they quickly be spilt,

thus much haue I shewed, do now as thow wilt.

Gerard, who wrote on this plant in 1596,
says, " It ioyeth in a fat and fruitful ground :
it prospereth the better by manuring. The
flowers of hops are gathered in August and
September, and reserued to be vsed in beere.
The manifold virtues in hops do manifestly
argue the holsomnesse of beere above ale ;
for the hops rather make it phisicall drinke
to keepe the body in health, than an ordina-
rie drinke for the quenching of our thirst."
He adds, " The flowers are vsed to season
beere or ale with, and overmany do cause
bitterness thereof, and are ill for the head.

hop. 239

The flowers make bread light, and the lunipe
to be sooner and easilier leuened, if the meal
be tempored with liquor, wherein they
haue beene boiled. The buds or first sprouts
which come foorth in the spring, are vsed to
be eaten in sallads, yet are they more tooth-
some than nourishing."

The earliest writer who speaks fully on
this plant, is D. Rembert Dodoens, professor
at Leyden, and physician to Charles the
Fifth, who, when he had resigned his Impe-
rial honours, endeavoured to quiet his mind
by cultivating his garden, in the monastery
of St. Juste, on the borders of Castile.
Dodoens's Herbal mentions the two varieties
of hops; " the wild hedge hop, and the
manured, the bells or bunches (flowers) of
which, when ripe, have a very strong smell,
and are collected by the brewers of ale and
beer, who keep them together, to give a good
relish and pleasant taste to their drink. The
cultivated hop, he says, is planted in gar-
dens and places fit for the purpose, where
it windeth itself about poles ; the wild hop
groweth in fields, and in herb gardens, as
its tender shoots, before they produce leaves,
are eaten in salads, and are a good and whole-
some meat." This physician says, "the tie-

240 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

coction of hops, when drunk, opens the
stoppings of the Ever, the spleen or milt,
and purgeth the blood from all corrupt
humours, principally by urine ; it is therefore
good for those of gross scorbutic habits."
He adds, " that the young shoots, eaten as
salad in the month of March, have the same
virtues, and that the juice of hops is a great
purifier of the blood."

Haller, from Isidorus, says, that the first
experiment of putting hops into beer, was
made in Italy. It does not appear that they
were used by the English, in the composition
of malt liquor, until after Henry the Eighth's
expedition against Tournay, about the year
1524. We therefore conclude, that the art
was learnt during that enterprise. In the
following reign, hops are first mentioned in
our statute book, viz. in the year 1552 (5
and 6 Edward the Sixth, cap. 5.), and by an
Act of Parliament of 1603, the first year of
James the First (cap. 18), it appears, that
hops were then produced in considerable
quantity in England. But this vegetable-
bitter has been subject to caprice, as well as
other plants ; for, an opinion prevailing that
hops possessed deleterious qualities, the City
of London petitioned Parliament, to prevent

hop. c241

their being put into beer.* The use of them
was, therefore, forbidden bv an Act of Parlia-
ment, in the reign of James the First. This
act was little attended to, and, never having
been repealed, is strongly contrasted by the
Act 9 Anne, cap. 12, which inflicts a penalty
of twenty pounds on all brewers who shall
use any other bitter than that of hops in
their malt liquors ; and to prevent their being
adulterated by giving them scent or colour
by drugs, an Act was passed in the 6th of
George the Third, which makes it a forfeiture
of five pounds per hundred weight to use
this deception ; and by the same act, the ma-
liciously cutting hop-bines growing on poles
in any plantation is made felony, without
benefit of clergy.

The hop is the only native plant that is
under the control of the Excise. By 9 Anne,
cap. 12, a duty of one penny per pound was
laid on all hops growing in Great Britain and

* Walter Blith says, in his third edition of " English
Improver Improved" (1653), " It is not many years since
the famous city of London petitioned the Parliament of
England against two anusancies, and these were Newcastle
coals, in regard of their stench, &c. and hops, in regard
they would spoil the taste of drink, and endanger the
people."

VOL. I. R

242 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

made fit for use ; and all hop-grounds were
required to be entered, on pain of forty shil-
lings per acre. In the same act an additional
duty of three-pence per pound was laid on
all hops imported, over and above other
duties ; and hops landed before entry and
payment of duty, or without warrant for
landing, are, by that act, to be forfeited and
burnt ; the ship also to be confiscated, and
the person concerned in importing or landing,
to forfeit five pounds a hundred weight.

Hartlib, in his Complete Husbandman,
(1659,) says, " that in Queen Elizabeth's
time we had hopps from the Low Countries,
and that the Frenchman, who writes the
Treasure Politick, saith, that it's one of the
great deficiencies of England, that hopps will
not grow, whereas now it is known that they
are the best in the world." However, we
find that they were imported, occasionally,
as late as the year 1695 ; for 510 cwt. were
then brought from Flanders and Holland.*

Coles notices, in his Paradise of Plants,
(1657,) " That hops grow in great plenty in
Kent and Essex, where there be men of good
worth, whose estates consist in hop-grounds."

* Hought. 2. 458.

hop. t}4;3

Lord Bacon says, " The planting of hop-
yards is profitable for the planters, and con-
sequently for the kingdom." Mortimer ob-
serves, that in Kent they plant their hop-
gardens with apple-trees and cherry-trees
between.

The grower of hops is obliged to keep
scales and weights for the use of the Excise ;
and to remove them before being weighed,
subjects him to severe penalties : they must
also be packed in bags called pockets, and
the weight, with the planter's name and
abode, marked on them, with the date of the
year in which the hops were grown : to alter
or obliterate this mark, subjects the offender
to a fine of ten pounds : by application to
the Excise, they are allowed to be packed in
casks under the same regulation.

The cultivation of hops in this country is
nearly confined to the southern counties, of
which Kent is the principal ; although the
hops of Farnham in Surrey, bring the highest
price in the market, and next to them the
Sussex hops are generally esteemed ; the
former owe their superiority solely to the ex-
cellent mode of picking, and not to any phy-
sical advantages. The Worcester hops are
the mildest, and possess the peculiar pro-

R 2

244 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

perty of bringing beer to maturity before
any other.

Hops seem the most uncertain and preca-
rious crop on which the husbandman bestows
his labour. The expense of planting and
manuring, added to that of the poles, the
gathering, and drying, is so considerable,
that the planter is only repaid by those oc-
casionally abundant crops which favourable
seasons produce. An extraordinarily good
crop returns to the planter about 100/. per
acre, of which must be deducted on the
average 50/. per acre for expense ; but when
the uncertainty of a crop, and the many
combinations that are required to produce so
good a one, are considered, it seldom happens
that the hop-planter is richer than his neigh-
bour, notwithstanding these brilliant returns,
that too often delude the unwary and un-
thinking speculator.

The plants are often injured by the
frost in the spring, and they are also sub-
ject to various other casualties. A kind of
mildew or blight, producing flies, frequently
destroys the fairest promise of this plant,
and from the height of the poles and the
sail they carry, a high wind occasions great
havock in the hop-gardens. We are not

hop. 245

aware of the experiment having been made
of keeping them closer to the ground in the
manner of a vineyard, or by espaliers; but
by some observations which the author has
made on a few plants which he cultivated
for ornament, the flowers were found larger
and more abundant on the vines that were
trained horizontally, than on those which
climbed to a greater height ; and we notice,
that in all other fruits those nearest the
earth ripen the first, and the hop can obtain
no more sun at twenty feet from the ground
than it would at six feet. If the poles were
placed sloping, with horizontal and perpendi-
cular props, the vine could still extend itself
without being so subject to tempest. The
position of these ranges of trellis poles could
be so fixed as to admit the sun and air more
freely ; the tying and gathering would be
more easily accomplished; and it is a cu-
rious circumstance in the natural history of
this plant, that the vine always takes one
direction in winding itself round its pole, re-
gularly ascending from the right hand to the
left : this, in trellis work, would avoid confu-
sion or crossing of vines, which is injurious to
all plants.

To describe the present manner of culti-

246 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

vating, gathering, drying and bagging of hops,
would be repeating what may be found in every
Encyclopedia, and work on agriculture, with-
out adding entertainment or information.

The hop plantations in Sussex have in-
creased from about 5400 to 9500 acres
within these last fourteen years, as appears
by a statement from the Board of Excise,
which was ordered by the House of Com-
mons to be printed in May, 1821.

In a country where malt-liquor forms the
general beverage of the greater portion of its
inhabitants, it becomes a matter of no small
importance to know, that the hop contains
an aperient, and diuretic bitter, which makes
our beer more salubrious, whilst its balsamic
flavour makes it more agreeable, and com-
bines with these advantages, that of pre-
serving the liquor by its agreeably odorifer-
ous principle, which prevents the necessary
fermentation from going beyond due bounds.

" The ale," (says Parkinson in his Thea-
trical Botanicum, published in 1640,) " which
our forefathers were accustomed only to
drink, being a kind of thicker drink than
beere, is now almost quite left off to be
made, the use of hoppes, to be put therein
altering the quality thereof, to be much more

hop. 247

healthful, or rather physicall, to preserve the
body from the repletion of grosse humors,
which the ale engendered."

Ground Ivy, called Alehoof or Tun-hoof,
Glechoma hederacea, was generally used for
preserving beer, before the use of hops was
known.

Horehound and wormwood, &c. &c. have
been used as a succedaneum, when hops
have been dear.

Some authors recommend hops against
the stone ; others doubt their utility in that
complaint ; but it has been remarked, that
since hops have been more generally used,
fewer persons labour under that malady.

It is said that the perfume of hops is so
salutary, that when put between the outer
cover and the pillow, they will procure sleep
to those who are in delirious fevers.

The decoction of the flowers and syrups
thereof, are thought good against pestilential
fevers ; juleps and apozems are also pre-
pared with hops for hypochondriacal and hys-
terical affections.

" The hop," says Dr. James, " is bitter,
detersive, and gives no tincture of red to blue
paper. By the chemical analysis, a little
acid, a great deal of volatile concrete salt.

248 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

and oil, are obtained from it ; which shews
it to contain some sal-ammoniac, mixed with
some sulphur and earth.

In Sweden, they make a strong cloth
from the fibres of the hop-vine, after it has
been dressed like flax. The Society for en-
couraging Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce
in London, offered premiums, in 1760, for
cloth made from hop-stalks. In the year
following Mr. Cooksey produced specimens.
In 1791, Mr. John Locket, of Donnington,
near Newbury, in Berkshire, had the premium
adjudged to him for cloth made from these
stalks.

In the months of March and April, while
the buds are tender, the country people dress
them as asparagus ; they are an agreeable ve-
getable, and esteemed good to purify the
blood in the scurvy, and most cutaneous
diseases.

249

HOREHOUND.— MARRUBIUM.

Natural order, Verticillatce. A genus of the
Didynamia Gymnospermia class.

" If the prophet had bid thee do some great
thing, wouldest thou not have done it ? how
much rather then, when he saith to thee,
Wash, and be clean ? "

Naaman felt the justice of his servant's
rebuke, bathed, and recovered his flesh.

Horehound has been recommended to us
by medical writers of all ages and countries,
as a safe and simple remedy for complaints as
dangerous to our existence as the leprosy
was to the Syrian captain' s. Like him we
answer, that we have skilful physicians, and
drugs collected from the most distant quarters
of the globe ; shall we not apply to them for
cure, rather than to an herb that bears affinity
to the nettle ?

This medicinal plant is indigenous to most
parts of Europe, as well as to Britain ; and,
like many other herbs, the nearer it grows

250 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

towards the south, the more powerful is its
scent. The English name having no resem-
blance to that of any other language, induces
us to conclude that it was called hore, or
hoar, from the white frosty-like appearance
of the leaves, and hound, from its likeness to
the herb now called hound' s-tongue, the
smell of which approaches so near to that of
a kennel of hounds.

Miller mentions fifteen species of the white
horehound. Aiton notices eleven in the
Hortus Kewensis, that are cultivated in this
country, all of which are European plants.
The leaves of the common white horehound
are considered to be attenuant and resolvent,
and are celebrated for the relief they give in
moist asthmas, and in most disorders of the
breast and lungs, of which a thick and vis-
cous matter is the cause. They are also of
great service in cachexies, and chronical dis-
orders, proceeding from a viscidity of the
fluids, and obstructions of the viscera. When
taken in infusion, a handful of fresh leaves,
or half a handful of dried ones, is considered
a dose. A dram of the dried leaves pow-
dered, and two or three ounces of the ex-
pressed juice, have each the like effect.
Lozenges made of the juice of this herb and

HOREHOUND. 251

sugar, are esteemed good for colds that
affect the chest.

Among the ancient physicians who recom-
mended this herb, Castor directs an equal
portion of the juice of the white horehound
and honey, to be warmed in an egg-shell,
and used as an injection, not only to break
imposthumes, but to cleanse and heal them.
The same author prescribed a liniment made
of lard and horehound stamped, as a cure for
the bite of a mad dog, and for scrophulous
swellings.

Pliny informs us, in the twenty-second
chapter of his twentieth book, that the
Roman physicians thought horehound one of
the most valuable herbs used in medicine.
The leaves and seeds were pounded together
as a cure for the sting of serpents, pains of
the breast or sides, for old coughs, and com-
plaints of the lungs. No medicine was con-
sidered more efficacious in these complaints,
than the juice of horehound and fennel boiled
into a syrup with honey, to be taken fasting.
Stamped with vinegar, it was esteemed a cure
for the ring-worm. The juice was thought
to clear the eyesight, and mitigate the
jaundice ; and for all kinds of poison, says this
Roman author, few herbs are so effectual as

252 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

horehound ; for without any addition, it
cleanses the stomach and breast, and brings
off all impurities. Dodoens recommends it
for most of these complaints, and says, that
the juice mixed with honey and wine is good
to clear the sight, if the eyes be washed with
it ; and that the juice drawn up the nostrils
clears the eyes of the yellow hue occasioned
by the jaundice. This physician particularly
commends it for ulcerated lungs, and spitting
of blood ; but cautions those not to use it
whose bladder or kidneys are affected. In
addition to these remarks, Gerard adds, that
the syrup made of the green leaves and sugar
is an excellent remedy against the wheezings
of the lungs, and for old coughs ; and that it
was particularly recommended by the London
College of Physicians in his time.

Dr. James observes, that this plant is hot
and dry, pectoral, and good to free the lungs
from hot viscid phlegm, and thereby to help
old coughs, especially in cold moist constitu-
tions ; the juice being made into a syrup, with
sugar or honey, it opens obstructions of the
liver and spleen, and is very serviceable
against the dropsy, jaundice, &c. ; and few
herbs go beyond it in relieving the diseases
incidental to the female sex.

HOltEIIOUND. 253

The leaves of the white horehound uive
no tincture of red to blue paper : they are
very bitter, and have a penetrating smell.
The bitter natural salt of the earth, composed
of marine salt, sal-ammoniac, and nitre, seems
to be united in this plant, with a considerable
quantity of sulphur, phlegm, and terrestrial
parts. This plant, by the chemical analysis,
yields a great deal of acid phlegm, oil, and
earth ; a little urinous spirit; some concreted,
volatile, and fixed salt, and a little lixivium.

Thus it is no wonder that the white hore-
hound is a great dissolvent, and a good ape-
ritive ; and excellent for those who have the
asthma or jaundice.

254 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

HORSE-RADISH.— COCHLEARIA.

Natural order, Siliquosce. A genus of the
Tetr adynamia Siliculosa class.

This plant was called Raphanus rusticanus
by the old herbalists ; but it will be observed
that it is of a distinct family from the Radish,
and has therefore been placed in the order
of plants to which it belongs. It is a native
of this country, and has long been cultivated
in our gardens, as we learn from Gerard, who
says, " Horse-radish for the most part grow-
eth, and is planted in gardens, yet haue I
found it wilde in sundrie places, as at
Namptwich in Cheshire, in a place called the
Milne eye, and also at a small village neere
London, called Hogsdon, in the field next
vnto a farm-house leading to Kingsland,
where my verie good friend Master Bredwell,
practitioner in phisick, a learned and diligent
sercher of symples, and Master William
Martin, one of the fellowship of Barbers and
Chirurgians, my deere and louing friende, in

HORSE-RADISH. 255

company with him, found it, and gaue me
knowledge of the place where it flourishes to
this day." It was then called Mountain-
Radish and Great Raifort, as well as Horse-
radish. In the North of England it was
called Red Cole.

Gerard adds, " Horse radish stamped, with
a little vinegar put thereto, is commonly
vsed among the Germanes for sauce to eat
fish with, and such like meates, as we do
mustard ; but this kinde of sauce doth heate
the stomacke better, and causeth better
digestion than mustard." From this account
it appears, that horse-radish had not found
its way to the English table in 1597, but was
planted for its efficacy in medicine, of which
Gerard and other old writers give ample
commendation.

In 1657, Coles observes, " The root is
commonly used among the Germans, and
sometimes by gentlemen with us also, for
sauce to eat fish with, and other meats, as
mustard is, and so it heateth the stomach
more, and causes better digestion than mus-
tard." This author adds, " Of all things
that are given to children for the worms,
horse reddish is not the least effectual!, for it
killeth and expelleth them."

256 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

When this plant is calcined, very little or
no salts can be extracted from the ashes,
these being naturally volatile.* " The ex-
pressed juice, being suffered to putrefy,
affords an alcaline volatile salt, which is
the reason why it is so beneficial in the arid
scurvy. In the other kind of scurvy, it is
very pernicious ; in which case I have known
it to procure a rupture in the liver. But
where there is a defect of heat, and a cold-
ness and viscidity of the juices, it is very
proper. In a scurvy attended with a hot
fever and a putridness, it would destroy the
patient.^- "

Fernel, who was physician to Henry the
Second of France, discovered in the juice of
this root, a vomit of the safest kind, and a
friend to the stomach. We learn from more
modern physicians, that if it be infused in
wTater, and a portion of the infusion be taken
with a large draught of warm water, it rea-
dily proves emetic, and may either be em-
ployed to excite vomiting, or to assist the
operation of emetics.

Horse radish root has a quick pungent
smell, and a penetrating acrid taste ; it

# James. f Boerh. Hist. Plant, p. 419.

HORSE-RADISH. 25?

nevertheless contains in certain vessels a
sweet juice, which sometimes exudes on the
surface. By drying, it loses all its acrimony,
becoming first sweetish, and then almost
insipid: if kept in a cool place in sand, it
retains its qualities for a considerable time.
Its medicinal effects are, to stimulate the
solids, attenuate the juices, and promote the
fluid secretions. It seems to extend its
action through the whole habit, and to affect
the minutest glands. It scours the cutaneous
glands, and breaks through such little stop-
pages there, as occasion deformities, and all
the symptoms of the scurvy. This root is
also powerfully diuretic, but most so when
joined with acids. Its great activity and
warmth also make it good in all such nervous
cases as arise from cold and viscid juices ; and
induce heaviness of the senses, or inaptitude
to motion ; in the same manner as mustard
and all such stimuli.

Sydenham, who has been called the father
of physic among the moderns, recommends
it likewise in dropsies, particularly those
which follow intermitting fevers. It is also
extolled in cases of the stone. Thomas
Bartholin affirms, that the juice of horse-
radish dissolved a calculus, or stony con-

VOL. I. S

258 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

cretion, that was taken out of a human

body.

Both water and rectified spirits extract the
virtues of this root, by infusion, and imbibe
the whole taste and pungency of the plant.

Boerhaave, who was so justly celebrated
through Europe as professor of physic and
botany, says it is one of those plants whose
virtues are the least equivocal: its aperient,
antiscorbutic, and resolvent qualities purify
the blood, agree with colds, and above all,
cure dry hard coughs, and the extinction
of the voice.

Dr. Cullen says, " The root externally ap-
plied readily inflames the skin, and proves a
rubifacient that may be employed with ad-
vantage in palsy and rheumatism ; and if its
application be long continued, it produces
blisters."

The German authors give many examples
of its being an excellent remedy, as well in-
ternally as for the exterior, in cases of the
dropsy and rheumatism.

One drachm of the root, fresh scraped
down, is enough for four ounces of water,
to be infused in a close vessel for two
hours, and made into a syrup, with double

HORSE-RADISH. 259

its weight of sugar ; a tea-spoonful of which
swallowed leisurely, or at least repeated
two or three times, has often been found
very suddenly effectual in relieving hoarse-
ness.

This volatile root, when received into the
stomach, both creates appetite, and assists
digestion ; and is therefore properly em-
ployed as a condiment with animal food.

M. Haller, a Swiss physician, informs us,
that in Sweden they cultivate the Chinese
horse-radish, from which they draw abundance
of oil. Horse-radish scraped and infused in
cold milk, makes one of the best and safest
cosmetics.

Horse-radish possesses the same peculiar
property of propagating itself as the ginger ;
for a small piece of the root, if buried in the
earth, will form a new root and a perfect plant,
which produces seed. In vain do we look
into the pores of this root, to discover by
what wonderful means Nature has endowed
it with this gift ; and we may justly exclaim
with David, "Such knowledge is too won-
derful for me ; it is high, I cannot attain
unto it/'

It loves a moist deep soil; and we see

s 2

260

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

many acres of ground on the borders of
the Thames, east of London, covered with
this plant, which brings a price in the me-
tropolitan market that rewards the culti-
vator for the time it requires to mature the
root.

iii

261

HOUSELEEK.- SEMPERVIVUM.

Natural arder, Succulent ce. A genus of the
Dodecandria Dodecagynia class.

It is often called Sengreen, from the old
herbalists having mistaken this plant and the
stone-crop, for a species of the sengreen or
Saxifraga grandulata; or because the Greeks
comprised all these plants under the name of
'Ai'£w«y, on account of their being always fresh
and green.

Nature, whose slightest works cannot be
viewed without instruction, has given a lesson
in this plant, worthy of the deepest reflection.
It teaches us, by selecting the bare rock and
the sloping roofs of houses, as situations fa-
vourable to the growth of this vegetable, not
to repine at our lot, or complain of the
soil in which we are thrown ; for the house-
leek gathers its nourishment where other
plants would find none, and maintains the
cooling qualities of its pulpy leaves on the
burning tiles of our buildings. The lesson

262 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

is as applicable to the agriculturist as to the
moralist. It tells him to seek vegetation
suitable to his soil, rather than complain of
the earth he cannot change. The heavy
clay that produces such excellent wheat,
would yield a watery potatoe, a root more
delicious when grown in sandy ground, where
bread corn would fail of coming to perfection
for want of nourishment.

" Find out the nature of the mould with care,
And what is proper for each soil to bear."

Virgil's Georgics.

From the prevailing indifference with re-
spect to the virtues of those plants that do
not immediately contribute to the gratifica-
tion of our appetite, it might be supposed,
that our infirmities and diseases had left us ;
or, that having let out our bodies to surgeons
on repairing leases, we were no longer at
liberty to extract a thorn, or assuage pains
given by the sting of a wasp, without com-
mitting a trespass.

Liberal minds will remunerate the stu-
dents in physic for their skill, and not for
their medicines ; for the least costly of the
latter, with good advice, will often remove
serious maladies.

The houseleek forms a domestic external

IIOUSELEEK. 263

remedy for many troublesome complaints, be-
neath the attention of physicians, whose time
is required in dangerous disorders ; and, as
every cottager who has a cover for his head,
has a bed for this plant, he ought to know, that
after it is once planted in mud, strong earth,
or cow dung, and placed on a wall, or the
shelving of his dwelling, it will thrive without
farther trouble. It will increase rapidly by
offsets, each of which forms a kind of green
rose, and throws out, at maturity, a stem re-
sembling a palm-tree in miniature, from the
summit of which spring star-shaped flowers,
worthy the inspection of either the florist or
the botanist.

The houseleek is cooling and restringent,
and, though not often given inwardly, is com-
mended by some as good to quench thirst
in fevers, when mixed with posset drink, as
also for heat and sharpness of urine. Exter-
nally, it is useful against burns and scalds,
St. Anthony's fire, and the shingles.*

It is an excellent remedy for chapped
hands, or scrofulous eruptions, and is the
safest cosmetic, for removing sun-burns, that
our fair countrywomen can use.

* Miller's Bot. Off.

26*4 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Dodoens recommends the expressed juice
to be dropped into the eye, as good against
inflammation ; or the leaf to be peeled and
laid on that organ. He says also that it re-
lieves the pains of the gout when brought
on by hot humours. Gerard says, " The
iuice of housleeke taketh away cornes from
the toes and feete, if they be washed and
bathed therewith euery day and night, as it
were implaistered with the skin of the same
housleeke, which certainly taketh them away
without incision or such like, as hath beene
experimented by my very good friend M.
Nicholas Belson, a man painfull and curious
in searching forth the secrets of Nature."

It is customary, with us, among the com-
mon sort, says Schroder, to give the ex-
pressed juice of houseleek and sugar, in
fevers, and hot diseases.

Dr. Tancred Robinson says, he has known
it exhibited with good success in fevers, and
especially in those of the erysipetalous and
hectic kinds ; for this plant abounds with a
medicinal alcaline salt.

Tragus states, that linen cloths moistened
with the juice or distilled water, and applied
to inflammations in any part of the body,

HOUSKLEEK. 265

and especially in phrensies, are of extra-
ordinary service; as they are, also, in inflam-
mations and redness of the eyes.

The leaves of the houseleek, stripped of
their outer membrane, and put into pure
water, or rose-water, and every now and then
applied to the tongue, when dry or chapped,
in fevers, and renewed frequently, are re-
markably lenient and serviceable in such a

case.*

This plant being analysed, yields a good
deal of acid and earth, and a very little con-
crete volatile salt. It probably contains a
salt resembling alum, mixed with a little
sal-ammoniac; for the juice of this plant
evaporated to one half emits an urinous
smell. For foundered horses, nothing is
better than to make them drink a pint of
the juice of this plant. *f*

Lewis gives the following chemical de-
scription of this species of sempervivum :
" The leaves of houseleek, of no remarkable
smell, discover to the taste a mild, subacid
austerity ; their expressed juice, of a pale
yellowish hue when filtered, yields on inspis-

* Raii. Hist. Plant.
t Martyn's Tournefort.

266 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

sation a deep yellow, tenacious, mucilaginous
mass, considerably acidulous and acerb : from
whence it may be presumed, that this herb
has some claim to the refrigerant and restrin-
gent virtues that have been ascribed to it.

It is observable that the filtered juice, on
the addition of an equal quantity of rectified
spirit of wine, forms a light white coagulum,
like cream of fine pomatum, of a weak but
penetrating taste. This, freed from the fluid
part, and exposed to the air, almost totally
exhales. From this experiment it is con-
cluded by some, that houseleek contains a
volatile alkaline salt; but the juice coagu-
lates also with fixed alkalis. Acids produce
no coagulation."

The Romans took great pleasure in the
houseleek, and planted it in vases which were
set before the windows of their houses. It
was called Buphthalmon, Zoophthalmon, and
Stergethron, being considered one of the love
medicines. It was also named Hypogesan,
from its growing under the eaves of dwell-
ings ; and it was often called Ambrosia, Ame-
rimnos, and Sedum.

The juice of the leaves was used by the
ancients for all humours and inflammations of
the eyes, as also to bathe the temples for the

HOUSELEEK. f2()'(

0

head-ache, and to draw off inflammation oc-
casioned by the bite of venomous spiders.
It was likewise said to be an effectual antidote
against the deadly poison of wolfs-bane or
aconitum*

Its use is also recommended by Pliny for
the red gout, erysipelas, and scrofulous swell-
ings ; and it was thought to procure sleep
to those who were in restless fevers, being
placed in black cloth and put under the
pillow of the patient. It was also thought
that those who carried houseleek on their
persons, were never molested by the terrible
sting of the poisonous scorpions.

Dioscorides and Galen direct the applica-
tion of the juice with vinegar, instead of an
epithem, to an erysipelas, which no physi-
cian, says Caspar Hoffman, in our times,
would venture to prescribe.

This hardy plant is erroneously stated to
be a native of Britain only. It is doubtful
whether it is even an aboriginal of our soil ;
and from the early mention of it by the Greek
and Roman herbalists, we consider it, as well
as the tree houseleek, to be indigenous to the
Greek islands.

# Plin. book xxv. chap. 13.

268 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Aiton mentions twelve species of the Sem-
pervivum as being cultivated by the curious
in this country.

The Dutch cultivate the yellow stone-crop
Seclum reflemm, which they mix amongst their
salads. It has a subastringent taste.

269

HYSSOP.— HYSSOPUS.

Natural order, Verticillatce. A genus of the
Didynamia Gymnospermia class.

Hyssop bears nearly the same name in
most of the European languages, and is de-
rived from the Hebrew ItfK Ezeb, signify-
ing a holy herb, or herb for purifying holy
places.

When the Passover was instituted, Moses
commanded the Israelites to take a bunch of
hyssop, and dip it in the blood of a lamb,
and to sprinkle the lintel and the door-posts,
after which none were to pass out until the
morning.*

It was also used by the priest at the cleans-
ing of persons afflicted with leprosy, as well
as for purifying the house of the Icpcivj-

David also mentions this herb in the

* Exodus, chap. xii. verse 22.
t Leviticus, c. xiv. 4, 49 and 52.

270 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

beautiful prayer he made after being rebuked
by Nathan's parable : " Purge me with hys-
sop, and I shall be clean."*

St. John informs us, that at the crucifix-
ion of our Saviour, " there was set a vessel
full of vinegar : and they filled a spunge
with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and
put it to his mouth/'-t'

From these customs of the Hebrews we
may conclude, that hyssop grew naturally
both in Egypt and in Syria.

Some authors have surmised, that the hys-
sop of scripture is the shrub we call Winter
Savory ; but Pliny has not only described the
savory distinctly, but he says also, that the
best hyssop grows on Mount Taurus in
Cilicia, and next to that is the hyssop of
Pamphylia, both in Asia Minor. It grew also
in Smyrna.

This author says, it is an herb not
friendly to the stomach. The Romans used
it with figs as a purgative, and with honey as
an emetic ; and a plaster was formed of it
for the sting of serpents.

Pliny gives the following simple receipt,
as an excellent drink to discharge the chest

* Psalm li. 7. f Chap. xix. 29.

HYSSOP. 271

of phlegm: five sprigs of hyssop, two Bprigs
of rue, boiled with three figs.*

Aiton notices three species of hyssop, and
four varieties of the common sort, the earli-
est of which was cultivated in this country in
1548. The same author mentions four spe-
cies of hedge hyssop, Gratiola, all of which
are exotics ; but Gerard informs us, that he
found the broad-leafed hedge hyssop grow-
ing wild as early as the year 1590 ; and as it
was upon an interesting occasion to the citi-
zens of London, I shall give his own words.

" It groweth in moist places. I found it
growing vpon the bog or marrish ground, at
the further end of Hampsteed Heath, and vpon
the same heath towards London, neere vnto
the head of the springs that were digged for
water to be conueied to London, 1590, at-
tempted by that careful citizen, Sir John Hart,
Knight, Lord Maior of the Citie of London:
at which time myselfe was in his lordship' s
company, and viewing for my pleasure the
same goodly springs. I found the said plant
not heretofore remembered." The same au-
thor says, he " experimented this herb," and
found it a powerful purgative."

# Book xxvi. c. (5.

272 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Dodoens wrote much on the medicinal
virtues of hyssop, and says, " the decoction
of this plant with figs, rue, and honey, boiled
together, is good for the complaints of the
chest, shortness of breath, and hard dry
coughs. He recommends it to be given
to children with figs to destroy worms, as
also to be used as a gargle to break tumours
in the mouth and throat. He states also,
that hyssop boiled in vinegar, and held in
the mouth, eases the tooth-ache ; and that
the decoction removes congealed blood oc-
casioned by bruises, and takes off the black
or blue marks.

Later authors have greatly commended
it in cases of bruises from falls, blows, &c,
either by way of cataplasm, or only a little
bundle of the plant put into a linen rag, and
applied to the part. Ray gives an account
from Mr. Boyle, of a violent contusion of
the thigh, from a kick of a horse, which was
happily cured by this herb, boiled and ap-
plied as a cataplasm. He tells us, the vio-
lent pain was almost instantly removed, and
the very mark and blackness taken off in a
few hours.

The leaves and flowers are of a warm
pungent taste, and of an agreeable aromatic

HYSSOP. 275

smell : therefore, the tops and blossoms are
sometimes reduced to powder, and used with
cold salad herbs, having a comforting and
strengthening virtue; they are salutary against
melancholy and phlegm. Besides the gene-
ral virtues of aromatics, hyssop is greatly
recommended in humoral asthmas, coughs,
and other disorders of the breast and lungs;
and is said to promote expectoration. The
leaves infused in the manner of tea and
sweetened with sugar or honey, have been
found good in diseases of the breast and
lungs, being of a detergent, attenuant, ex-
pectorant, and corroborant quality.

This exotic may be raised either by seed
or cuttings. It thrives best in a poor dry
soil, and will also bear the severities of win-
ter much better in such soil, than where its
pores are filled with moisture in a richer
soil.

The hedge hyssop is said to be good in
dropsical cases, but it is so powerful a medi-
cine, and its operations are so violent, that it
can only be given to persons of robust consti-
tutions, although it is rendered more mild by
being boiled in milk.

M. Geoffroy, a French physician, who
studied in England about the end of the 17Ui

VOL. I. T

274 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

century, says, a purgative of powerful virtues
may be extracted from the Gratiola in a dry
state, which operates in a small dose, and
without any disagreeable taste.

Dr. James says, hyssop is healing, opening,
and attenuating ; good to cleanse the lungs
of tartarous humours, and helpful against
coughs, asthmas, difficulty of breathing, and
cold distempers of the lungs ; it is also reck-
oned a cephalic, and good for diseases of
the head and nerves.

Of the efficacy of hyssop, in sugillations
of the eyes, we learn an instance from Rio-
lanus the elder : I found by experience,"
says that physician, " the truth of what Ar-
chigenes affirms, in Galen, which is, that if
the tops of hyssop be tied up in a cloth, and
boiled in water, and the cloth afterwards ap-
plied warm to the livid eye, the blood will
be attracted by the hyssop to such a degree,
as to stain the linen. Upon this authority
I have, several times, prescribed a decoction
of hyssop against sugillations, even of the
eyes ; only, instead of water, I sometimes
ordered the bag to be boiled in wine ; and,
directing the application of it, somewhat
warm, to the eye-lids, when the patient went

HYSSOP. 275

to bed, his eyes being shut, the lividness
was removed as well as I could wish.*

Hyssop, in surgery, has its use in heating
and ripening, &c. The vapour removes
ringing in the ears, when introduced into
them.

* Simon Paulli.

T 2

276 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES,

INDIGO.— INDIGOFERA.

Natural order, Papilionacece. A genus of
the Diadelphia Decandria class.

Before we describe this plant, which the
ingenuity of man has made important, rather
by adding to our luxury, than from any real
use or addition to our comfort, it may not
be irrelevant to the subject to notice what
gave rise to this artificial want.

Instinct, which directs the ox to the pas- ,
ture, the bee to the flower, and the bird to
the seed, would first instruct man to satisfy
and provide for the necessary nourishment of
his frame : when wants were supplied, com-
forts would next be sought. The protection
of the body from the sun, or the inclemency
of the weather, would form the second con-
sideration ; and as the human species in-
creased, some mark of distinction would be
called for, to bestow on objects of reverence,
love, or power.

indigo. 277

This love of distinction and ornament
seems inherent in our nature, since we find
that barbarians who had neither learnt to cul-
tivate the fruits of the earth, nor to raise
themselves a shelter from the weather, would
adorn their naked bodies by staining them of
various colours, and often render themselves
conspicuous by painful operations.

Pliny says, the women of Britain, both
wives and virgins, went without clothing to
the feasts and sacrifices, except that they
coloured their bodies with an herb which
they got from Gaul. This ancient custom
had nearly been revived in the present cen-
tury ; but the modesty and good taste of the
British fair soon discarded a fashion so re-
pugnant to the character of the English
nation.

The eastern part of the world, where man
was first created, gave birth also to the arts.
The Scriptures as well as the writings of the
Heathens, inform us, that the art of dyeing
was invented on the coast of Syria.

The city of Sidon is supposed to have been
so called after the eldest son of Canaan.
The patriarch Jacob mentions this city as
being on the coast ; " Zebulun shall dwell
at the haven of the sea ; and he shall be for

278 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

an haven of ships : and his border shall be
unto Zidon." #

Tyre, which was called the daughter of
Sidon, was built on an island near the coast.
These cities were inhabited by the Phoeni-
cians, whose kingdom was small, and soil
sterile ; Nature had, however, favoured them
with commodious harbours; and the forest of
Lebanon being within their territories, fur-
nished them with timber for constructing
vessels. " They have made all thy shipboards
of fir trees of Senir : they have taken cedars
from Lebanon to make masts for thee."-j~
With these natural advantages, and the want
of those necessaries of subsistence which
their own barren soil would not supply, they
turned their attention to commerce, for
which their situation was peculiarly favour-
able. Intercourse with mankind naturally
opens and extends the mind. From trading
in articles of necessity, those of luxury would
follow. From these art would spring, and
manufactories arise.

Idmon, the father of Arachne, is said to
have been the inventor of dyeing, and it
is related, that the discovery of the purple

# Gen. chap. xlix. 3. f Ezek. chap, xxvii. 5.

INDIGO. '27^

dye was owing to a dog, which, having
caught one of the purple fishes among the
rocks, in eating it, stained his mouth and
beard with the precious liquor; the hue thus
acquired, struck the fancy of a Tyrian nymph
so strongly, that she refused her lover Her-
cule sany favours till he had brought her a
mantle of the same colour.

The dye of Tyre became celebrated in all
nations ; and this city appears to have kept
the art within its own walls for many ages.
It was esteemed as precious as pure gold,
and seldom used but by kings and princes,
or in the vestures of the priests. Private
persons were forbidden by the laws of most
countries to wear the least scrap of it.

The hangings of the Tabernacle were made
of blue, and purple, and scarlet ; the holy
garments of Aaron were also ornamented
with these colours.

" King Solomon made himself a chariot of
the wood of Lebanon, he made the pillars
thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold,
the covering of purple."

Ezekiel mentions the purple dye among
the rich merchandize of Tyre. " Syria was
thy merchant by reason of the multitude of
the wares of thy making : they occupied in

280 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES,

thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered
work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate." *

That purple and scarlet were only used by
sovereigns and rulers, we learn by the words
of Belshazzar king of Babylon, when he ad-
dressed the prophet Daniel. " If thou canst
read the writing, and make known to me the
interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed
with scarlet (or purple), and have a chain of
gold about thy neck, and shalt be the third
ruler in the kingdom-f." Again we read in
the tenth chapter of the 1st book of Macca-
bees, that when Jonathan's accusers saw that
he was honoured and clothed in purple, they
fled all away."

The soldiers, when they mocked Christ,
put on him a purple robe.

" I find in the ancient chronicles," says
Pliny X, " that purple has been worn in Rome
from its first foundation. However," says this
author, " king Romulus only wore it in his
royal garment, or mantle of majesty. Tullus
Hostilius was the first Roman king who put
on the long purple robe, and the cassock
bordered with scarlet." Cornelius Nepos

* Chap, xxvii. 16. t f Chap. v. v. 16.

J Book ix. 39.

INDIGO. 281

says, a pound of the Tyrian purple could
not be bought for less than 1000 denarii,
(31/. os.) He says, " that when P. Lentulus
Spinther was vEdile, he wore in the chair a
long embroidered robe, for which he was
both blamed and checked, but now-a-days it
is thought nothing to hang our dining-cham-
bers with this purple dye, as well as to carpet
our floors, our cushions, and our cupboards,
with this double-dyed purple of Tyre."

The Tyrians obtained this fine colour from
shell-fishes called Purpura, and those taken
from the deepest water produced the finest
purple. These were therefore called Pela-
gice (fish of the deep sea). These fish have
a tongue of about a finger in length, of so
hard and sharp a nature, that they pierce
through the shell of other fish, and thus
draw their nourishment from their victim.
From this observation the Phoenicians in-
vented a method of catching them, both
simple and curious. They procured cockles,
which were kept dry until they were
nearly exhausted, and then put into small
nets and let down to the bottom of the water.
Here they naturally would open, to revive,
and receive the benefit of their element,
which being perceived by the purples, they

282 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

darted their tongues into the cockles, who,
feeling the intrusion, instantly closed their
shells, and by this means their enemies were
drawn up by their tongues.*

The beautiful dye of the ancients was a
liquid contained in a small white vein in the
mouth and throat of the purpura.

This fish was principally taken in the
spring of the year, as at that time it was
found to possses this precious liquid in the
greatest perfection. The veins were laid in
salt, and then boiled with much nicety for
ten days before the colour was perfect. It
gave a scarlet or a purple dye, according to
the state of boiling, or in all probability by
some slight addition. These colours were
both called the Tyrian dye, which accounts
for the different term used by the Evan-
gelists; St. Matthew writes, that the soldiers,
when they stripped Christ, put on a scarlet
robe, whereas St. Mark and St. John men-
tion a purple robe.

Till the time of Alexander the Great, we
find no other sort of dye than purple, blue,
and scarlet. It was under the successors of

* It is to be regretted that a similar trap has not been
invented for the reptile slanderer, whose cutting tongue
often injures the fairest reputation.

indigo. 283

that monarch, that the Greeks applied them-
selves to the forming of other colours, and
which in all probability they learned in their
excursions into India, where yellow is consi-
dered the oldest colour known in dyeing.

It required three hundred of the purple
fishes to dye one pound of wool, and as they
cast up this valuable stain if suffered to die,
we cannot be surprised at the high price the
Tyrian colour bore. Thus was derived that
glorious purple, so full of state and majesty,
that the Roman lictors, with their rods, hal-
berds, and axes, made way for. These little
fish were drawn from the bottom of the sea
by their tongues, to make distinction between
a knight and a counsellor of state, to give
splendour to the victorious generals in their
triumphs, and to add reverence to the priest
when offering sacrifice.

" The Gauls," says Pliny, " were the first
who invented the means of counterfeiting
the purple and scarlet of Tyre, and all other
colours, by the means of vegetable juice."
The modern French, are celebrated for many
colours in dyeing, in which they excel all
Europe.

The English being now, like the Phoeni-
cians of old, a commercial people, with few

284 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

natural productions in their country that are
not to be found in other parts of the world,
have followed the course of the sons of
Canaan :

" For stormy seas they quit the pleasing plain,
Plant woods in waves, and dwell amidst the main."

Arist^us.

The Phoenicians, by planting colonies in
various parts of the Mediterranean, were
able to collect all the rarities of the then
known world to their city, and thus rendered
Tyre " the mart of nations ;" and as long as
the justice and good policy of our nation
cherish its colonial children with the care
of a fond parent, so long will Britons be
the envy of nations, and their indigo be as
profitable as the purple of Tyre.

The art of extracting this blue dye from
the indigo plant was discovered by the na-
tives of the East Indies; and its first intro-
duction to Europe was at a time when in-
genuity had carried luxury to the highest
pitch at Rome. Pliny, who died in the
year 79 a.d. says*, " It is not long since they
began to bring from India a blue colour, from
thence called Indico, which sells from seven-

# Book xxxiii. chap. 13.

INDIGO. 285

teen to twenty denarii the pound, and an-
swers well for painters to form shadows from
lights in their works." In the sixth chapter
of his 35th book, he says, Indico is one of
the colours which the masters deliver to the
painter by weight and measure, on account
of its costliness ; and although it is so much
esteemed, it is only a slimy mud, cleaving to
the foam that is gathered about canes and
reeds : it looks black while pounding, but,
when dissolved, it produces a lovely colour,
between purple and azure.

It appears from this account, that the In-
dians had not then manufactured indigo, but
that it was formed by the plants falling into
water, where the colour, being discharged by
fermentation, clung to the canes and reeds as
described.

We should find that there are but few
arts which do not owe their discovery to
simple causes, could we trace their origin.

" Thy art of building from the bee receive ;

Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave.

Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale."

The finest indigo is brought from Java ;
it is likewise made on the coast of Coroman-

286 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

del, Pondicherry, Agra, &c. &c. Pompet
says, the Indians of the village of Sarquesse,
near Amadabar, use only the leaves of the
indigo, and throw away the plant and
branches ; this may be one of the causes
why their indigo is so superior to that of the
western world.

The seed of indigo, which is small, and in
appearance like coarse gunpowder, is sown
in drills at a distance of about a foot from
each other. It soon makes its appearance,
and is, when young, hardly to be distin-
guished from lucern grass ; but when come
to maturity, it has more the appearance of
fern. It generally grows to the height of
two feet in about eight weeks, when it be-
gins to blossom. The flowers are like those
of the pea, and of a reddish colour, but des-
titute of smell. The pistil changes into
a long crooked pod, resembling a sickle,
wherein the seed is contained. The leaves
are ranged in pairs around the stalk, ending
in a single lobe, and are of an oval form, of a
dark brownish green on the upper side, and
of silver-grey beneath. These leaves are
covered with a fine farina or meal when the
plant is in blossom, at which time it is cut
with pruning knives, and carried with care,

INDIGO. 287

lest the powder should be shaken off, on
which the beauty and value of the indigo de-
pend. The cutting is repeated in about six
weeks, and is performed a third time if the
weather is favourable. The plant is suffered
to remain two years in the ground, when it is
found to have exhausted the juices necessary
for its nourishment. It is a plant that re-
quires to be kept quite free from weeds and
worms, on which account it employs about
twenty-five negroes to manage a plantation
of fifty acres, allowing them time to provide
their own necessary subsistence. Good land
will yield from sixty to seventy pounds weight
of indigo per acre; at a medium the produce
is about fifty pounds.

The indigo plantation is as subject to ca-
sualties as that of rice or other crops. Some-
times the plant becomes dry, and is destroyed
by an insect that frequents this herb. At
other times, the whole of the leaves, which
are the valuable part of the plant, are de-
voured in the space of twenty-four hours by
caterpillars. This has given rise to the say-
ing, " that the indigo planter goes to bed
rich, and rises in the morning totally ruined.

In Carolina the wild native indigo is found
to answer the best, on account of its hardi-

288 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

ness, the ease with which it may be cul-
tivated, and the quantity of its produce,
although it is not esteemed of the finest
quality.

As this vegetable dye is in demand, from
the imperial robe to the peasant's stocking,
and forms alike the delicate white of the
muslin dress, and the dark blue of the gar-
dener's apron, we shall enter into the process
of making this colour, so much in request in
our manufactures, from the carpet to the
crape in wool, and in like proportion in silk,
flax, and hemp, following the two latter even
into paper.

The apparatus for indigo works, though
large, are not very expensive ; the whole con-
sisting of a pump, vats, and tubs. As soon
as the plant is cut, it is put into a steeping
vat of about twelve feet long and four deep,
to the height of about fourteen inches. The
vessel is then filled with water, and the plants
left to macerate about twelve or fourteen
hours, when they undergo a fermentation,
and begin to rise and grow sensibly warm.
Spars of wood are then laid across, to prevent
the indigo from rising too much, and a mark
is set to denote the highest pitch of its ascent.
In about twenty-four hours, the fermentation

INDIGO. 289

having attained its due pitch, and beginning
to abate, the operator lets off the liquor by
a cock into another vat, called the beater, the
mortar, or the pounding-tub. The gross
matter is taken for manure, and the steeping-
vat cleansed for the reception of fresh plants,
as long as the harvest continues.

The liquor that has run into the beating-
tub is found strongly impregnated with a
very subtile earth, which alone constitutes
the blue substance required. To separate
this from the useless salt of the plant, which
makes it float on the surface, the liquor is
agitated by incessant beating with bottomless
buckets full of holes and fixed to long han-
dles, until it heats, froths, and rises above the
rim of the vessel which contains it. To allay
this violent fermentation, oil is thrown in,
which instantly causes it to subside. This
part of the process requires the greatest pre-
caution, for if the agitation be discontinued
too soon, the part that is used in dyeing, not
being sufficiently separated from the salt,
would be lost. If, on the contrary, the dye
were to be agitated too long after the com-
plete separation, the parts would be brought
together again and form a new combination;
and the salt re-acting on the dregs would ex-

VOL. I. U

2£K) CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

cite a second fermentation, that would alter
the dye, spoil its colour, and make what is
called burnt indigo.

To prevent these accidents, a close atten-
tion is paid to the least alteration the dye
undergoes, by taking up some of the liquor
in a glass from time to time. When it is
perceived that the blue particles collect by
separating from the rest of the liquor, they
leave off shaking the buckets, and pour lime-
water into it, and gently stir the whole. The
blue dregs precipitate to the bottom of the
tub, where they are left to settle till the wa-
ter is quite clear, when it is let off by taps
or holes one below the other, until nothing
remains at the bottom but the blue dregs,
which are then put into coarse linen bags :
these are hung up until the moisture is en-
tirely drained off. To complete the drying,
this muddy substance is worked upon boards
of some porous wood, with a wooden spatula,
and it is frequently exposed to the morning
and evening sun, though but for a short time
only, and then being put into boxes or frames,
is again exposed to the sun, in the same cau-
tious manner, until it is made fit for market.

It is much to be regretted, that no sooner
has one man learnt to manufacture a useful

INDIGO. 291

article, than others employ their ingenuity
to adulterate it, or substitute for it some
base imitation. Indigo had no sooner found
its way into Rome, than spurious drugs were
coloured and substituted ; and, although
they were ingenious, we deem it better to
avoid the mention, and make known the
most simple means of detecting frauds when
practised in indigo. The best is of a dark
blue inclining to violet, bright and sparkling
when broken, and will float on water. It
may be tried by dissolving a little in a glass
of water, when, if pure, it will mix equally
with the liquor ; but if otherwise, will sepa-
rate, and fall to the bottom. Indigo may
also be tried in fire, where it will burn en-
tirely away if good, but the adulterations
remain unconsumed. Mr. Wynne says in
his History of the British Empire in Ame-
rica, " Perhaps in no branch of manufacture
can so large a profit be made upon so mode-
rate a capital, as in that of indigo ; nor can
the manufacture be carried on in any country
with greater advantages than in Carolina,
where the climate is healthy, provisions plen-
tiful and cheap, and every thing necessary
for the purpose procured with the greatest
facility.

u2

292 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

The indigo plant has been cultivated in
our green-houses since 1731, and many va-
rieties have been introduced since that pe-
riod, by the curious in exotic plants.

Hellot suspects that such a blue faecula
as is procured from indigo and woad, is
procurable from many other vegetables. He
supposes the natural greens of vegetables
to be compounded of blue and yellow, and
that blue is oftentimes the most perma-
nent, so as to remain entire after the pu-
trefaction or destruction of the yellow. The
theory is specious, and perhaps, on trial, [
may be found just; at all events it is well
to give this idea to the world.

Probably, blue has been selected as the
most appropriate colour for the dress of our
brave sailors, from its having been anciently
used as the symbol of the sea, for which
reason the combatants who performed in the
NaumachicB, at the Circensian games at Rome,
were clad in blue ; and those who had dis-
tinguished themselves by any notable exploit : u
at sea, were rewarded with a blue ensign. |tk

Notwithstanding the Dyers' Company of , r
London was incorporated so long back as the i v
reign of Henry the Sixth, yet the dyeing and
dressing of woollen cloths was very imper-

ii
i

indigo. 293

fectly understood in England, in the year
1608 ; before which period, they were sent
white into Holland, where they were dyed and
dressed, and from thence brought back for
sale. In that year, Sir William Cockrayne,
an alderman of London, obtained a patent
for dyeing and dressing cloths at home ; but
great confusion arising from this grant, it was
revoked in 1615. But in 1667, workmen came
over from the Netherlands, under whose
direction the art was brought to a consider-
able degree of perfection ; but there is even
at the present time great room for improve-
ment in our dyeing, many of our colours
being inferior to those of our Continental
neighbours.

The Romans used indigo to assuage swell-
ings and inflammations, and to dry tumours.

In the Hortus Indus Malabaricus, it is
stated, that a decoction of the indigo root
is an excellent remedy in nephritic colics.

Some physicians recommend indigo in the
quantity of *a dram, while others condemn
the practice, and look on it as a poison. The
internal use of indigo is prohibited by law in
Saxony.

294 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE.

A genus of the Syngenesia Folygamia fras-

tranea class.

The Jerusalem Artichoke, is a tuberous
rooted species of the Helianthus, Sunflower,
or Turnsol ; the Italians called it Girasol,
which we have ignorantly corrupted into
Jerusalem.

Pelleterius calls it Heliotr opium Indicum
tuberosum. Parkinson, in whose time these
plants were first introduced, mentions them
under the title Bat tat as de Canada, the French
Battatas, or Hierusalem Artichokes. Coles
also, whose work was printed only 40 years
after they were known in this country, calls
them the Potatoes of Canada; but we are in-
formed in Martyn's edition of Miller, " that
they were so called because the French
brought them first out of Canada into these
parts ; not that Canada is their original

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE. JO.)

country, for they are unquestionably the pro-
duce of a hot climate, being natives of Brazil."

This root, which is more agreeable than
profitable, was first planted in England
during the reign of James the First, as we
are informed that in the year 1617, Mr. John
Goody er received two small roots from Mr.
Franquevill of London, no bigger than hen's
eggs ; the one he planted, and the other he
gave to a friend. His own brought him a
peck of roots, wherewith he stored Hamp-
shire. This note is dated the 17th of Octo-
ber, 1621 ; and it is added that he had them
upon their first arrival into England.*

If this were the era of the first introduc-
tion of the Jerusalem artichoke, it seems
surprising, even allowing for the facility with
which it is increased, that so soon as the year
1629, or even earlier, it should have become
so common in London, that even the most
vulgar began to despise it : whereas when
first received among us, it was, as Parkinson
says, a dainty for a queen. They were for-
merly baked in pies, with marrow, dates,
ginger, raisins, sack, &c. ; but the too fre-
quent use, especially being so plentiful and

* Miller.

296 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

cheap, hath, says Parkinson (in 1629), rather
bred a loathing than a liking of them.

Coles observes in his History of Plants,
that " The potatoes of Canada, called by
ignorant people Jerusalem artichokes, were
of great account when they were first received
amongst us; but by reason of their great
increase they are become common, and con-
sequently despicable, especially by those
which think nothing good unless it be dear;
but if any one please to put them into boil-
ing water, they will quickly become tender,
so that, being peeled, sliced, and stewed with
butter, and a little wine, they will be as
pleasant as the bottom of an artichoke."

These roots seem to have been disesteemed
from their ventosity, and watery qualities ;
but when properly cooked, and eaten with
moderation, they may be considered as safe
as most other vegetables. The root near-
ly resembles the flavour of the artichoke
bottom, on which account they are as im-
properly called Artichokes, as they are ab-
surdly named Jerusalem.

This vegetable is propagated by planting
out the smaller roots, or pieces of the larger
which have buds to them, in the manner of
potatoes. The stem grows to a considerable

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE. 297

height, having all the appearance of the sun-
flower, excepting that they do not blossom
in this temperate climate. The root spreads
immoderately, multiplies very quickly, and is
with difficulty cleared out of land where it
is once planted. The Jerusalem artichoke is
thought greatly to impoverish the earth.

298 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

LAVENDER.—LAVENDULA,

OR THE ANCIENT SPIKENARD, FROM SPICA

NARDI.*

Natural order, Verticillatce. A genus of the
Didynamia Gymnospermia class.

Lavender is called "Ndofos, Nardus, in
Greek, from Naarda, a city of Syria, near
the Euphrates, and Nctp£oL<?<£%vs, quasi Nardi
Spica, which was the general name of the
Indian sort : also Nardus Indica, to put a
distinction between that and the Celtic and
mountain spikenard, -f

The plant takes its name a lavando, from
washing or bathing, because it was used in
baths, on account of its fragrancy; or because
all the species were ingredients in lyes, for the
purpose of giving a sweet smell to linen ; or
entered the composition of the best Lavacra,
or washes for the face, in order to render it
shining and fragrant. It is also called Spica,

* Todd's Edit, of Johnson's Diet. Hill, Mat. Med.
t Lobel. Cole.

LAVENDER. 299

spike; because, among all the verticillated
plants, this alone bears a spike. Many call
it Nard ; and, perhaps, this is the true nard
of the ancients.*

This shrub, which is the pride both of our
aromatic gardens and of our perfumers'
shops, is a native of Languedoc, some parts
of Spain, Hungary, and Austria ; but the
most odoriferous lavender grew anciently
about the city Eporrhedia, and was so much
esteemed at the time when our Saviour was
upon earth, that it was sought after with the
greatest avidity and brought a revenue to
that city equal to a mine of the most precious
metal, f*

St. Mark mentions it as a thing of great
value ; for when Christ was in Bethany,
" in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat
at meat, there came a woman, having an ala-
baster box of ointment of spikenard, very
precious : and she brake the box, and poured
it on his head." They who were present
observed that " it might have been sold for
more than three hundred pence." J

Pliny, who flourished a little after this

* Historia Plantarum, ascribed to Boerhaave.
t Plin. book xxi. chap. 7.
J Chap. xiv. ver. 3 to 5.

300 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

period, has described the lavender plant un-
der the name of Nardus. The blossom he
notices as forming a spike, and says there is
a spurious kind of nard, which is often sold
for the true spikenard. In the same chapter
he states that the most costly and precious
ointment was made from the aromatic leaves
of the nardus, and that the spikes (blossoms)
sold for 100 Roman denarii, (3/. 2s. 6d.)
a pound.

This exact naturalist has described the
varieties so minutely, that it cannot be mis-
taken for any other plant. " The Romans/'
says he, " esteem the leaves of the nardus
that is brought from Syria as the best; next
to that the Gallic lavender or nardus is in
estimation/' He also notices the spikenard
of Candia, and of India ; but he does not
even hint that the latter plant was used as
a perfume. What especially confirms this
opinion is, that Pliny, after having described
the same ointment mentioned by the Evan-
gelists, which he directs to be kept in pots
or vessels of alabaster, observes that the
flowers or spikes of the plant being laid in
wardrobes give a most agreeable perfume to
the garments.

Lavender, or Nardus, was likewise called

LAVENDER. 301

Asarum by the Romans, on account of its
not being used in garlands or chaplets : the
leaves, says Pliny, were too small and brittle
to be woven into coronets.

It has often been asserted, that the spike-
nard ointment of the ancients was made from
the root of the Valeriana Jatamansi, which is
found growing only in India ; but this seems
highly improbable, as the scent of this root
differs very widely from our idea of agreeable
perfumes ; and we may presume, that the
opinions of the Romans at the commence-
ment of the Christian era, with respect to
odours, were similar to our own ; as we find,
besides the spikenard, they extracted their
favourite odours from roses, myrtle, violets,
marjoram, lilies, orris-root, and jonquils, &c,
to which they often added sweet spices and
aromatic gums.

The late Sir William Jones was of opinion,
that this celebrated ointment was procured
from the root of the Valerian of Nepal ; and
on this authority, Mr. Lambert tells us in his
illustration of the genus Cinchona, that the
Valeriana Jatamansi " is identical with the
spikenard of the ancients :" notwithstanding
the doubts expressed by Dr. Francis Hamil-
ton, in his account of Nepal, where he says.

302 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

" As there can be no disputing about taste,
I cannot take upon myself to say how far the
encomiums bestowed on the spikenard are
applicable to the Valerian ; all I can say is,
that if this root was the spikenard of the
Roman ladies, their lovers must have had a
very different taste from the youth of modern
Europe.

The wild lavender, which grows so abun-
dantly in the south of France, is known to
be the bastard nard of the ancients. P. Po-
met, who was superintendant of the Mate-
ria Medica in the King s Gardens at Paris, in
1694, says, " Nous faisons venir, de plus, de
Languedoc et de la Provence, l'huile d'as-
pic, qui est tir6 des fleurs et des petites
feiiilles d'une plante que les Botanistes ap-
pellent Spica, she Lavendulamus, vel Nardus
Italica, a ut Tseudo-nardus, qui signifie Aspic,
ou Lavande male, ou Nard dTtalie, ou
Nard batard."

The antiquity of the use of odoriferous gums
and perfumes, in the eastern nations, defies
our researches into its origin ; but it was the
opinion of ancient writers, that they were
first brought out of Elam, the country now
called Persia, and formed one of the earliest
articles of commerce with the Egyptians.

LAVENDER. 308

These people appear to have set great value
on aromatic drugs, which, on account of the
damp fogs arising from the Nile, they could
not obtain in so high a degree of perfection
from their native plants. The Ishmaelitish
merchants to whom Joseph was sold, were
going into Egypt with their camels laden
with " spices, and balm, and myrrh." * The
Israelites would, of course, become acquaint-
ed with the use of these luxuries during their
bondage in Egypt ; and particularly Moses,
from his having been bred up in Pharaohs
court. Among the offerings which the children
of Israel made for the Tabernacle, were spices
for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, •f In
the 30th chapter of Exodus, we learn that
Moses was commanded to make the holy
anointing oil, and a perfume of various aroma-
tic gums and vegetables, after the manner of
the apothecaries."

" Why need I name the sweet balsamic oil,

Which weeps from shrubs in Juda's fertile soil T

Virgil.

This precious balm, so often mentioned in
Scripture, was drawn from shrubs which
grew only in two places in Judea. These

# Gen. c. xliii. v. 11. t Exodus, c. xxv. v. G.

304 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

were afterwards inclosed as parks or gar-
dens, and most religiously kept for the Kings
of Israel. The largest of these enclosures
contained about twenty acres : and both of
them were said to produce but seven gallons
of this valuable aromatic sap, in the most
favourable year. When fresh, it was of a
pale colour, and of the consistency of oil,
but, by keeping, it was converted into a red-
dish gum, clear and transparent. It was ob-
tained by making incisions in the shrubs; but
the most valuable was that which oozed
from the natural cracks in the bark. From
the pruning of the shrubs and leaves was
procured an inferior kind of balm.

When Alexander was in Judea, (332 years
b. c.) he limited the quantity of balm that
was to be taken from both these gardens, to
one spoonful per day.

Pompey boasted of having borne one of
these shrubs in his triumph ; and the Empe-
rors Vespasian, both father and son, brought
one of these balm-trees to Rome, where it
was publicly exhibited.

At the sacking and destruction of Jerusa-
lem, the Jews endeavoured to destroy these
sacred shrubs, in order to prevent their fall-
ing into the hands of the heathens ; but the

LAVENDER. 305

Romans wishing to preserve them, a most
bloody battle ensued. The trees were pre-
served, indeed, but for the worshippers of
idols, though the Temple fell without being
polluted by heathen sacrifices.

These celebrated shrubs, and their bal-
samic liquor, were then placed under the
protection of the Roman empire. They are
now doomed to shed their tears for the gra-
tification of the Grand Signior's seraglio
only ; for even the balsam that so rarely
leaves Constantinople, in the shape of pre-
sents from the great men of the Porte, is
merely an extract from the prunings of the
plants.

The cultivation of these shrubs is now ex-
clusively in the hands of the Turkish Sove-
reign ; and is esteemed so precious as to form
a special part of his revenue.

Le Sieur Pierre Pomet, in his Histoire
G Sner ale des Drogues, 16'94, tells us, that the
Grand Signior had some of these shrubs
transplanted into his garden at Grand Cairo,
where they were so strictly guarded by the
Janizaries, that his friend could not by any
stratagem obtain a sight of the trees, except-
ing from the height of the wall. From the
drawing and description which this author

VOL. I.

306 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

has furnished us with, the leaves of this shrub
are made to resemble those of rue, and the
white blossoms are of a star-like form, from
the centre of which grows a berry, pointed
at the extremity, containing a kernel or seed.
This author tells us, that Madame de Ville-
favin,had possessed herself of fourteen ounces
of this precious balm, which he saw, and that
it was of a bright gold colour, had the per-
fume of the citron, and was of a firm con-
sistency.*

" Indus alone can swarthy ebon boast,
As fragrant incense the Sabsean coast."

Virgil.

The sweet incense, or frankincense, which
was also used both in the worship of the true
God, and on the altars of the profane tem-
ples, was a produce of Arabia Felix, and was
drawn from trees in a manner similar to the
balm.

Pliny informs us, that, when Alexander
was but a child, he threw incense on the altar
so unsparingly at a sacrifice, that Leonidas,
his tutor, slightly checked him with this re-
proof, " Sire ! you should throw incense in
that manner, when you have conquered the

# Livre vii. chap. 44.

LAVENDER. 301

country where it grows." The rebuke seem-
ed to have made deep impression on the
mind of the young prince, for when he had
conquered Arabia, he sent a ship laden witli
incense to Leonidas, with a charge to his
tutor to bestow it largely on the gods when
he sacrificed.

The incense trees grew only in that part
of Arabia that was inhabited by the Sabaeans,
and so strict were their laws respecting them,
that no persons were permitted even to see
the trees, excepting those who had the charge
of them. The valley where they grew was
surrounded by mountains, and was situated
about eight days journey from Sabota (now
Sanaa) the capital, whither the incense was
conveyed on camels ; and it was forbidden,
on pain of death, to enter the city with this
drug, except at one particular gate, where
the priests took a tenth part for their god
Sabis, and no person could either buy or sell
it until this duty was discharged. The Ge-
banites were the only people allowed to
carry it out of the country. They also paid
a toll to their sovereign. It was taxed again
at Gaza, and by the time that the kings, the
priests, the secretaries, the wardens of the
temples, and the various officers, had levied

x2

308 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

contributions on this drug, but little was left
to pay the great charge of bringing it to the
coast ; "and here," says Pliny, "the publicans
and officers of the customs belonging to the
empire must have a fleece, which raises it to
so high a price in Rome."*

At the time when this frankincense was
taken to Alexandria, to be tried, refined, and
made up for sale, the workmen were naked,
excepting short trowsers, which were sowed
up and sealed, to prevent the possibility of
their concealing any portion of this valuable
drug. Their heads were fixed in a mask or
caul, lest they should secrete the smallest
portion either in their mouths or ears. They
were not even suffered to depart after all
these precautions, till they were examined
when quite uncovered.

Perfumes were evidently known to the
Greeks in the time of Homer, who seems
quite at home at the toilet, for, in decorating
Juno for her Imperial husband, he says

a

Swift to her bright apartment she repairs,
Sacred to dress, and Beauty's pleasing cares :

$fc $F TT $fc *W* W -Tf*

Here first she bathes ; and round her body pours
Soft oils of fragrance, and ambrosial showers :

* Book xiv. c. 12.

LAVENDER. 30f)

The winds perfumed, the balmy gale convey

Through heaven, through earth, and all th' aerial way ;

Spirit divine ! whose exhalation greets

The sense of gods with more than mortal sweets."

lli<ul, 14/// book.

The Greeks appear to have learnt the
more common use of perfumes from the Per-
sians ; for when Alexander took the camp of
Darius, he found among the royal treasures
a great quantity of rich perfumes and costly
ointments. From Greece this effeminate
practice was carried to Rome, where its abuse
became so excessive, that Nero, that com-
pound of folly and vice, had his feet anointed
with the most expensive odours ; and he is
said to have burnt more incense at the
funeral pile of his wife Poppa?a than the
whole of Arabia produced in a year.

" I cannot ascertain," says Pliny, " when
this enormity first entered Rome ; but it ap-
pears upon record, that after the subduing
Antiochus, and the conquest of Asia, P. Liei-
nius Crassus, and L. Julius Caesar, the Cen-
sors, published an edict, prohibiting the sale
of foreign ointments in Rome. But in these
days, it has entered into our very camps, and
the old standards and ensigns and eagles are
anointed and perfumed, as if it were to re-
ward them for conquering the world. Men

310 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

are now so wanton and delicate, that not-
withstanding they are besmeared in every
part of their bodies with odorous ointments,
yet they cannot take their wine unless it be
spiced and aromatized with balms : so as
they get sweet smells, they care not for the
bitter taste, or the treasure they expend."

When L. Plotius was banished, and pro-
claimed an outlaw, by a decree of the trium-
viri, (Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius,) he
would have escaped, being closely hid in a
cave at Salernum, but was discovered by the
smell of the precious ointment on his person.

As we digress to please, we hope for par-
don, and return to lavender, under the name
which it appears to have borne with the
prince of the Latin poets, who, in describing
a situation for the hive, says,

" Hsec circum Casia virides, et olentia late
Serpilla, et graviter spirantis copia thymbrae."

Virgil's Georgics, 4.th book.

" The verdant lavender must there abound,
There savory shed its pleasant sweets around ;
There buds of purple violets should bloom,
And fragrant thyme the ambient air perfume.

Lauderdale.

Theophrastus, in earlier days, seems to
have mentioned this plant under the title of
Cneorus Albus.

LAVENDER. .) 1 I

D. Rembert Dodoens, who wrote his Her-
bal in the time of Henry the Eighth, says,
"the English call it Spike, and Lavender ;"

which is also a proof that it was then culti-
vated in this country.

Gerard notices six varieties that were cul-
tivated in our gardens as early as the reign
of Elizabeth : one of these species, the cut-
leaved, (multifield, ) he says is called in Eng-
lish, Cassidonia, which seems to be derived
from the Casiae of Virgil.

It does not appear that the English were
addicted to the use of perfumes in the time of
Henry the Eighth, or in the reign of Elizabeth ;
but both Dodoens and Gerard recommend
those who have the palsy or apoplexy to wash
themselves with lavender-water, or anoint
their limbs with the oil made from its flowers ;
though the latter author condemns the prac-
tice of " unskilful apothecaries and foolish
women," who give this and other hot com-
positions inwardly to all constitutions and for
all diseases. Conserves of lavender were
much used in the time of Gerard for various
complaints.

It is far from our intention to condemn
the moderate use of perfumes, as it would
be extremely hard to debar those who reside

312 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

in crowded cities from partaking of the
sweets of nature; but we would recommend
the old practice of laying clean linen in la-
vender, in preference to throwing the extract
of it on dirty clothes.

Lavender is in a very eminent degree ce-
phalic and nervine, and may be safely em-
ployed to sweeten the air of sick rooms,
when the state of the patient, or the atmo-
sphere, will not admit of purer circulation.
It is the chief of all the cephalic plants, be-
ing very comfortable and reviving, under
faintings and languishments of the brain and
heart; whence it is very proper in lethargies,
apoplexy, palsy, and epilepsy. Lavender,
given in a phrensy proceeding from an in-
flammation, infallibly destroys the patient ;
but it is good for vertiginous old persons,
and distempers owing to dulness, and want
of spirits.*

The spirit of lavender is still esteemed in
palsies, vertigoes, lethargies, tremours, &c.
The oil is particularly celebrated for destroy-
ing the pediculi mguinales, and other cuta-
neous insects. Geoffroy says, if soft spungy
paper, dipped in the oil, be applied at night

# Dr. R. James.

LAVENDER. S18

to the parts affected, the insects will certainly
be found dead in the morning.

Lord Bacon says, sweet odours contribute
to health by refreshing the spirits, and caus-
ing cheerfulness. This should induce us to
plant lavender more abundantly in our gar-
dens and shrubberies, where its bluish leaves
form a pleasing variety, and its aromatic
spikes give an agreeable odour. We would
wish to see this fragrant shrub occupying
many banks in parks and plantations, where
the common passenger might imbibe good
humour from this reviving plant. It is easily
propagated either by seeds, cuttings, or slips;
and as the shrub gets older, the flowers be-
come more fragrant, on the same principle
that the fruit of an old tree is the most deli-
cious, or the wine made from old vines, the
richest and most agreeable.

The lavender blossom has given name to
a colour, that is the gayest worn by our fair
young quakers, who are as attractive in their
neatness, as the Egyptian Queen in her robes
of Tyrian dye.

It is as luxurious as it is ingenious to
have our desserts brought to table on a ser-
vice of lavender spikes, and it is equally
pleasing to see young females thus embellish-

314 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

ing those rooms of which they are the greatest
ornament.

There are lavender gardens of consider-
able extent in the neighbourhood of London,
and the lavender-water of British distillation
is now generally preferred to that of France.

The oil made of this plant is called oil
of spike; but the shops generally make it with
turpentine, impregnated with the flowers ;
and the turpentine has indeed the smell, but
not all the virtues of the flowers commu-
nicated to it. The true oil of spike should
be made only of the flowers with water.*

* James.

315

LETTUCE.-LACTUCA.

Natural order, Compositce. A genus of the
Syngenesia Polygamia /Equalis class.

The Latins gave this plant the name of
Lactuca from Lac, on account of the milky
juice with which it abounds. The French,
for the same reason, call it Laitue ; the Eng-
lish name Lettuce is a corruption of either
the Latin or French word, and in all proba-
bility originated from the former, as several
of our old authors spell it Lectuce.

That this vegetable was in early times es-
teemed of the first rank among pot-herbs and
salads, we learn from an anecdote related
by Herodotus, and which also proves that
lettuces were served in their natural state at
the royal tables of the Persian kings at least
550 years before the Christian era. Cam-
byses, son of Cyrus the Great, had his brother
Smerdis killed from mere suspicion, and, con-
trary to the laws, married his sister : this
princess being at table with Cambyses, she

316 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

stripped a headed lettuce of its leaves ; when,
the king observing that the plant was not so
beautiful as when it had all its leaves, " It is
the same with our family," replied the prin-
cess, " since you have cut off a precious shoot."
This indiscreet allusion cost her her own life.
Pliny tells us, that the ancient Romans
knew but one kind of lettuce, which was a
black variety, that yielded a great quantity
of milky juice which caused sleep, therefore
it was called Lactuca.

It is reported, adds this author, that An-
tonius Musa, a physician, cured the emperor
Augustus Caesar of a dangerous disease by
means of the lettuce. Other authors notice
that Augustus was eased of the violence of
his disease by the use of this plant ; which
circumstance seems to have brought the let-
tuce into esteem at Rome ; as Pliny says,
after that time there was no doubt about
eating them, and men began to devise means
of growing them at all seasons of the year,
and even preserving them, for they were used
in pottage as well as in salads.
Columella notices the qualities of this plant,

" And now let lettuce, with its healthful sleep,
Make haste, which of a tedious long disease
The painful loathings cures."

LETTUCE. .il/

Athenaeus and Constantino Caesar sav,
that the Pythagoreans called this plant the
Eunuch ; and the ancients fabled, that after
the death of Adonis, Venus lay upon a bed
of lettuce ; which evidently shews that they
were acquainted with the cooling and opiate
nature of this vegetable, which is still thought
more salutary for those whose religious pro-
fession enjoins them a life of celibacy, than
for settlers in new colonies.

We learn also from Pliny, that the Greek
lettuce was a variety that grew both high and
large, and that the Romans, in his day, culti-
vated the purple lettuce with a large root
that was called Cceciliana. They had likewise
the Egyptian, Cilician, and Cappadocian
lettuce, besides the A sty Us, or the chaste
lettuce, which, he says, was often called
Eunuchion, because it was thought less favour-
able to Venus than other plants. This natu-
ralist adds, they were all considered cooling,
therefore eaten principally in the summer.
Great pains were used to make them cab-
bage: they were earthed up with sea-sand,
to blanch them and give them heart. The
white lettuce was noticed, in that mild cli-
mate, to be the least able to endure cold.

The Romans esteemed this vegetable as a

318 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

clearer of the senses. They were anciently
eaten at the conclusion of their supper; but
in the time of Domitian, they changed this
order, and served them with the first entries
at their feasts.

Martial notices this change in his verse.

" Claudere quae coenas Lactuca solebat avorum,
Die mihi, cur nostras inchoat ilia dapes V

The wild lettuce as well as the cultivated,
was used medicinally by the Romans ; and
Palladius, a Greek physician, notices their
culture in his treatise on fevers.

We find no attempt made to cultivate the
lettuce in this country, until the fourth year
of Queen Elizabeth's reign, 1562 ; but in
1597, Gerard gives us an account of eight
kinds of lettuce, that were then cultivated
in England. He says, * Lettuce maketh a
pleasant sallade, being eaten rawe with
vinegar, oil, and a little salt : but if it be
boiled, it is sooner digested, and nourisheth
more." He adds, " It is served in these
daies, and in these countries, at the begin-
ning of supper, and eaten first before any
other meat ; but notwithstanding, it may now
and then be eaten at both those times to the
health of the bodie : for being taken before

LETTUCE. 31<)

meate, it doth many times stir vp appetite :
and eaten after supper, it keepeth away
drunkenness which cometh by the wine; and
that is by reason that it staieth the vapors
from rising vp into the head." He says,
" Lettuce cooleth a hot stomake, called the
heart-burning," &c. &c.

We now cultivate, in the neighbourhood
of London, thirty varieties of this plant, all
of which are esteemed in salads. Some of
them are natives of Egypt ; others have
been procured from Aleppo, Cos, Holland,
Marseilles, Silesia, Savoy, South America,
Sweden, Italy, Hungary, Germany, and the
East Indies ; the latter can only be grown
in a hot-house.

It should be remarked, that none are so
good to boil or stew, or to thicken soup, hodge-
podge, &c, as the Roman or cabbage lettuce.

The young leaves of garden lettuce are
emollient, cooling, and in some small degree
laxative and aperient, easy of digestion but of
little nourishment ; salubrious in hot bilious
indispositions, but less proper in cold phleg-
matic temperaments. In some cases they
tend to promote sleep, by virtue of their re-
frigerating and demulcient quality.*

* Lewis.

320 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Galen says, " In the decline of age, which
is naturally wakeful, I suffered very much
by want of sleep ; for which disorder, I used
in the evening to eat a lettuce, which was
my sovereign and only remedy. Many boil
this tender herb in water, before it produces
stalks ; as I myself now do, since my teeth
begin to fail me."

Dr. Aston tells us, that the milk of the
common garden lettuce is hypnotic, while
the root of the plant is cooling, diluent, and
nourishing.

This plant is cooling, and causes an incli-
nation to sleep, upon which account it pro-
cures ease in pains, both taken inwardly, and
externally applied.

Schroder was of opinion, that it afforded
considerable nourishment, and much in-
creases milk when eaten by nurses.

The Historia Plant arum states that no
herb more powerfully resolves, and brings
away the black bile.

Lettuces are said to render the chyle easily
condited; and are recommended to young
people on account of their cooling nature.

M. Bourgeois observes, that the different
kinds of lettuce, although very good for per-
sons of strong stomach and good digestion,

LETTUCE. 21

are very injurious to cold weak stomachs, as
they pass undigested ; they disagree very
much with hypochondriac persons, and fe-
males who are troubled with hysterics.

Turned lettuce, when dried and put on
the fire or on hot coals, sparkles like nitre.

Young lettuce may be raised in forty-eight
hours, by first steeping the seed in brandy,
and then sowing it in a hot-house.

The seeds of this plant are of an emollient
nature.

ENDIVE.— CICHORIUM.

This plant is a species of succory, and is
arranged under the same class and order as
the lettuce.

Modern botanical writers state, that the
common garden endive is a native of the
East Indies, without noticing what the an-
cient European authors have said of it.

Ovid mentions it in his tale of Philemon
and Baucis :

A garden salad was the third supply,
Of endive, radishes, and succory."

Columella thus notices this vegetable,

" And endives, which the blunted palate please."

VOL. I. Y

322 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

This plant was eaten both as a pot-herb
and a salad by the Romans. Pliny notices it
in the 8th chapter of his 20th book, and in-
forms us that the endive, or garden succory,
furnishes many effectual properties in medi-
cine ; that the juice of this plant, mingled
with rose-oil and vinegar, was used to allay
pains in the head; and that when mixed with
wine it was thought good for complaints of
the liver.

Some of our writers (says this author) name
the wild endive A mbubeia ; and in Egypt
they call wild endive dehor him, and the cul-
tivated, Seris.

Horace notices this plant under the name
of Cicorea.

" Me pascunt olivae,

Me Cicorea, levesque malvse."*

It is one of the plants with which the magi-
cians, in credulous ages, used to endeavour to
impose on their too easily seduced believers.
They affirmed, that if persons anointed their
bodies all over with the juice of this herb
mixed with oil, it would make them appear,
not only so amiable that they would win the
good will and favour of all men, but that

* Lib. i. Ode 31.

LETTUCE. 323

they would easily obtain whatever they set
their hearts upon. We can match this cre-
dulity in modern times, by that of the disci-
ples of Johanna Southcot.

The garden-endive appears to have been
first cultivated in England in the reign of
Edward the Sixth, 1548; but the wild endive
or succory, Intubus, being indigenous to the
soil, was sown in all probability at a much
earlier period, both as a pot-herb and as a
salad, as Old Gerard informs us, that " the
leaves of these wilde herbes are boiled in
pottage or broths for sicke and feeble persons
that haue hot, weake, and feeble stomacks,
to strengthen the same." This early and ex-
cellent English herbalist notices that the
wild endives " do growe wilde in sundry
places in Englande, vpon wilde and vntilled
barren grounds, especially in chalkie and
stonie places." He also gives an account of
the manner by which the garden-endive was
preserved for winter use in the time of Queen
Elizabeth.

" Endiue being sown in July, it remaineth
till winter, at which time it is taken vp by the
rootes, and laide in the sunne or aire for the
space of two houres ; then will the leaues be
tough, and easily endure to be wrapped vpon

Y 2

324 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

an heape, and buried in the earth with the
rootes vpwards, where no earth can get within
it, which, if it did, would cause rottenness ;
the which, so couered, may be taken vp at
times conuenient, and vsed in sallades all the
winter, as in London and other places is to be
seene ; and then it is called white endiue."
He adds, " these herbes eaten in sallades or
otherwise, especially the white endiue, doth
comfort the weake and feeble stomacke, and
cooleth and refresheth the stomacke ouer-
much heated."

Galen, who wrote in the second century,
mentions this plant as an excellent medicine
for a heated liver. Many of the Romans at-
tributed the astonishing cures performed by
that physician to magic, and thought that
he had obtained all his knowledge by en-
chantment. Galen, however, confessed him-
self indebted for his medical knowledge to
the writings of Hippocrates, which had then
been preserved 550 years : this should be
an inducement for us rather to learn the
opinions of the ancients, than to condemn
them unknown.

Endive is now cultivated in this country
more as a winter and spring salad than for
any other purpose; although it is excellent

LETTUCE. 325

in pottage and soups. Modern physicians
begin to discountenance the use of raw ve-
getables, and reason tells us, that too free a
use of salads in the winter season cannot be
beneficial to the generality of constitutions
in this country ; yet we find our late adven-
turers to the North found it desirable to grow
green salads in their ships, for the benefit of
the sick, when they were within a few de-
grees of the North Pole.

We now cultivate eight varieties of endive.

DANDELION.— LEONTODON.

This despised vegetable, although an ex-
cellent salad herb, belongs to the family of
the succory and endive, and is botanically
arranged under the same order and class as
the lettuce.

We find the Romans named most plants
from their similarity to some well-known ob-
ject, or in allusion to some virtue which they
were supposed to possess; on examining the
leaves of the dandelion, they will be found
cut or jagged, like the teeth of a lion, and
which is expressed by the name Leontodon.
The French name this plant Dent de Lyon,
from Dens Leonis, lion's tooth, from which

326

CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

the English name of Dandelion is a corrup-
tion. The French eat the stalks and tender
leaves of this plant with bread and butter.

Children that eat of the dandelion in the
evening experience its diuretic effects in the
night ; from which cause, other European
nations, as well as the English, have bes-
towed on it a more vulgar name. Notwith-
standing this uninviting appellation, we have
always found it desirable to have some plants
taken from the pastures or road sides, and
planted in our garden to blanch for the
spring, as it is then an agreeable herb to mix
with other salads, and may be procured when
lettuce or endive are not easily obtained.

We are told that when a swarm of locusts
had destroyed the harvest in the island of
Minorca, many of the inhabitants subsisted
upon this plant, without any ill effect.

Goats are fond of the dandelion, and swine
devour it greedily ; sheep and cows are not
fond of it, and horses refuse it. Small birds
hunt for the seed, which they seem to relish.

Boerhaave greatly recommended the use
of this vegetable in most chronical dis-
tempers, and held it capable of resolving all
kinds of coagulations, and the most obstinate

LETTUCE. 327

obstructions of the viscera, if it were duly
continued.

The dandelion is cooling and aperitive,
and a diuretic that is good to cleanse the
kidneys and bladder. It is boiled in posset
drink, and frequently used in all kinds of
fevers.*

Parkinson recommends a decoction of the
leaves and roots in wine or broth for a con-
sumption, or any ill habit of body. The
leaves, as they get old, are very bitter, and
give a faint tincture of red to blue paper ;
the roots give it much deeper : they are
bitter, styptic, and detersive. Tragus pre-
scribed the water of this herb in internal
inflammations; and Barbette advised the juice
to be taken for the same complaint.

# James.

328 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES

MARIGOLD.— CALDULENA.

Natural order, Composite. A genus of the
Syngenesia Polygamic/, Necessaria class.

The generic name of Calendula is thought
to have originated from its having been ob-
served to flower most about the calends of
every month.

" Fair is the Marygold, for pottage meet." Gay.

The common Marigold, or Calendula offi-
cinalis, is a native of the south of Europe, and
is said to have been cultivated in this country
prior to 1573. Dodoens, whose Herbal was
written previous to this date, says the Eng-
lish call them Marigolds and Ruds : he ob-
serves, they grow in every garden where they
have once been sown, as they yearly spring
up from the fallen seed.

We have often seen this plant in situations
that have called to mind those lines of
Goldsmith,

u Where once the garden smiled,

And still where many a garden flower grows wild.'

MARIGOLD. 329

Gerard describes several species and va-
rieties of marigolds that were grown in our
gardens previously to 1597 ; and the species
now alluded to, Calendula sativa, he says,
was so much used in Holland, that " the
yellow leaves of the flowers are dried and
kept throughout Dutchland against winter, to
put into broths, in phisicall potions, and for
diuers other purposes, in such quantities, that
in some grocers or sellers of spices houses
are to be found barrels filled with them, and
retailed by the pennie, more or lesse, in so
much that no broths are well made without
dried marigolds."

Most of the old physicians recommend the
conserves made with the leaves of this flower
and sugar, to be taken as a preventive against
the plague or other pestilential diseases.
They also state that these preparations cure
the palpitation of the heart. Marigold tea
was one of the domestic medicines given in
agues, and often with success. We cannot
avoid noticing how much less frequent this
disorder has become within these last twenty-
five years ; and we attribute it principally to
the improved state of the cultivation of our
lands. The rapid advance in price of every
agricultural production at the commencement

330 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

of the war occasioned by the French Revolu-
tion, induced the farmers to drain their lands
where formerly waters were suffered to con-
gregate and become stagnated, and where
vegetable matter would naturally putrefy and
corrupt the air. In justice to the age we
live in, it must be remarked that the lower
orders of the country people were never
better , fed or clothed than during the late
war, notwithstanding the high price provi-
sions bore, which circumstance also proved
a powerful defence against this autumnal
complaint.

The ancient authors make but slight men-
tion of the marigold ; Columella notices it in
his 10th book, under the name of Calthce.

" Candida Leucoia et flaventia lumina Calthae."

Stock gilliflowers exceeding white,

And marygolds most yellow bright. Gerard.

Virgil notices the flower in the second
Eclogue of his Bucolicks.

" Cassia and Dill are added to the store,
With cowslips, marigolds, and many more
In order wove, a garland to complete,
Adorn'd with every flower and every sweet."

Gay, in his burlesque Pastorals, gives this
riddle :

MARIGOLD. )1

" What flower is that which bears the Virgin's mum ,

The richest metal joined with the same?"

The flowers of the common marigold are
thought to be aperient and attenuating, as
well as cardiac, alexipharmac, and sudorific ;
they are greatly esteemed in uterine obstruc-
tions, and the jaundice, as also for throwing
out the small pox and measles. The leaves of
the plant are said to be antiscorbutic, and are
of a stimulating and aperient nature. The
young leaves were formerly eaten as a salad,
and they are said to be a proper food for
those that have any scorbutic taint in their
constitution,

The leaves of the plant appear to be
of greater virtue than the flowers : their ex-
pressed juice has been given, in doses of two
or three ounces or more, as an aperient; and
is said to loosen the stomach, and promote
the natural secretions in general.*

The petals are of an aromatic smell, and
when chewed, exert a penetrating and almost
burning acrimony : hence they derive their
sudorific virtues; in which, says Dr. James,
they are scarce inferior to saffron itself. For
this reason, the flowers of the marigold have
merited a place among the catalogue of alexi-

* Lewis.

332 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

pharmacs ; and, according to Schulzius, in
his Prcelectiones, have had uncommon ef-
ficacy ascribed to them by some very cele-
brated physicians, in the cure of malignant
and pestilential fevers. Velschius informs
us, that upon the breaking out of a pestilen-
tial fever, Le Fevre prescribed the juice of
the marigold, to be taken in white wine as a
vehicle ; by which most of the patients who
used it recovered ; and that this same medi-
cine was the celebrated arcanum of Veslin-
gius.* Ray says, " The flowers may pro-
perly be prescribed wherever stimulating
medicines are necessary ; and by reason of
their resolvent and aperient qualities, they
are used in decoctions for the cure of the
jaundice.

This plant has been called Verrucaria, on
account of its efficacy in extirpating warts.
Some have called it Solsequia, or Solsequium,
and Sponsa Soils ; because its flower opens
at the rising, and shuts at the setting of the
sun.

It was an old practice with dairy-women,
to churn the petals of the marigold with
their cream, to give their butter a yellow
colour.

* Eph. N. C. D. 1. a. 4.

MILLET.— MILIUM.

Natural order, Gramina. A genus of the
Triandria Digynia class.

It is supposed to have derived the name
of Milium from mille, a thousand, because of
its numerous seeds.

" To every land great Nature hath assign'd
A certain lot, which laws eternal bind."

Virgil, Georg. book i.

The Ethiopians inhabiting that part of
Africa now called Abyssinia, knew no other
bread or gruel than that which was made
from millet or barley ; yet they were com-
plimented by Homer, who styled them the
favourite of the gods, and the justest of men ;
and it is a singular fact, that their country
has never been invaded by a foreign enemy.

Millet is alss a native grain of Tartary,
and, when mixed with mares milk or horses
blood, (which was obtained by opening a vein
in the leg of this useful animal,) it formed the

334 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

principal food of those savage Sarmatians
whose hordes destroyed the Roman empire,
and whose barbarism nearly extinguished
civilization in Europe.

This grain was cultivated in Italy in the
time of Columella, who mentions it as grow-
ing abundantly in Campania. Virgil also
notices it in his Georgics :

" Sow beans and cinquefoil in a mellow soil,
And millet, springing from your annual toil."

Pliny notices, that the inhabitants of Cam-
pania very much esteemed their millet, with
which they made a white pottage or gruel,
and also bread of a savoury and sweet taste.
This author says, no good husbandman will
sow millet in his vineyard, or among fruit-
trees, as it destroys the very heart of the
ground.

The variety producing a black seed is not
a native of France, as stated in the Hortus
Kewensis, and other botanical works ; as
Pliny tells us*, that it was first brought out
of India into Italy, about ten years before he
wrote his Natural History. He observes,
that it was the most fruitful of all grain, as

* Book xviii. chap. 7.

MILLET. 335

one seed would give an increase of three sex-
tans or quarts, if sown in a moist soil.

Millet was used by the Romans in all cases
where hot fomentations were applied ; as it
retains the heat longer than any other grain.
The meal of this seed, mixed with tar, was
esteemed a good plaster for those who had
been stung by serpents, or pricked by the
multipede.

That Italy was not free from the most ab-
surd superstition, even in the most enlight-
ened days of the Roman empire, we have an
instance in the manner of their cultivating
millet. Sparrows and other small birds are
apt to make great havock in fields of millet ;
to prevent which the Roman farmers carried
a toad round the field after it was sown and
before it was harrowed. The reptile was
then put in an earthen pot, and buried in the
middle of the field. This, they were as-
sured, would protect the roots from the
worm, and the seed from birds. The toad
was always dug up before the millet was cut,
the neglect of which, they believed, would
cause the seed to be bitter.*

Botanists name five species of this grain.

* Pliny, book xviii. chap. 17.

336 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Those described are varieties of the pani-
cum, or common millet. We are principally
supplied from India, although it is sometimes
sown in this country for feeding of poultry.
Puddings made from this seed are much ad-
mired by many persons, and esteemed a pro-
per diet for the nursery. The seed should
be sown in April, on a warm dry soil.

Millet is diuretic and astringent ; the seeds
are said to be of extraordinary service in dis-
eases of the lungs, and exulce rations of the
kidneys : made into a cataplasm, they are
anodyne and resolvent/

According to Miller, it is cooling, drying,
and binding, and not easily digested ; a strong
decoction of it with figs and raisins, mixed
with wine, and drunk warm in bed, is a very
good sudorific.

Among the Italians, says C.Bauhine, loaves
are made of millet, which are yellow, and
eaten hot by many, not out of necessity, but
for their sweetness ; but when this bread is
grown hard, it is quite black. Of the fine
flour of millet the Italians make cakes also,
which must be eaten as soon as dressed, or
else they become glutinous, and unpleasant
to the taste.

# Hist. Plant, adscript. Boerhaave.

337

MARJORAM.— ORIGANUM.

Natural order, Verticillatce. A genus of the
Didynamia Gymno&permia class.

This plant is a native of Cyprus and
Candia, and is found also in Italy, Spain,
and Portugal. From the latter country the
English first obtained the seed of the sweet
or knotted marjoram, in the year 1573. The
Candia marjoram, Dictamnus, had been in-
troduced in 1551 : this species of origanum
is the Dittany of Crete, so much celebrated
by the ancient poets. It is the plant which
Venus is said to have brought for the cure of
her son iEneas.

" A branch of healing dittany she brought,
Which in the Cretan fields with care she sought,
(Rough is the stem, which woolly leaves Burround;
The leaves with flowers, the flowers with purple

crown'd,)
Well known to wounded goats ; a sure relief
To draw the pointed steel, and ease the <j;nef."

Virgil, Mn . book x i i .

VOL. 1. Z

338 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

We are told that the use of this plant was
taught to man by the harts ; for that, when
these animals were wounded with arrows,
they ate plentifully of dittany, which had
the effect of discharging the darts out again.
The ancient traditionary tale on this plant
shews how far the sycophants of kings would
formerly venture. The flatterers of Cinyras,
King of Cyprus, to please his humour, and
console him for the death of his son Amara-
cus, assured him that this youth, while car-
rying a box of fragrant ointment through the
fields of herbs, by accident spilt it on this
shrub, which from thence received its excel-
lent savour. The prince mourning for the
loss of his ointment, the Gods in conside-
ration of his parentage and merit, changed
him into that herb, which was from that time
called, after his name, Amaracus.

Catullus, in the epithalamium of Julia and
Manlius, notices this plant :

" Cinge tempora floribus
Suave olentis Amaraci."

Bind your brows with the flowers of sweet-
smelling marjoram.

Majorana, the sweet or knotted marjoram,
the leaves or tops of which have a pleasant

MARJORAM. 33f)

smell, and a moderately warm aromatic bit-
terish taste, is mixed in food, not onlv to
make it more savoury, but to assist digestion
and correct flatulencies.

This plant is accounted cephalic, and use-
ful in nervous complaints. In its recent state,
we are told, it has been successfully applied
to schirrous tumours of the breast.*

M. Bourgeois says, it is a specific for
apoplexia and paralysis, the infusion being
taken in the form of tea; and it is em-
ployed in wine to foment paralysed limbs,
which it strengthens.

Hartman assures us, that it restores the
sense of smelling, when lost. It is also re-
commended for sneezing disorders.

There is no plant more celebrated by Hip-
pocrates, than Origanum: he recommends it
in diseases which require heating, dissolving,
and stimulating; whence it is beneficial in
exulcerations of the lungs, being boiled in
wine, and then sweetened with honey, and
drunk hot. Thus prepared, it is said to be a
good medicine for expectorating phlegm. It
was also esteemed for diseases of the kidneys ;
for it is aperient, dissolvent, and balsamic.

* Woodville.

z2

340 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

A tea of the leaves is effectual in the asth-
ma, violent coughs, and indigestion ; and, in
baths, the leaves are used for the hysteric
passions, chlorosis, and palsy. Origanum
provokes sweat, and is proper in soporous,
hysteric, and catarrhous disorders.*

The sweet marjoram yields a considerable
quantity of essential oil, which, when long
kept, assumes a solid form, and was formerly
much esteemed for anointing stiff joints, for
the palsy, &c.

In the time of Queen Elizabeth, the leaves
were much used in broths and meats, as well
as in wafer cakes, ointments, &c.

Gerard says, the leaves boiled in water,
and the decoction drunk, is good for those
who are breeding dropsy.

Miller enumerates thirteen species, and
Linnaeus eleven. The Hortus Kewensis
mentions ten kinds of marjoram, one variety
of which, Vulgare, is a native of this country,
and is often found growing wild on our
chalky hills, and in gravelly soils.

The sweet marjoram seldom ripens its seed
in England.

The pot-marjoram, Onitcs, is a native of

* Hist. Plant.

MARJORAM. 341

Sicily; it grows plentifully in Syracuse1, and
also in some parts of Greece; it was first
cultivated in Britain in 1759. It lias the
same qualities as the common varieties, but
is more woody.

342 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES,

MINT.-MENTHA.

Natural order, Verticillatce. A genus of the
Didynamia Gymnospermia class.

The Greeks called this herb Mivftv, and
the ancient poets tell us it was so named
from one of Plutus's minions, whom he
turned into this plant.

Miller enumerates eighteen species of mint,
two thirds, at least, of which are natives of
this country.

The use of this refreshing herb did not
escape the notice of the ancients. Man
would naturally be induced to seek reviving
and stimulating plants for the sick and feeble;
and we are told that balm and mint were
among the earliest medicines thus selected.
We may conclude that those simples were
more efficacious when the body was less ac-
customed to the luxurious and complicated
diet which art has introduced, and which
has made it necessary for the students of
medicine to extend their research for more

MINT. 343

powerful remedies. We are informed, thai

a boy who was found in a forest, where his
diet must have been very simple and his
exercise strong, had a most acute sense of
smell, by which he could distinguish all herbs
and plants ; but this delicacy soon wore off
when he lived and fed like other men.

It appears by Ovid's story of Baucis and
Philemon, that rustics perfumed or scoured
their tables with this herb before serving
their suppers.

" Then rubb'd it o'er with newly gather'd mint,
A wholesome herb, that breathed a grateful scent."

Pliny says, " You will not see a husband-
man's board in the country, but all the meats
from one end to the other, are seasoned witli
mint. As for the garden mint," says this
author, " the very smell of it alone recovers
and refreshes the spirits, as the taste stirs up
the appetite for meat, which is the cause4 that
it is so general in our acid sauces, wherein
we are accustomed to dip our meat."

The Romans were well acquainted witli
its medicinal virtues, as the same writer in-
forms us, that mint being put into milk would
keep it from turning sour, or curdling; and
for this reason, he says, "those \n!h> gene-

344 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

rally drink milk, take mint with it, for fear it
should coagulate or curdle in their stomachs.

The most useful kind of garden-mint is the
Viridis (green), commonly called spear-mint,
on account of its leaf being narrower, and
more like a spike or spear, than the other
varieties. M. Valmont Bomare, calls it Eng-
lish mint, and says it originally grew in this
country only.

The leaves and tops of spear-mint are used
in spring salads, as also in acid sauce with
roasted lamb, &c. It is boiled with green
peas, and generally used in pea soup on ac-
count of its carminative quality : it has the
virtue also of being a warm stomachic. In
loss of appetite, nausea, and continual retch-
ing, there are few simples of equal efficacy
to this. In colic pains, to which children
are subject, this plant is found of great ser-
vice: it likewise proves beneficial in many
hysteric cases. For some purposes, such as
languors, &c. an infusion of the dried herb
is better than the green, or extract prepared
with rectified spirits : the former possesses
the whole virtues of the mint ; the essential
oil and distilled water contain only the
aromatic part ; the expressed juice, only the

mint. 345

astringency and bitterness, together with the
mucilaginous substance common to all vege-
tables.

It should be cut for drying, just when it is
in flower, and on a fine day ; for, if cut in
damp weather, the leaves will turn black.
It should be tied in small bunches, and
dried in a shady place out of the wind; but,
to retain its natural virtues more effectually,
it has been found better to place the mint
in a screen, and to dry it quickly before a
fire, so that it may be powdered, and im-
mediately put into glass bottles and kept
well stopped. Parsley, thyme, sage, and
other herbs, retain their full fragrance when
thus prepared, and are by this mode secured
from dust, and always ready to the hand of
the cook.

A conserve made of mint is grateful, and
the distilled waters, both simple andspiritous,
are much esteemed. The juice of spear-mint
drunk in vinegar, often stops the hiccup.
Lewis observes, what has before been noticed
by Pliny, that mint prevents the coagulation
of milk, and hence is recommended in milk
diets. When dry, and digested in rectified
spirits of wine, it gives out a tincture which

346 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

appears by day-light of a fine dark green, but
by candle-light of a bright red colour; a
small quantity is green by day-light or can-
dle-light ; a large quantity seems imper-
vious to day-light, but when held between
the eye and the candle, or between the eye
and the sun, it appears red. If put into a
flat bottle, it appears green sideways ; but
when viewed edgeways, red.

According to Turner, the smell of mint
corroborates the brain, and not only pre-
serves, but also increases the memory.

PEPPERMINT.— PIPERITA.

This species of mint is also indigenous to
Britain, and is said by the French botanists
to have been found only in this country. The
peppermint has a smooth purple stalk, and
cannot be mistaken, from its penetrating
smell, and more pungent glowing taste ; sink-
ing, as it were, on the tongue, which is fol-
lowed by a sensation of coldness that is very
agreeable. It is still much cultivated, for
medicinal purposes, as well as for distillation.
A cordial is made from this plant, much ad-
mired by country people.

MINT. 41

This mint is esteemed by some to be an
excellent remedy for the stone and gravel ;
which seems to be very probable, for, be-
sides its heat and biting, it has also a very
discernible nitrous taste.*

Its stomachic, antispasmodic, and carmi-
native qualities render it useful in flatulent
colics, hysteric affections, retchings, and other
dyspeptic symptoms, in which it acts as a
cordial, often affording immediate relief.
The essence of peppermint was formerly
thought an elegant medicine.

Bergamot mint, Odorata, is only cultivated
for pleasure.

The mint, Mentha aquatica, growing in
watery places, is said to relieve the head-ache,
if the leaves are applied to the forehead ; as
also the sting of bees and wasps. Mints of
all kinds are thought destructive to worms.
It is a common practice to rub the inside of
bee-hives with mint and honey, or sugar, be-
fore the swarm is covered with it, as it is
supposed to attach them to the new hive.

* Miller, Bot. Off.

348 CULTIVATED VEGETABLE^

PENNYROYAL.— PULEGIUM.

This favourite mint of the ancients was
called by the Greeks rxv%pr9 and BAw^wr,
from jSArf^w, balatus, either because the heat
of the plant caused sheep and goats to bleat
when they ate of it, or, according to Pena,
from its virtue in expelling thick phlegm
from the lungs.

This plant was formerly called Pudding-
grass, from the old custom of using it in
hogs puddings ; it was also named Run by the
ground, and Lurk in ditch, from its creeping
nature, and loving a damp soil : it is gene-
rally found in the neighbourhood of holes
and ponds, on damp or swampy commons,
where the soil is more inclined to clay than
peat.

Gerard says, it grew in great abundance on
a common near London, called Miles-end,
from whence it was brought to market in
great abundance, in the time of Queen Eliza-
beth. We have not been able to discover
by what accident this native mint or aquatic
thyme was called Pennyroyal ; it was pre-
viously called Puliall royall.

MINT. 349

•J

Coles notices six varieties of* the penny-
royal ; but Miller enumerates only three.

Its qualities are nearly the same as those
of other mints, except that, being milder, it
is not so efficacious. It has been greatly
recommended in dropsies, jaundice, and other
chronic distempers.

Pliny tells us, that several physicians met
in his chamber to consult on the virtues of
this herb, and that they all agreed, that a
chaplet of pennyroyal was, without compari-
son, far better for the giddiness and swim-
ming of the head than one of roses ; and
that they were of opinion, that if a garland
of pennyroyal were worn, it would not only
ease the head from pain, but that it would
preserve the brain from disorders, which are
brought on by either heat or cold.

Xenocrates relates, that pennyroyal wrap-
ped in wool, was given to those to smell who
had the ague, and that it was put under the
coverings of the beds of those who suffered
under that disease.

Dodona?us informs us, that this herb, when
fresh and in blossom, will, by its perfume,
keep flies out of a room. The same author
states, that when necessity obliges us to
drink corrupt, stinking, or saltish water, wo

350 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

may improve it, by throwing into the water
either fresh or dried pennyroyal.

Coles makes the same remark; and Gerard
says, " if this herb be dried, and taken to sea,
it will purify corrupt water without hurting
those who drink of it." He adds that, " pen-
nie royall taken with honie, cleanseth the
lungs, and cleareth the breast from all grosse
and thick humours."

This plant, which is very bitter, acrid, and
of a penetrating smell, gives a deep tincture
of red to blue paper ; so that, it is probable,
it contains a volatile, aromatic, and oily salt,
loaded with acid : whereas, in the artificial,
volatile, oily salt, this acid is detained by
the salt of tartar. Thus this plant is aperient,
hysteric, and good for the diseases of the
stomach and breast ; since it expels those
glutinous sordes which fill part of the bron-
chia, and vesicles of the lungs, especially if it
is boiled with honey and aloes ; for then it
purges, and procures expectoration.*

# Dioscorides, James.

351

MOSS — MUSCUS,
And LIVERWORT, LICHEN.

Linn^us arranged these species of vege-
tables in the twenty-fourth class of his arti-
ficial System, under the name of Crijpto-
gamia, which signifies concealed marriage >s ;
and it was intended to comprehend all those
plants whose fructification is concealed, or
at least too minute to be observed by the
naked eye.

In the Linnsean system mosses are divided
into nine genera: viz. Lijcopodium, Porella,
Sphagnum, Phascinn, Polytricum, Mnium, Hyp-
?iu?n, Fo?itinalis, and Buxbaumia. As we now
reckon more than 360 species of mosses and
liverworts, the greater part of which are na-
tives of Britain, their particular description
must be reserved for a separate volume; but,
as many of the mosses are deserving of more
general notice than they have hitherto ob-
tained, we trust that the few pages we shall

352 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

offer on this subject will not be thought irre-
levant in a history of cultivated vegetables.

Mosses, in general, were originally thought
imperfect plants, until the year 1719, when
the seed of some of the varieties was disco-
vered; and in 1741 this circumstance was
made more extensively known amongst bota-
nists by Dillen Linnaeus.

The generic name Muscus is a word that
signifies an herb composed of hairs or threads
instead of leaves.

" Each moss,

Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank
Important in the plan of Him who formM
This scale of beings ; holds a rank, which lost
Would break the chain, and leave a gap
That Nature's self would rue !"

The superficial observer of the works of Na-
ture may pass this species of plants without
even knowing that they are as perfectly
formed as the roses of the garden, or the
more majestic oaks of the forest.

The mosses have roots, flowers, and seeds,
like other plants. M. Valmont Bomare says,
some think mosses are to vegetables, what
flies are to animals, and that the word
Mousse in French was derived from the Latin
word Musca for fly, which in French is

moss. 353

Mouche. The English name Moss, we con-
clude, is a corruption of the French word
Mousse, as we find that it was formerly
spelt Mosse.

Mosses seem to require little othei nutri-
ment than a moist atmosphere, and are so
tenacious of life, that they will revive and
vegetate on receiving moisture, although in
appearance quite dead through being dried
by heat. They generally seek situations that
are shaded from the sun ; and although mi-
nute, they are extremely beautiful, and many
of them of so hardy a nature, that they both
blossom and seed during the winter months,
when the sap of most other plants is retired
or congealed, in which state their vegetation
rests, awaiting the reviving and powerful
influence of the sun, again to draw it bub-
bling forth, and as it forces through the pores
of branch and bud, it forms its leaves and
flowers, which human art cannot imitate, or
the mind of man contemplate without ac-
knowledging it to be the work of Him,

" Who only does great wonders. "

Mosses, although diminutive, grow rapidly:
for nothing in nature is allowed to remain
stationary, idle, or useless; nor is there any

VOL. I. 2 A

354 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

thing wanting to complete the mighty de-
sign, for however inconsiderable the agents
may appear to us, they are in the hands of
Divine Providence irresistible ; and those
things which we may think superfluous, are
still necessary and consistent with the great
and harmonious scheme.

Philosophers tell us, that the mighty moun-
tains, whose adamantine sides have bid defi-
ance to ages, have at last been rent by the aid
of the smallest moss; and without its assistance
the ash, the cedar, the juniper, the palm, or
even the thistle, could have found no crevice
for their seeds. Rocks of all kinds, when
exposed to the air, are soon covered with a
velvet kind of moss, which imbibes the moist
atmosphere, and collects the passing dust,
until it has raised its little feathers, like a
miniature forest of pines, out of the earth of
its own collecting : this receives the seeds of
a larger species of lichen, that usurps the
soil of the first occupier, and drives it farther
upwards. The second variety collects more
rapidly both soil and moisture, until its curl-
ing leaves, entangle and cherish the seeds of
other plants, which by their more vigorous
growth destroy their nurse for their own
nourishment : these in their turn receive the

MOSS. .;:>;>

seed of other plants or shrubs, each of which
strives for mastery. Thus the* moss creeps
onwards, the lichen follows, the thistle, the
bramble, and the creepers succeed, until
every crevice is lost in vegetation ; and their
decay alone enables more powerful plants to
succeed, until the seed of the ash, and even
the acorn, find a receptacle in the rock, where
the germ sends forth its fibres, running be-
neath decayed and living plants, and, finding
crevices, forces its thready roots into every
vein. There it sucks and swells, until it be-
comes so powerful that it exercises dominion
over the fossil world ; for by the aid of the
winds it dislodges large rocks, and manures
the hollows with their crumbling stones.
Among these, fresh seeds are lodged, until
the whole becomes a towering forest. Thus
every thing shews infinity of power, conduct-
ed by infinite wisdom and goodness in Him,
" who maketh the grass to grow upon the
mountains, and herbs for the use of men. "*

Of the early use of moss, Ovid has made
mention in his silver age :

" Houses then were caves, or homely sheds,

With twinino- osier fenced, and moss their beds."

* Psalm cxlvii. 8.
2 a 2

356 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

The northern inhabitants still make couches
and beds of one kind of moss, which Dillen
calls Sphagnoji ; and the variety which he
names FontinaUs antipyretica, they use in
their hearths to prevent accidents, as, being
antipyretic, it will neither burn nor commu-
nicate fire.

The common moss, Muscus terrestris vul-
garis, which is generally found in shady lawns,
or woods, and in other humid soils, is said
to be astringent, and excellent for stopping
haemorrhages. Gerard says, this moss made
into powder is good to stop the bleeding
of fresh wounds, and also conduces to the
cure of cuts, &c. J. Bauhin states, that the
empirics learnt this art from the bears, who,
when wounded, stop the blood by rolling
themselves in this moss.

It is used by the ship-builders in France, to
calk their vessels ; and by all nurserymen,
to preserve the roots of trees and plants
which they transport from one place to
another, as it keeps them moist. It is also
used in pleasure-grounds, to form rustic ar-
bours, as it effectually excludes both the
heat and the wind.

The moss called Wolf's Foot, Pes Lupi,
or Lycopodion, is very beautiful, producing

MOSS. S&)

flowers like the catkins of the hazel-tree.
This species, according to Hieronymus 'Tra-
gus, is diuretic, and good for the stone, which
it dissolves and discharges.

The Arabian physicians rank mosses and
lichens among their cordial medicines, to
strengthen the stomach, and to allay vomits.

In Lapland, one species of moss or lichen
constitutes the sole winter subsistence of that
useful animal the rein-deer, and which is
thus noticed by Mrs. Rowden :

" On Lapland's breast by stormy tempests toss'd,
'Mid night's drear winter and eternal frost,
Soon as the llhen-deer moss erects her head,
The modest emblem of her snowy bed !
Fleet as the wind, the hardy Rhen-deer bounds
Across the dreary waste and frozen grounds ;
Crops with vermilion lips the icy flower,
Or sips, from crystal cups, the fleecy shower."

In Iceland the inhabitants use it for food :
they collect a quantity of lichen, which is
then chopped small, and boiled in three or
four successive portions of water to take off
its natural bitterness. It is then boiled lor
an hour or two in milk ; when cold it becomes
a jelly, which, being eaten with cream or
milk, makes a very palatable and wholesome
dish.

358 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

The English name of this species of vege-
table, Liverwort, evinces the good opinion
our ancestors entertained of the lichens
virtue in all complaints of the liver. It
however, went entirely out of use until a few
years back, when it was again introduced
from Iceland, and was so generally recom-
mended by the faculty, that, during the
height of this medicinal fashion, Iceland-
moss became an article of considerable com-
merce ; and we are told, that vast quantities
of lichen were brought from the mountains
of Wales and Scotland, and sold in the me-
tropolis for the more northerly production ;
but the deception appears only to have af-
fected the purchaser in regard to price, as its
properties are nearly the same. It is said to
strengthen the lungs and create appetite, and
is recommended particularly after the hoop-
ing-cough. It was formerly given in inflam-
matory fevers, &c. The ancients recommend-
ed it as a remedy against lassitude, and used
it in baths and ointments. The grey ground
lichen was thought effectual against the bite
of a mad dog. It makes the basis of the
pulvis antilyssus, and it is the principal in-
gredient in Dr. Mead's receipt for the bite of
mad dogs. In the west of England it was

moss. 359

formerly used as a drink lor those who had
cancers, of which it was thought to assist
the cure. This species of moss was at one
time called Cheese-renning, from its pro-
perty of coagulating or curdling fresh milk;
and by a dry distillation it yields a manifest
acid.

As mosses have in some degree regained
their ancient celebrity, we shall briefly state
what notices of their virtues appear in the
old writers.

Muscus arbor ens, or Lichen arbor urn, is the
kind which is found growing on trees, and
which Gerard and other old medical writers
call Liverwoort and Lungwoort, either from
its figure, or, as already remarked, from the
use then made of it in medicine. Gerard
says this " lungwoort is much commended of
the learned phisitions of our time against the
diseases of the lungs, especially for the in-
flammations and ulcers of the same, being
brought into powder, and drunk with water."

M. Bourgeois informs us, that this kind of
moss growing; on the oak is a good remedy
for the hooping-cough, when powdered; from
twenty to thirty grains to be given, according
to age. Dioscorides affirms, that it staunches
bleeding, removes all inflammation, and cures

360 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

the ringworm. Taken internally, he says, it is
a remedy for the jaundice ; even that which
is occasioned by the inflammation of the liver.

Lord Bacon mentions a sweet moss that
grew upon apple-trees, and which, he says,
bore a high price in the shops of the per-
fumers. As we do not meet with it in the
herbals of his day, we conclude that the
learned chancellor copied the account from
Pliny, with whose works he seems to have
been perfectly acquainted, and to have made
ample use of them in his Natural History.
Pliny notices the sweet moss *, and says the
best is found in the province of Cyrene,* the
next in Cyprus, the third in Phoenicia : it
grows also, says this author, in Egypt and in
Gaul. It was used by the Roman ladies in
their baths. When stamped with juniper,
and drunk in wine, it was esteemed good in
dropsical complaints. *f

The species of moss called by Tournefort,
Muscus squamosas abietiformis, of which Dillen
gives the figure under the name of Selago,
is a purgative and an emetic as violent as the
hellebore. The greatest part of mosses are
relaxing, destroy worms, and promote perspi-
ration.

* Book xii, c.23. t Book xxiv. c. 6.

MOSS. 361

There is a kind of lichen which L'Obeliua
entitles Muscus pyxidatos, and to which Ge-

rard gave the English name of Cup or Chalice
moss, on account of the little cup-like leaves
which it produces. It is found in dry, gravelly,
and barren banks, of a yellowish white : this
was formerly given to children for the chin-
cough.

There is a great number of aquatic mosses,
all of which, as well as the marine moss, have
their various uses in medicine. The spe-
cies called Sea oak, Quercus marinus, is used
with success to assuage scrofulous swellings :
it is found on most parts of the coast, but
particularly in the neighbourhood of Wor-
thing, where immense banks of it are washed
on shore in the autumn. It may be known
by the little bladders on its leaves, which are
similar to the blight on oak leaves ; and from
thence, we surmise, its name originated.
Laver bread is a sort of food made of the sea
liver-wort, or oister, green Ulvce ; it is much
used in Glamorgan and other parts of Wales,
from whence it is often sent to London in
earthen pots. It is gently opening, and an-
tiscorbutic.

362 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

MUSHROOM.— FUNGUS.

Natural order, Hepaticai. Limwus has ar-
ranged it in his artificial system, Cryptogamia.

The generic name of this class of vegeta-
bles, Fungus, is derived from ^iroyyoQ, on ac-
count of its spungy nature. The English
word Mushroom is in all probability a cor-
ruption of Mousseron, the French name of a
variety of the Fungus, called Champignon.

" Tis but apart we see, and not a whole."

Pope.

The Mushroom tribe has, therefore, afforded
a wide field for speculation to the na-
turalists of every age, who have disputed
whether it consists of perfect or imperfect
plants.

Vegetable nature appears in such a diver-
sity of habits, and propagates its species in
such a variety of forms, that we can neither
view them, nor inquire into their nature, with-
out being impressed with the most sublime

MUSHROOM. 363

sentiments of the wisdom displayed in cre-
ation.

This class of plants, which the botanists
rank as the lowest order of vegetables, has
been supposed to assimilate more closely
to the animal creation than any other class
of the vegetable world.

The ingenious authoress of Sketches of the
Physiology of Vegetable Life, observes, "The
Fungi resemble animals in some of their
species, in growing vigorously without light ;
as is shewn by those found in dark cellars,
and by the truffle, which lives and vegetates
under ground." She adds, " The animal fla-
vour of the esculent mushroom, and the
odour of any kind of Fungus, when burned,
resembling that of burning feathers, added
to the putrefaction to which the whole tribe
are subject, and the scent emitted by them
in that state, do not exclude them from the
vegetable kind, but afford additional analo-
gical evidence of the affinity between the
two kingdoms."

We have still much to learn on the subject
of these singular species of plants, which,
although they bear so close an analogy to
animal life, are evidently vegetables, and pro-
duce seed, by which they have been propa-

364 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

gated ; but this does not disprove their being
produced likewise by putrefaction, of which
we have continual instances, and in situations
where mushroom seed or dust could not
reach. The embryo plants are discovered
under the form of a white mouldy, fibrous
substance, called spawn, and which is caused
by certain particles in particular kinds of
dung being excluded from light and air.
The mouldiness on stale wine or beer, as also
on bread and other moist substances, as well
as on liquids kept in an open vessel that is ex-
cluded from free air, appears like mushrooms,
when viewed through a microscope. The
dust of this mould will communicate itself
rapidly to other substances within its reach \
thus appearing, like the mushroom, to owe
its origin both to seed and to putrefaction.

In 1729, Micheli first announced his dis-
covery, that different kinds of mushrooms
had flowers and seeds ; and this having been
confirmed in 1753 by M. Gleditsch, and in
1755 by M. Battarra, they have therefore
divided them into two classes, one of which
they suppose to have only seed, the other
both flowers and seed. The author has never
been able to discover what to him would
satisfactorily prove the flowers of this curious

MUSHROOMS. -i()J

plant ; and concludes that what others haw
taken for the blossoms, are only the organs
of fructification, as he deems the whole
mushroom to be but one flower : for though
all plants vary in their shape and number of
leaves or stalks, &c, yet the blossoms of
each species are always regularly the same,
even in the most minute parts, unless by
some accident they become imperfect ; flower
buds are always observed to come out of the
earth, or out of the stalks of plants, closed
with a thin film, or by the petals folding so
closely and exactly over each other that the
moist air is perfectly excluded, until the
stigma and stamina have acquired their
proper size, when the petals or blossoms un-
fold themselves, that the pollen may be ri-
pened by the sun or air, and the impregna-
tion may take place ; after which the petals
fall off, or the flower gradually decays.

The mushroom always comes out of the
earth as a bud, which closely protects the
interior with a thin skin (the veil), until it
has reached its size and the state proper for
fructification ; when it expands precisely in
the same manner as other flowers, the interior
of which uniformly exhibits the same regular
arrangement of laminae, or gills, which seem

366 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

to be intended for the purpose of separating
the channels of seed : for we find nothing
superfluous in nature,— each part necessarily
combines to form the whole ; nor is there any
thing wanting to complete the admirable
formation of vegetables, which by their pecu-
liar actions produce such modifications and
substances as must lead us to say, with
Thomson,

" Tis surely God,

Whose unremitting energy pervades,
Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole;
He ceaseless works alone ; and yet alone
Seems not to work, with such perfection framed
Is this complex, stupendous scheme of things."

Having given our opinion of the mushroom,
rather to induce a stricter scrutiny of its
formation, than to shew a desire of deviating
from other writers, we conclude it will be
somewhat interesting to ascertain the opi-
nions of the ancients with respect to this
curious vegetable ; for, notwithstanding their
fondness for mushrooms, they had not dis-
covered the art of propagating them.

Pliny says, mushrooms were thought one
of the wonders of nature, that they should
live and grow without a root, or even small
strings to fix them to the earth, and that

mushroom. ;]67

they should escape from the soil without the
appearance of any chink or crevice from
whence they spring. He deemed them an
imperfection of the earth, and that they came
neither by setting nor sowing.

In superstitious days, the Fungus tribe
was imagined to be the work of fairies,

" You demy puppets, that

By moonshine do the green sward ringlets make,

Whereof the ewe not bites ; and you, whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms."

Tempest.

Mrs. Rowden makes the same allusion :

" In-wrought with varied hues from Fancy's loom,
The fairies rear their temporary dome ;
Beneath the fretted roof, in secret state,
The mimic tribe on Agarica wait."

In the eighth chapter of the sixteenth book
of Pliny's Natural History, he says, the last
device of our epicures to sharpen their appe-
tites and tempt them to eat inordinately, is
the cooking of mushrooms; and in the twenty-
third chapter of his twenty-second book he
adds, there are some dainty wantons of such
fine taste, and who study their appetite to
such an excess, that they dress mushrooms
with their own hands, that they may feed on

368 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

the odour during the time they are handling
and preparing this food, with their fine amber
knives, and silver vessels about them. He
also observes, that mushrooms are eaten with
some danger, although they have so delicate
and pleasant a taste. This food was brought
into discredit by Agrippina, who poisoned
her husband, the Emperor Tiberius Clau-
dius, by the aid of this vegetable.

It is related by Pliny*, that a whole house-
hold in Rome died by eating mushrooms ;
and, in another instance, all the company at
a feast, who ate at the same table, perished
by this poisonous vegetable ; also, that An-
naeus Serenus, captain of Nero's guard, with
several other officers, died from eating of this
dish at one dinner.

Horace *f notices mushrooms as a dange-
rous food :

" Pratensibus optima fungis

Natura est : aliis male creditur."

and which is thus translated by an old herb-
alist :

" The meadow mushrooms are in kind the best :
It is but ill-trusting to any of the rest."

None but the peasants who gather them,

* Book xxii. chap. 23. + Lib. ii. Sat. 4.

MUSHROOM. 3(jy

says Pliny, can tell the true kind, however
curious they may be. The Roman naturalist
then proceeds to describe the safe kind, as
distinguished from the dangerous, with this
preface : " Although I dislike the indulgence
of such hazardous gluttony, yet will I endea-
vour to guard them against the poisonous
kind, which may be known by their mouldy
hue, their leaden and wan colour within, as
also by their edges being of a pale yellow.
The true mushrooms," he adds, " when they
first appear have a kind of thin skin, which
covers them as the yolk of an egg is covered
with the white, and these," he says, " are a
good food, but even these are safest when
stewed with animal food."

The ancients used various antidotes against
the venom of mushrooms : some took leeks
to counteract the poison ; others recom-
mended the eating of pears or radishes, or
drinking perry, when they suspected danger-
ous mushrooms to have been eaten. Apol-
lodorus prescribed the juice or seed of cab-
bage to be taken. Nicander recommended
the seed of nettles ; others chewed rue, or
took mustard-seed. Lily roots, or myrtle
leaves, pounded and drunk in wine, were also
esteemed good in this case.

VOL i. 2 b

370 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Our own herbalist Gerard's condemnation
of mushrooms is curious : he says, " Many
wantons, that dwell neere the sea, and have
fish at will, are very desirous, for change of
diet, to feede vpon the birds of the moun-
taines ; and such as dwell vpon the hills or
champion grounds, do long after sea-fish ;
many that haue plenty of both, doe hunger
after the earthie excrescences, called mush-
rooms : fewe of them are good to be eaten,
and most of them do suffocate and strangle
the eater. Therefore I giue my simple aud-
uice vnto those that loue such strange and
newe fangled meates, to beware of licking
honie among thornes, least the sweetness of
the one do not counteruaile the sharpness
and pricking of the other/' This author
says, the best mushrooms grow on mountains
and hilly places.

According to Lord Bacon, mushrooms
" have two strange properties : the one, that
they yield so delicious a meate ; the other,
that they come up so hastily, as in a night,
and yet are unsown ; and, therefore, such as
are upstarts in state are called in reproach
mushrooms. We find," says he, " that mush-
rooms cause the accident which we call
Incubus, or the mare in the stomach; and

MUSHROOM. 3? 1

therefore, the surfeit of them may suffocate
and empoyson, and this sheweth that they
are windy, and that their windiness is gross
and swelling, not sharp and griping."

Mushrooms are now cultivated in mo-t
parts of Europe, as a delicious food ; but in
no country is the cultivation so general as in
England, where they are now to be procured
at all seasons of the year ; and little or no
apprehension is now entertained Respecting
their dangerous qualities, since they have
become the care of our gardeners.

Mr. Bradley states, that he has seen a
hundred kinds of mushrooms in England,
besides those small ones which arise from
the mouldiness of liquors, &c. It is, there-
fore, as absurd to condemn all mushrooms as
poisonous, as it would be to abstain from car-
rots, parsnips, and celery, because the roots
of some other umbellated plants, such as
the water-hemlock, the drop wort, &c. are
known to be venomous.

We have never heard of any persons hay-
ing suffered from eating cultivated mush-
rooms, although they are in such general use
in London and so much demanded in the
markets ; while in Paris, where they have
few but what are gathered in the fields, there

2 b 2

372 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

are continually accounts of deaths caused by
these vegetables.

So much are mushrooms now in request,
that we cannot content ourselves with mush-
room beds only, but we have mushroom
houses also. The author, on referring to his
diary of November the fourteenth, finds a
memorandum that would have puzzled our
forefathers.

"While gathering a mushroom, the ladder
slipped and I was precipitated to the ground,
but without injury."

The mushrooms in the house alluded to,
were growing on beds supported one over the
other by broad shelves of elm planks, with
a deep ledge to keep up the earth; but from
the necessary fermentation of the manure,
the planks are liable to rot, therefore, where
durability is required, large flag-stones should
be substituted, and supported by iron props
or brackets. Should stone be found too cool
for the spawn, any slight boards that are not
painted may be laid on it. As light is not
necessary for the growth of this high-fla-
voured vegetable, almost every country-seat
may furnish an outhouse for the purpose of
obtaining mushrooms at all seasons, and of a
safe quality.

mushroom. ;37 3

The author has observed that the upper
shelves in his Majesty's mushroom-house at
Kensington were equally or more productive
than those below: thus by good arrangement
a small shed, or even a closet, may be made
sufficient for the supply of a moderate family.
As mice will destroy the spawn or young
mushrooms, either traps must be set, or in-
gress allowed to their purring enemy.

In the neighbourhood of London expe-
rienced mushroom-men go about at the pro-
per season, collecting vast quantities of spawn
for the supply of seedsmen, who sell it by
the bushel, the price varying according to the
favourableness of the weather when it is
collected. Since mushrooms have been so
much grown on hot-beds, and more minutely
attended to, the plant has been found so
perfect that it can either be raised by seed
or propagated by roots, the several fila-
ments at the root producing tubercles in
the manner of potatoes, from each of which
will arise new roots and a new plant or
flower.

The following simple and easy method is
recommended for trying the quality of field-
mushrooms : take an onion, and strip the
outer skin, and boil it with them; if it re-

374 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

mains white, they are good, but if it becomes
blue or black, there are certainly dangerous
ones among them. Where the symptoms of
poison have already taken place, the medical
assistant recommends an emetic, drinking
plentifully of warm water, and when the con-
tents of the stomach are brought off, to have
recourse to strong cordials, such as ginger-
tea and brandy, with laudanum, or cayenne
pepper made into pills.

Barham describes the symptoms to be, that
soon after they are eaten, a hiccup seizes the
patient, then a cold or chilling all over the
body, attended with tremblings, and at last
convulsions and death.

The most venomous sort is one that rises
out of the earth about six inches high, round-
ing and hollow like a bladder, red as scarlet,
full of holes like fine wrought net-work ;
which is most probably the Clathrus cancella-
tus. There is one kind of these mushrooms,
that is said to kill the very flies that settle
on them. According to Mr. Haller, says M.
Valmont Bomare, the Russians eat even the
mushrooms that the French consider the
most dangerous, and which they use to kill
flies ; if this be possible, we conclude they

MUSHROOM. 375

have some method of extracting the venomous
particles of the plant, unless, like Mithridates
of old, they have become so accustomed to
poison, that it loses its effect on their consti-
tutions, as the Turks take opium with in-
difference.

We have not heard that the morel, a kind
of mushroom, has yet been cultivated, al-
though it is said to be good for creating
an appetite, is accounted restorative, and
is much used in sauces and ragouts. The
following accounts of extraordinary mush-
rooms, which we meet with in the works of
respectable authors, may perhaps subject
them to the imputation of credulity.

Matthiolus mentions mushrooms which
weighed thirty pounds each. Fer. Imperatus
tells us, he saw some which weighed above
one hundred pounds a-piece. The Journal
des Sf avans furnishes us with an account of
some growing on the frontiers of Hungary,
which made a full cart load.

A mushroom of the very best quality was
lately gathered in the neighbourhood of Brigg,
in Lincolnshire, which measured three feet
four inches in circumference ; girth of the
stalk, five inches and a half; it was two in-
ches in thickness, and weighed twenty-nine

376 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

ounces. Six others were gathered at the
same time near the above, averaging about
two feet in circumference.

Chambers relates, that some years ago, an
extraordinary mushroom grew upon an old
piece of timber in a blacksmith's cellar in the
Haymarket, and attained the height of twelve
inches or more, and when cut down, appear-
ed again at the same time the next year, and
so for several succeeding years. In the year
1692, M. Tournefort found such an one
growing on an old beam in the abbey at St.
Germain's : the smell was like that of others
of the same kind. An infusion from part of it
turned an infusion of turnsol to a bright red;
so that it evidently abounded in acids. This
seed must have been brought by some acci-
dent to these situations, unless the fungi
originated in the decaying timber. Lord
Bacon says, " It is reported, that the bark
of white or red poplar (which may be classed
amongst the moist est trees), cut small and
cast into furrows well dunged, will cause the
ground to put forth mushrooms, at all sea-
sons of the year, fit to be eaten; some add to
the mixture leaven-bread, resolved in water.
It is also reported, that if a hilly field, where
the stubble is standing, be set on fire, in the

MUSHROOM. 377

showery season it will put forth great store of
mushrooms/'

The Laplanders have a way of using the
common toadstools, as the Chinese do moxa,
to cure pains : they collect the large fungi
which they find on the bark of beech and
other large trees, and dry them for use.
Whenever they have pains in their limbs, they
bruise some of this dried matter, and pulling
it to pieces, they lay a small heap near the
part where the pain is situated, and set it
on fire ; in burning away it blisters up the
part, and the water discharged by this means
generally carries off the pain. It is a rude
practice, but said to be very effectual, where
the patient takes it in time, and has resolution
to stand the burning to a necessary degree.

378 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES,

MUSTARD.— SINAPI.

Natural order, Siliquosce. A genus of the
Tetr adynamia Siliquosa class.

In Greek this plant was called Na7ru, by
Aristophanes and others that use the Attic
dialect, but more commonly Xwnm, Sinapi,
on vivei vus cotols, because it injures the eyes.

It was formerly called Senvie in English.
Egypt, that claims the honour of giving birth
to both Ceres and iEsculapius, was the bed
from whence the best mustard first sprang,
where, according to the opinion of the
heathen mythologist, it was nursed by the
goddess of seeds, and its qualities made
known to man by the god of medicine. We
will not enter into mythological dispute whe-
ther iEsculapius was the inventor of physic,
or whether he only perfected that part of the
art which relates to the regimen of the sick.
The brute creation are taught by instinct to
physic themselves by eating certain herbs.
From this observation, in all probability, the

MUSTARD. 379

use of mustard-seed became known to man
through iEsculapius, for the eating of so bit-
ing and penetrating a seed in food must have
required long habit to have made it familiar
and agreeable.

Mustard seems to have been cultivated in
Syria when Christ was upon earth, as he
mentions it in parable as being the least seed
which was sown in the field, " but when it is
grown it is the greatest among herbs."*

The Romans made great use of mustard-
seed in medicine, and they thought it one of
the best of remedies for the complaints of the
stomach and the lungs. From the milky
juice of the plant they formed a gum that was
used for the tooth-ache, and the oil which
they drew from the seed was used with olive
oil after the bath, by those who had stiffness
occasioned by cold.

The ancients ate the young plants stewed,
and the leaves of the older plants were used
boiled as other pot-herbs. Pliny informs us
that it grew in Italy without sowing, but that
the most esteemed mustard-seed was brought
from Egypt. The Romans cultivated three
varieties in this author's time.-f

* Matt. c. xiii. v. 31. and Mark c. iv. v. 31.
t Bookxix. c. 8. and book xx. c.22.

380 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

Of the fifteen species of this plant that
have been discovered, one third are natives
of Britain.

Tusser notices the cultivation of mustard-
seed in Queen Mary's time. His direction
for February says,

" Where banks be amended, and newly vp cast,
Sowe mustard-seed, after a shower be past."

The same author says, in his hints for August,

" Maids mustard-seed gather, for being too ripe ;
And weather it wel, yer ye give it a stripe :
Then dress it and lay it in soller vp sweet,
Least foistiness make it for table vnmeet."

Gerard informs us, that the garden-mus-
tard, which produces the whitest seed, was
not become common in Elizabeth's reign ;
but that he had distributed the seed into dif-
ferent parts of England to make it known.
Mustard was not manufactured in his day,
but was brought to table whole, or bruised in
vinegar. Gerard says, " the seede of mus-
tard pounded with vinegar, is an excellent
sauce, good to be eaten with any grosse
meates, either fish or flesh, because it doth
helpe digestion, warmeth the stomacke, and
provoketh appetite."

Coles observes, in 1657, " In Glocester-
shire about Teuxbury, they grind it, and

MUSTARD. 381

make it up into balls, which are brought to
London and other remote places, as being the
best that the world affords."

Mustard-seed is one of the strongest pun-
gent, stimulating, diuretic medicines, that
operate without exciting much heat. By its
acrimony and pungency it stimulates the
solids and attenuates viscid juices ; and hence
stands deservedly recommended for exciting
appetite, assisting digestion, promoting the
fluid secretions, and for the other purposes
of the acrid plants called antiscorbutic.

This seed has often been given, unbruised,
with good success to those afflicted with pa-
ralytic, cachectic, and serous disorders ; and
its powder is also applied externally to sti-
mulate benumbed and paralytic limbs or
parts affected with rheumatic pains : it is
generally used with a few bread crumbs and
pounded garlic, made into a cataplasm with
vinegar.

The flower of mustard curdles boiled milk,
and gives all its pungency to the whey.

Dale, after Schroder, observes, that mus-
tard heats and dries, incides, attenuates, and
attracts.

We agree with Boerhaave, says Dr. James,
that mustard, and other acrid vegetables,

382 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.

prove excellent medicines, when prudently
given, in distempers attended with an indo-
lent, watery, or cold phlegmatic humour, no
way saline, where acrid humours are lodged
in the f st passages ; where the bile is slug-
gish, and where no alkaline, foetid, or oily
putrid matter is lodged; but the body re-
mains cold, torpid, and swelled all over ; as
on the other hand, mustard proves hurtful
where the body is hot and feverish, the bile
sharp, the juices putrid, the parts inflamed,
or wasted ; or where the putrid scurvy
abounds.

Mustard-seed, by chemical analysis, gives
a much greater indication of an acrid than
of an acid salt ; but it affords a considerable
quantity of oil, very little fixed salt simply
saline, a great deal of earth, a little urinous
spirit, and no volatile concrete salt.

When mustard is calcined, it leaves very
little salt in the ashes, because the salt is vo-
latile, and flies off in the calcination.*

On the whole, mustard may be considered
a wholesome condiment, when taken in mo-
deration and with due consideration of the
state of the body ; but we are too apt, gene-
rally, to accustom ourselves to the same re-

# James.

MUSTARD. 383

gimen, without consulting our respective
constitutions. Buchan remarks, that the cure
of many diseases may be effected by diet
alone, and although its effects are not al-
ways so quick as those of medicine, they are
generally more lasting.

The young and green mustard plants,
which are so readily and easily reared in the
spring, are perhaps the most beneficial, as
well as the most agreeable addition to our
salads. On this account various ways have
been invented to grow it expeditiously, all of
which are too simple and well known to re-
quire explanation here.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON :
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