ie ies
Et
=
Csi: Geils Wy
| the. somes ied geet in early B ‘though some claim that melons — ip meant. AS to he or Gat Gy
squash, but we read that cae pies W made more than three hundred years. ag this recipe ; Cut a hole in the side, ake seeds cad filaments, stuff with a mi: >} apples and spices, and then bake till done | ancient Greeks to offer turnips, beet:
ie
radishes in their obligations to Apollo, The 1
they offered in dishes of lead, and the second.
‘| silyer, but the third was offered i in ‘* vessels.
beaten gold-” Parsnips we find menti
1; Pliny as being brought to Rome from th Ban
ls the Rhine at the commend ¢ of ae, imper sears — use on his Lena
eS
é 2 “ ” ; + a. oe » * *~ ry ee i: ‘ es
eS
HERE can be no doubt that many of the ailments European Residents suffer from are the result of abstinence from vegetable diet, or a too great indulgence in other foods. Cus- | tom has made the potato an essential at the dinner table, but | other vegetables do not find their way there as frequently as | they ought. The following notes as to the uses of vegetables may be of interest :—
Spinach has a direct effect upon the kidneys.
The common Dandelion and Nettle, used as Greens, are ex- cellent for the same trouble.
Asparagus and Seakale enliven the blood.
Celery acts admirably upon the nervous system, and is a cure for rheumatism and neuralgia.
Beets and Turnips are excellent appetisers and blood cleansers, likewise is Cabbage.
Lettuce and Cucumbers are cooling in their effect upon the system.
Onions, Garlic, Leeks, and Shalots, all of which are similar, possess medical virtues of a marked character stimulating the circulatory system and the consequent increase of the saliva and the gastric juice promoting digestion.
Red Onions are an excellent diuretic, and the white ones are recommended to be eaten raw as a remedy for insomnia. They are tonic and nutritious.
A soup made from onions is regarded by some as an excellent restorative in debility of the digestive organs.
Watercress, Endive, Salsify, Mustard and Cress, and the Tomato are fine antidotes for a sluggish liver.
Peas, Beans, Carrots, and Parsnips are very nutritious and fattening.
A Cabbage leaf placed inside the hat will keep the head cool and easy under the influence of a burning sun.
|
HISTORY
CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.
ae PLabk.
LONDON ;
PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, DORSET STREET.
HISTORY
Or
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,
SECOND EDITION.
TN te W-OU¥ OL UM ES:
VOL, I.
LONDON: HENRY COLBURN AND CO.
PUBLIC LIBRARY, CONDUIT STREET, HANOVER SQUARE.
MDCCCXXII.
bate ibe a bint he
ATED as rout uy Gh,
| eS
nan
a bi
jolene pois
TO THE KING.
STRE,
In dedicating this “ History OF CULTIVATED VEGETABLES to Your Masesty, 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 Masxsry, 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.
lh 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.”
That Your Maszsry 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 Masrsry’s Most faithful subject and servant,
Henry Put yies.
Queen’s House, Bayswater, Dec, 24, 482k.
PREFACE.
Iv 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, ina 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.
1V 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,
"Auabéorepov goacoy Kai cadéorepor.
‘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 mduce 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.
PREFACE. V
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 Esculaprus may, in lke manner,
discover some valuable matter among the
a PREFACE.
neglected or disregarded receipts of the - 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
PREFACE. Vil
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 quilet 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.”
eo me Po ae a ae
a
anti e rn — $i _iieadbins Shae 6a piidieolite oiodkin fdiwr. ‘om? in oun Sh viel tye dy. dagbolecoad a at hoot:
Be 8 rie (heledione quota usta : : escaapegiressre: ie) . sagiio?: wilt of ovis eitters ae jad Bier wd OF : St
aL ck RA
Rha of: doe diner ate ath sade joascheos ahi A ag thods) wt soibe bie colt { sii digi fsohaeda
senincstion 08, tut wat
oh near fits ans aH i:
a (ae, ~
eg om
INTRODUCTION.
ee
“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
VU... 3 B
9) INTRODUCTION.
with the world, whereas the wonders of Na- ture display the power of the Almighty im the most agreeable and tranquil manner.
<* Go, mark the matchless workings of the Power That shuts within the sced 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 eratify the senses, to delight the most refined taste, and to elevate the mind to the God of Nature.
i «« 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.” Axensipnr’s Pleasures of Imagination.
=
INTRODUCTION. 3
The charms of Nature have ever enchanted the sensitive soul of the poet, and imspired 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:
“ 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 Thomscn 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
A, 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, Chaldeans, 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 civl- 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. 5
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 pumpernel and the chick- weed, for a weather-glass; findmg, 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. : d
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
“ chaff with 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!”
Puitips’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
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 ereatest 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 1s
INTRODUCTION. 8)
the man who can forbear to jom
“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 Syria.”
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 Meeris 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. it
“ 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.”
Ovip. 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.
ihe English surgeons and apothecaries began to attend to the cultivation of medi- cial 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 im 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 ‘ei -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 physie-
13 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: “94, Oct. 1664, I went to the Physic-garden at Oxford, where were two large locust-trees, as many platana*, and some rare plants, under
* We presume this was the Plantain tree, Musa.
INTRODUCTION. £3
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 Linneus.
Evelyn, whose Sylva has immortalized his name, notices in his Diary, June 10, 1058, | “T 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, 1685, “I went to see Mr. Wats, keeper of the Apothecaries Garden of Simples at Chelsea, where there 1s 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 sn 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
10 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 1731, sprang his folio volume, which has since swelled into four large folios, and has been translated intothe 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. The services which 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, “IT 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.”
YOL, f. €
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 6750 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. Serace 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 N ature, 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-
c 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, Flosculose. A genus of the Syngenesia Polygamia Aiqualis class.
Tue 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 carduus 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 thzstles 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 crink to excess, as it excited a desire for liquor. It was supposed to strengthen the stomach, and was reported by Chereas the Athenian, and Glaucias, to cause mothers to be blessed
ARTICHOKE. 293
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
QA, 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, “3t 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. 95
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, Ciara 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, Sarmentacee. The genus of Asparagus is allied to Convallaria. In botany it stands in the Hexandria Mono- gynia class.
Tuis plant takes its name from the Greek word Aczagayoc, signifying a young shoot before it unfolds its leaves. Gerard says, “at 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
298 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.
wild in Essex, in a meadowe adioining to amyll beyond a village called Thorp, and also at Singleton, not farre from Carbie, and in the meadowes neere Moulton 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, havy- 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 grew 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. Sih
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.+
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, &c. + Mizald, cent.7. Memorab. Aph. 34. Schenck, Obs. Med. L. 1.
52 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 diewcious, although arranged by Linnzeus, 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. oOo
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
VOLT: 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.
ASPHODEL—ASPHODELUS.
Natural order, Coronaria. A genus of the Hexandria Monogynia class.
————————. —______
ASPHODELUS, is derived from a, and ofaddw, subplanto, ordscdov, from amodoc 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-
ms Ray.
pe
30 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.
terres, this plant which nourished the an- cients, and the verses in which it 1s 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 m favour of Venus is said to have offended Juno and Minerva so highly, that they endeavoured to break the beautiful 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 erain 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 Altius prescribed the wine in which asphodel roots were boiled as an excellent diuretic. Galen says, the roots burmt 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 flourished at the com-
* Symonds in Young’s Annals.
AQ 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 growethin 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. Al
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.*
* ilorentinus.
AQ 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.
BALM, or BAUM.—MELISSA.
Natural order, Verticillate. A genus of the Didynamia Gymnospermia class.
*
Tue Greeks called this plant. pedioopuddov i} peXipvrdrov, melissophyllum, or meliphyllum, id est, apum folium, that is bee’s leaf, from the fondness these insects shew for this herb. It is called melissa, from vit, 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
AA, 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 des cry, Like a dark cloud blown through the summer sky, Swimming the boundless ocean of the air,
They still to pools and leaty 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 Calamuint, Nepeta. |
The old English herbals, as well as those
BALM. AS
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- chondriae 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 /amine, 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 bemg 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 ethereal 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. Aq
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, Gramina. A genus of the Triandria Digynia class.
Tne 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 ¢Bw, to feed or nourish, whence #op3n and forbea, and changing the b into d, fordeum.* 'The name is, however, derived by Junius from the Hebrew 32.
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. 4.9
“ 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 +. 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 n.c. + Plut. Marcello, Livius, lib. 27.
VOL. I. 1)
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 simame given to sword-fencers, wlio from their allowance or pension of barley were called Hordearti, 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 xvui. 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 net 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 iba bar- ley, instead of bread corn.*
An example may also be found in the second Punie war, when the cohorts who lost their standards had an allowance of barley assigned by Marcellus. And Augustus Czsar com- monly punished the cohorts which- gave ground to the enemy, by a decimation, and by allowing them no provision but barley.
* 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 Galatecum. There are no means of ascertaining whether barley was cultivated in Britain, when the Romans first discovered this country ; but as Cesar 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. 5S
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 barley grain
Stands thick, o’er-shadow’d, to the thirsty hind Transporting prospect! Pariivs’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:
>
* Book xxiv. c. l.
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, Sesces phon thus describes the beer which he found insome 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 was dry, he was to take into his mouth and suck. The liquor was very strong, when unmixed with water, and exceeding pleasand to those who were accustomed to it.”
Diodorus Siculus tells us, that Oszrzs, 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 lquor 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 Cervozse, 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,
Who, when she begg’d for water, gave her ale Brew’d long, but well preserved from being stale.”
The word ale is from the Saxon eale ;
* Conf. Atheneus, 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 nearly 100 feet in circum-
BARLEY. Oe
ference, 36 feet over, 224 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 1s 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, Verticillate. A genus of the Didynamia Gymnospermia class.
Faxsutous 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 wxipov ab wxvs, quia citd 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 Baoiaeus, rev, 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.}
Lord Bacon says, in his Natural History, “Tt 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.
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. + 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 bryonie composita, or hysteric water.
Aiton mentions thirteen species of basil, now cultivated in this country, the earhest 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.
BEAN.—FABA.
Natural order, Papilionacee. A genus of the Diadelphia Decandria class.
Tue Bean was called in Greek Kuaps, by the Falisci, a people of Hetruria (now Tuscany), Haba; whence the name Fuba seems to be taken. Martinius derives the word from ze, to feed; as if it were Paba: Isidorus from ¢ayw, 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. §. F
4
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 Fabi from some of their ancestors having culti- vated the bean called Fada.
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. 07
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.
F 2
oT)
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 Refrine or Referine. The Romans carried their super- stition even farther, for they thought that beans mixed with goods offered for sale at the ports, would infallibly wes 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.”
Plny 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 Fabarie. 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 im 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 lomentum 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 now 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 Dodonzus, 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 Dodonzus, who prefers the old and dry
BEAN. BY
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. |
Dodonzus 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 bra 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 faod, better suited to
12 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 podngs 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 reeommended 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 anew 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 tt 2 ar- ranged in the same class and order as the
bean Faba.
Tuis pulse is generally, but improperly called French bean, for the old French name of this pulse, Féves de Rome, 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 bemg 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 cultivatedin 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-
760 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 m 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. U7
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
(8 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.
Lent food, in the shape of haricot, fageoli, and caravansas.
The seed of the large kidney-bean, féve haricot, sliced and stewed in milk, is a fre- quent dish at the farm-houses in Flanders.
(9
BEET.—BETA.
Natural order, Holorai. A genus of the Pentandria Digynia class.
Ir 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 thisroot 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 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.
BORAGE.—BORAGO.
Natural order, Asperifolie. 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 Béyaweoos, 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 veils 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, ¢@ 2
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 fuligmous 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 :
“| 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, Miscellanea. A genus of the Monecia 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 Mipriveac, 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 Bipenula, from the leaves bemg 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, Potertum 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.
Q1
CABBAGE.—BRASSICA.
Natural order, Crucifere. A genus of the
Tetradynamia Siliquosa class.
TuEopurastus and the earlier Greek au- thors called this vegetable ‘Pegavos, Raphanus, from the seed bearing a resemblance to that of the radish. It was named by later writers Kpaje6n, and attice, Kopapén, or Kopauban, as it was thought to injure the eye-sight, which is signified by Columella in these words, oculis wnimica 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 preseco, 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 cireum- 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 im 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 Selinordes, 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.
“ 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 Cesar held them m no
* Plin. book xx. c. 19.
O4 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. 95
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 grower 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 theyintended 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 Trztiana, for the three- fold care about them. “There are,” continues he, “ many kinds of coleworts in Rome, such
06 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 Pompei, 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. 3
“Itis not long,’ says the same author, ‘“smee 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. O7
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.+
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. gel oes we
VOL. I. H
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 1s evident, for where two plants are neighboured } that require the same juices to support them,
* Book xxiv. chap. |.
CABBAGE. Q9
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 stiffnecks.
Apollodorus says, that either the seed or the juice of this plant, taken in drink, is a good remedy for those who have eaten polsonous mushrooms. |
Hippecrates recommended this vegetable to mothers who were nurses.
Cato advises coleworts to be stamped raw with vinegar, honey, rue, mint, and the
Ho
ee) 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 ordinarly 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.
Tuts 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 caulitiowers were not much cultivated in France in 1094, when his _ work was published ; and the French have at present no distinct name for this vegetable, but call it Chou fleur, 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
CABBAGE. 103
and served with meat, or when dressed with sauce after the French fashion. It also makes a favourite pickle.
BROCOLI.-BRASSICA BOTRYTIS CYMOSA.
Tuis plant appears to be an accidental mixture of the common cabbage and the cauliflower ; and it is said, that it grows mm 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.
Kate, 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 stcnes. 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. [lor 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. 107
-eacious 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 ‘n 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. I,
108 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.
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, m consequence of
CABBAGE. 109
the ignorance of their cooks, eat it after it has been long boiled, a circumstance which does nota 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 ina 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 Economical 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. 111
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, Putaminee. A genus of the Polyandria Monogynia class.
Tris 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 -anature 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 diy sandy soil ; and since its migration into Europe has fixed —
CAPERS. 113
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. J
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 Ehzabeth 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 divers 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- 12
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. ht7
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, Luride. 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 fix’d 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. Zl
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 pimt of boiling water, strain off the liquor when cold, and add to it half a pmt 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
* Tunan.
Q
GUINEA PEPPER. 128
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 PEeprers.—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 smallred 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 agz, that 1s, Guinea pepper; where there are several farms which have rio 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 1s so very hot, that it can only be endured by
those who are well used to it.+
* Lunan. + Barham, p. 30.
126 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.
CARAWAY.—CARUM.
Natural order, Umbellate. A genus of the Pentandria Digynia class.
MopeErn 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. 197
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 spint. 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. eee * # * * *
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.” VireiL, 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 quaft, 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 jomts 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.
134
CARROT.—DAUCUS.
A genus of the Pentandria Digynia class. It is a biennial plant, belonging to the nu- merous Umbellated family.
Aavzos, Dioscor. Daucus, Plin. from dato, 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.
gE 2
132 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.
Theophrastus states, in the ninth book of his History of Plants, that carrots grow in Areadia, 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 im 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 tenwfolia, yellow or garden carrot, which, he says, “are sowen 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. 133
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. cs :
Four pounds of carrot-seed is considered enough to sow an acre of land.
CARROT. 135
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 1s 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 Plantarum, 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 bartey.*
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, Composite discoides. A genus of the Syngenesia Polygamia superflua class.
Tuts herb is the Avfews of Dioscorides, and the Avéenoy 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 Chamemelon, from which the English name is derived.
Ané@ient 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.7
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. ‘+ 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- lent 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 Medica 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. 7 It is said, that a stone taken out of the hu- tnan 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, Umbellate. A genus of the Pentandria Digynia class.
Tux Greeks called this herb Xaipéguaror, Cherephyllum, 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 Charophyllum. 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, Scandia 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
ull 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 asallet 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 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,
Oe ee L
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, &e.
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 pliant 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.”
147
CINNAMON, CINNAMOMUM, AND CASSIA.—CASSIA.
Natural order, Holoracea. A genus of the Enneandria Monogynia class.
CrxnAmMomum or Cinnamum, among the Latins, is the same with the Kirrayoy and Kwepov, OF Kivapwpov, of the Greeks. This last name is derived from Kivveyov and auwpor, | or from the Hebrew word 'p or mp which signifies a cane or reed, and the ames 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, Zaurus, 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 WZ
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 cimnamon, cassia, and sweet ealamus.-}
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
‘“8"Gen. c: XXXVI. v.20... ‘> Exodus, c. xXxvi, ¥. 2d. i 1°) Mings}e. xt:
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 cmnamon 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 cimnamon 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. Vil.
150 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES.
Pliny tells us, that the cinnamon grew in that part of AXthiopia 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. — “Tn old. times,” says Pliny, “it sold for one thousand denarii per pound, but it afterwards rose to one thousand five hundred denariz,. 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 A‘thio- pians bought up all the cmnamon 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. 151
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 Cesar, 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 remamed 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
1655-6, 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 tliat the scent is stronger, and the flavour hotter. He adds, that these cimnamon-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 1s 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. 155
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, wlien 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 Pulwis Ducis is used by many, which consists of cimmamon 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 diarrhceas, 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- chies 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, Malvacee, or Columnifere. A genus of the Monadelphia Polyandria class.
ee ee
We are not able to discover on what ac- count the Greeks named this plant Svaoy and Poooiriov, 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 beer 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. 161
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. ‘Che Phoenicians, who were the fathers of trade, and the Greeks, who were the sons of art, would, from their intercourse with Egypt, transplant the Gossypium 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 Gossypium, 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 us}, that in an island in the Persian gulf, there were cotton-trees that produced fruit as large
* Book xix. c. 1. + Book xii. c. 10 & 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 m 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 Arboreum, 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 16094.
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. 163
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
oe
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 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 flowring.”
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 our 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- mshing 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 Callicu.
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. eap. 7.
COTTON. 107
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 for 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, beg 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 orn GROUND NUT.—BUNIUM.
Natural order, Umbellate. 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.
“ T with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts.”*
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 fieldes 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 fielde 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 growin 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 Henfield 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 1s 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 Papilionacee, 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 mferior 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, or VEGETABLE EGG. —MELONGENA.
Natural order, Luride. A genus of the Pentandria Monogynia class.
rs
Tus plant is a species of Solanum, 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 im 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 symp- 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 Belingel 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