Culinary herbs : how to grow and where to sell with an account of their uses and history specially written to assist members of the British Guild of Herb Growers / by M. Grieve.

  • Grieve, Maude (Sophia Emma Magdalene Law), 1858-1941.
Date:
[1920?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Culinary herbs : how to grow and where to sell with an account of their uses and history specially written to assist members of the British Guild of Herb Growers / by M. Grieve. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The whole plant is used iu distilling a colourless oil, which is used in makiug aromatic vinegars and other toilet preparations. A pound of oil is obtained from 150 to 500 lbs. of the green plant. The dried herb ia used, powdered, to make a mediciual tea, useful in hysterical affections, and as a stomachic. Country people use Rue leaves as a cure for croup in poultry, either boiling them in treacle, thus making a conserve of them, or chopping them fine, mixing them with butter, and administering them in the form of little pills. Rue has also been employed in the diseases of cattle. A few sprigs of Rue hung in a room will keep Hies from the apartment. SAGE. Salvia Officinalis (Linn.). l li.- Common Sage, belonging to the order Labiatse, the familiar plant of the kitchen garden, an evergreen undershruh, though not a native of the*} islands, its natural habitat being the northern shores of the Mediterranean, ha* be >n cultivated for culin- ,n \ and medinna. pui|>osch for manv centuries in Kngland, France and (Jermany, being sufficiently hard to stand any ordinary winter outside, lirtardc mentions it as Iwing ill 1597 a well-known herb in Knglish gardens and represented in his own garden iu Holborn by several varieties. Sage is found in its natural wild condition from Spain along tin- Mediterranean eo-ist up to and including the east side of the Adriatic; it grows in profusion on tne mountains and hills in Croatia and Daiinatia. Ix;ing found mostly where there is a limestone forma- tion with very little soil, but it seems to grow in all kinds of places, some of the barren hills iu the region of Fiutne having very little vegetation other than this wild Sage. When wild it is much like the com . . irden Sage, though more shrubby in appearance and has a more penet rating odour, being more bitterly spicy and astrin- gent than the cultivated plant. The best kind, it is stated, grows on the islands of Veglia and Cherso near Kiume, where the surround- ing district is known as the Sage region. The collection of Sage forms au important cottage industry in Dalmatia. During its bloom- ing season, moreover, the bees gather the nectar and genuine Sage honey commands there the highest price, owing to its flavour.