=AGRIMONY.=--The Agrimony or Egrimony (_Agrimonia Eupatoria_) was a herb much in vogue among the old herbalists, who attributed extraordinary virtues to it. Dioscorides prescribes it as a cure for the bitings and stingings of serpents. Gerarde says it is “good for them that have naughty livers,” and in fact it was at one time known as Liver-wort. Culpeper tells us that it will draw forth “thorns and splinters of wood, nails, or any other such thing gotten into the flesh,” and recommends it further as “a most admirable remedy for such whose lives are annoyed either by heat or cold.” Sore throat, gout, ague, colic, ear-ache, cancers, and ulcers are among the numerous complaints the herbalists professed to cure by means of syrups and salves made of Agrimony, a plant which has formed an ingredient in most of the herb teas which have been from time to time introduced.----The astrological government and virtues of Agrimony appear to the uninitiated somewhat complicated. If we may believe Culpeper, it is a herb under Jupiter and the sign Cancer, and strengthens those parts under the planet and sign, and removes diseases in them by sympathy; and those under Saturn, Mars, and Mercury by antipathy, if they happen in any part of the body governed by Jupiter, or under the signs Cancer, Sagittarius, or Pisces.----Michael Drayton, in his ‘Muse’s Elysium,’ thus refers to Agrimony, among other herbs dear to simplers:-- “Next these here Egrimony is, That helps the serpent’s biting; The blessed Betony by this, Whose cures deserving writing. “This All-heal, and so named of right, New wounds so quickly healing; A thousand more I could recite Most worthy of revealing.” =ALDER.=--The origin of the Alder is to be found in the following lines from Rapin’s poem on Gardens:-- “Of watery race Alders and Willows spread O’er silver brooks their melancholy shade, Which heretofore (thus tales have been believed) Were two poor men, who by their fishing lived; Till on a day when Pales’ feast was held, And all the town with pious mirth was filled, This impious pair alone her rites despised, Pursued their care, till she their crime chastised: While from the banks they gazed upon the flood, The angry goddess fixed them where they stood, Transformed to sets, and just examples made To such as slight devotion for their trade. At length, well watered by the bounteous stream, They gained a root, and spreading trees became; Yet pale their leaves, as conscious how they fell, Which croaking frogs with vile reproaches tell.”