HERBS NEARLY every one is familiar with the subject of this chapter. The sweet and aromatic herbs for culinary purposes are found in both hemispheres, and little, therefore, need be said about them. Of those who know them, none are better acquainted or more familiar with their use than the farmer’s wife. The herbs we are to consider are the few having that peculiar property of imparting to fresh meats a flavor, so much esteemed, which brings them into general use. They are also used for medicinal purposes of which we have the following kinds: Sage, marjoram, savory, parsley, and thyme. “Herbs to still the summer.” “The knowledge of stilling is one of pretty feat,” but it is a lost art. The stilling room was also a drying room, and in breezy shadows throughout the long summer days were drying leaves and sprigs of many aromatic plants. The branches were often made up into small bunches, the size to be used for a kettle of soup or for the basting of a single roast. “These were the fagots of herbs so often ordered in old recipes, and were a not unimportant part of household supplies. There is no spice comparable for herbs use in rosemary.” Pliny says that the serpents sought the shade of the fennel to strengthen their sight. Culpepper noted the starry influence under which each plant grew. SAGE Sage (_Salvia officinalis_) is the common sage. Sage, sauge, swage, natural order _Laminaceoe_. French, _Sauge_; Portuguese, _Salva_; Italian and Latin, _Salvia_, _Salvas_ (Culpepper). It is governed by Mars. Salvia, from salvo, to save or heal. The most extensively used of the herbs is the sage. Its high reputation as a medicine lasted for years. The Arabians valued it, and the medical school of Salerno summed up its surpassing merits in the line, “_Cur morietor homo cui salvia cresit in horto?_” (How can a man die who grows sage in his garden?) Perhaps this originated the English saying, “Who eats sage in May shall live for aye.” Parkinson says: “It maketh the hayre blacke, it is good for woundis. For lethargy and forgetfulness bathe the back of the head with a decoction of sage and smallage.” Pepys notes that in churchyards between Gasport and Southampton, England, the custom prevailed of sowing the graves with sage. Evelyn sums up its noble properties by its assiduous use as making man immortal. “We cannot, therefore, but allow the tender summities of the young leaves but principally the flowers in our sallet.”