To English folk and Americans alike the herbals--now amongst the rarest in the English language--treating of the virtues of herbs in the New World are of exceptional interest. For these contain some of the earliest records of the uses of herbs learnt from the Red Indians, lists of English weeds introduced into America by the first settlers, and, perhaps most interesting of all, what they grew in the first gardens in New England. It requires very little imagination to realise how much the discovery of the New World meant to the botanists, gardeners and herbalists of that day, for at no time in our history were there greater plant-lovers than in Elizabethan and Stuart times. In their strenuous lives the soldiers, explorers and sea-captains found time to send their friends in the Old World rare plants and other treasures, and these gifts of "rarities" were cherished as jewels. Is not the following a vivid picture of the arrival of such a package from the New World? "There came a Paket, as of Letters, inrolled in a seare clothe: so well made that thei might passe to any part beeyng never so farre, the whiche beeyng opened, I founde a small Cheste made of a little peece of Corke, of a good thickenesse sette together, whiche was worthie to be seen, and in the holownesse of it came the hearbes, and the seedes that the Letter speaketh of, everythyng written what it was, and in one side of the Corke, in a hollowe place there came three Bezaar stones, cloased with a Parchement and with Waxe in good order. The Letter was written with verie small Letters, and sumwhat harde to reade." The letter and the precious gift of herbs, seeds and stones were from an officer on duty in "New Spain" (he describes himself as "a Souldier that have followed the warres in these countries all my life"), who was unknown to Monardes, but had read his first book on the use of the herbs in the New World, and therefore was emboldened to send him these rare plants and the "bezaar stones." Nicolas Monardes, the author of this herbal (translated into English by John Frampton),[86] most gratefully acknowledges his unknown friend's kindness and writes of him, "the gentleman of the Peru, which wrote to me this letter, although I know hym not, it seemeth that he is a man curious and affectioned to the like thinges and I have him in great estimation. For bicause that the office of a Souldier is to handle weapons, and to sheed bloud, and to do other exercises apertainyng to Souldiers, he is muche to bee esteemed that he will enquire and searche out herbes, and Plantes and to knowe their properties and vertue. And therefore I dooe esteeme muche of this Gentlemanne for the labour whiche he taketh in knowyng and enquiryng of these naturall thinges. And I doe owe much unto him, ... I wil provoke hym by writyng to hym againe, to sende more thinges. For it is a greate thinge to knowe the secreates and marvailes of nature, of the Hearbes which he hath sent me. I will make experience