The Antiquity and Importance of the Herb Garden - Herbs are Easy to Grow in a Town Garden - How and When to Plant Herbs - The Most Useful Varieties - Parsley - Mint - Sage - Thyme Marjoram - Rue - Rosemary - Sorrel

Except in the very oldest of old-fashioned country gardens, and the few modern ones which successfully attempt to imitate them, the herb garden is practically unknown.

The advent of the chemist has done away with the need for many of the herb tinctures and washes in which our grandmothers delighted, but we still have uses for some of them, and a neat little herb plot is a valuable adjunct to the smallest garden.

It demands no more trouble to succeed with herbs than it would be with flowers under the same conditions. The ground should be dug over to about one foot in depth, and, if such be available, a thin layer of manure should be spread over the ground at this depth. The soil must be well broken up, and not left in lumps, particular care being taken with the surface, which should be pulverised with a rake or even passed through a coarse sieve, and then mixed with some silver sand.

Parsley. The seed should be sown in May, the plants being thinned out to four or five inches apart a month afterwards. The flower-stalks should be removed as soon as they appear. When left in the ground, parsley must be covered up with mats to make it available during the winter. Another plan to ensure a winter supply is to pick some parsley on a dry, sunny day, wash it clean, press gently in a soft cloth, and dry it before the fire, turning it over so that all parts are equally exposed to the heat. Then bottle it in dry bottles, and fasten well. Thus treated, it will retain ail its bright green colour.

Mint. This may be started from roots parted in the winter. It grows with great vigour, and must be kept in check or it will destroy the symmetry of the herb garden. It should be cut just when the plants are about to bloom in autumn, and stored for winter use. The best way to treat it is that just described for parsley. Peppermint and pennyroyal may be served similarly.

Sage, Thyme, and Marjoram. These are raised from seed planted in boxes or pans in cold frames about the beginning of March, and planted out in prepared beds during May. Stock can be increased from cuttings, an old plant being pulled to pieces and struck in sandy soil in the autumn. This will yield enough plants to stock a small garden the following spring. These herbs are preserved for winter use by cutting in autumn, and storing as already directed.

Lavender. It is just as well to grow this outside the herb garden, in order to effect an economy of space. Lavender may be grown in any sunny corner, and an old bush, left undisturbed for a few seasons, is invaluable for "cut and come again" purposes to meet the requirements of the household. Cuttings taken in the autumn will stand the winter, and commence to make growth early the following spring.

Rosemary. This is one of the old-fashioned herbs, and rarely grown, though the volatile oil from which it derives its fragrance is said to possess remarkable properties as a stimulant for the hair.

Rue. This is sometimes employed for the purposes of garnishing, but, in addition, possesses medical qualities. It should be grown in the same way as the other inhabitants of the herb garden, from seed or cuttings, planted in the spring. In the country, particularly in the West of England, it is frequently given to fowls as a tonic, mixed into a paste with butter or lard. Rue is also alleged to act as a tonic and a digestive to the human body.

Sorrel. This is another of the herbs that are rarely put to good use in this country. Grown in the same way as the herbs already mentioned, its leaves are a useful adjunct to salads in the summer-time, possessing a peculiar and pleasantly acid flavour, unique among vegetables of this class. Where its value is recognised it is usually kept for winter use by the cumbersome method of covering it up with mats to protect it from frost. A better way, however, is to pick the sorrel, wash it, and put it in a jar with salt - first a layer of sorrel, then a layer of salt, and so on. After two or three days it must be well stirred and mixed up, and then fastened down with airtight covers. A little of it added to ordinary stock makes quite a delicious and uncommon soup. The piquancy of nearly half the much-vaunted Continental soups is due to the presence of sorrel.

There are several other herbs which may find a place in the garden, though their utility is doubtful from an economic point of view. These include angelica, which, crystallised with sugar, forms the green part of the decoration on the top of birthday cakes and French pastry; borage, without which no champagne cup is alleged to be complete; basil, burnet, clary, horehound, hys-sop, dill, carduus, bugloss, and many others, the good properties of which have gradually been forgotten, though several of them are agreeable additions to salad. In a small plot of ground, however, they cannot be grown in sufficient quantities to make them add to the economies of the garden