The Presidential Address. 33
"wicks" that occupied the clearings or "fields." Brentwood
tells of one notable clearing by fire, how caused we know not,
which may perhaps have produced that open space known as
Warley Common, on which in Gerard's time, as now, the
swamp-loving Osmunda flourished "near unto a place that
some have digged to the end to find a nest or mine of
gold."74 The English farmer, whose chief animal food was
pork, is likely to have been keenly alive to the value of the
"pannage," or food for swine, in the masts and acorns of the
common woods of the village ; but the increasing demand
for bread from a growing population, coupled with the system
of the cultivation and fallowing of the common lands by
rotation,75 led no doubt to very extensive clearing between
the fifth and the eleventh centuries. The English garden
rejoiced in its leeks, onions, garlic, cresses and beans, its
strawberries and raspberries, and perhaps even in Honey-
suckle and Southernwood,76 before the coming of Augustine
and his followers; and, though possibly during these six
centuries there was but little secular communication with the
Continent likely to cause the introduction of new plants, we
can well believe that those missionaries who showed much
worldly wisdom in many matters, and the representatives of
the various monastic orders who settled in our land did much
for the improvement of the English garden, both in vege-
tables and in medicinal herbs. Besides mint, sage, rue,
dittany, and radishes, they may have re-introduced peas,
which had been grown by the Mongols of the Later Stone
Age, and parsley, which the Roman colonist can hardly have
been without, and possibly cabbages and turnips. Among
74 John Gerard, 'Herball,' 1597, p. 969.
75 On this subject see E. Nasse, 'The Agricultural Community of the
Middle Ages,' Cobden Club, 1872, especially p. 51, which describes the
"three-field husbandry" at Nastock (Navestock) in 1291, and p. 83,
where Tusser, an Essex man, is quoted as defending inclosures or
"severall" as opposed to "champion" or common land,
76 These conclusions are based mainly on the existence of purely
Teutonic names, especially when others of Latin origin are in use for the
same plant. (See Earle, op. cit., and Thomas Wright, 'The Homes of
other Days.')
D