develop a second and even a third crop if care
is exercised to keep the surface clean and open. A little dressing of
quickly available fertilizer applied at this time is helpful. For seed
some of the best plants should be left uncut. The seed should ripen by
mid-autumn.

For winter use plants may be transplanted from the garden, or seedlings
may be started in September. The seeds should be sown two to the inch
and the seedlings transplanted to pots or boxes. A handy pot is the
4-inch standard; this is large enough for one plant. In flats the plants
should be 5 or 6 inches apart each way.

_Uses._--Basil is one of the most popular herbs in the French cuisine.
It is especially relished in mock turtle soup, which, when correctly
made, derives its peculiar taste chiefly from the clovelike flavor of
basil. In other highly seasoned dishes, such as stews and dressings,
basil is also highly prized. It is less used in salads. A golden yellow
essential oil, which reddens with age, is extracted from the leaves for
uses in perfumery more than in the kitchen.

The original and famous Fetter Lane sausages, formerly popular with
Cockney epicures, owed their reputation mainly to basil. During the
reigns of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth farmers grew basil in pots
and presented them with compliments to their landladies when these paid
their visits.

[Illustration: Borage, Famous for "Cool Tankard"]

=Borage= (_Borago officinalis_, Linn.), a coarse, hardy, annual herb of
the natural order Boraginaceae. Its popular name, derived from the
generic, is supposed by some to have come from a corruption of _cor_,
the heart, and _ago_, to affect, because of its former use as a cordial
or heart-fortifying medicine. _Courage_ is from the same source. The
Standard Dictionary, however, points to _burrago_, rough, and relates it
indirectly by cross references to _birrus_, a thick, coarse woolen cloth
worn by the poor during the thirteenth century. The roughness of the
full-grown leaves suggests flannel. Whichever derivation be correct,
each is interesting as implying qualities, intrinsic or attributed, to
the plant.

The specific name indicates its obsolete use in medicine. It is one of
the numerous plants which have shaken off the superstitions which a
credulous populace wreathed around them. Almost none but the least
enlightened people now attribute any medicinal virtues whatever to it.

The plant is said to come originally from Aleppo, but