d method is employed, the seed being sown either
under glass or in the open ground and the seedlings transplanted.
Cultivation consists in keeping the soil loose and open and free from
weeds. No special directions are necessary as to curing. In frostless
sections, and even where protected by buildings, fences, etc., in
moderate climates, the plants will continue to thrive for years.

_Uses._--The tender leaves and stems and the flowers are used for
flavoring stews, fish and meat sauces, but are not widely popular in
America. Our foreign-born population, however, uses it somewhat. In
France large quantities, both cultivated and wild, are used for
distilling the oil of rosemary, a colorless or yellowish liquid
suggesting camphor, but even more pleasant. This oil is extensively used
in perfuming soaps, but more especially in the manufacture of eau de
cologne, Hungary water and other perfumes.

=Rue= (_Ruta graveolens_, Linn.), a hardy perennial herb of roundish,
bushy habit, native of southern Europe. It is a member of the same
botanical family as the orange, Rutaceae. In olden times it was highly
reputed for seasoning and for medicine among the Greeks and the Romans.
In Pliny's time it was considered to be effectual for 84 maladies!
Today it "hangs only by its eyelids" to our pharmacopoeia. Apicus
notes it among the condiments in the third century, and Magnus eleven
centuries later praises it among the garden esculents. At present it is
little used for seasoning, even by the Italians and the Germans, and
almost not at all by English and American cooks. Probably because of its
acridity and its ability to blister the skin when much handled, rue has
been chosen by poets to express disdain. Shakespeare speaks of it as the
"sour herb of grace," and Theudobach says:

"When a rose is too haughty for heaven's dew
She becometh a spider's gray lair;
And a bosom, that never devotion knew
Or affection divine, shall be filled with rue
And with darkness, and end with despair."

_Description._--The much branched stems, woody below, rise 18 to 24
inches and bear small oblong or obovate, stalked, bluish-green glaucous
leaves, two or three times divided, the terminal one broader and notched
at the end. The rather large, greenish-yellow flowers, borne in corymbs
or short terminal clusters, appear all summer. In the round, four or
five-lobed seed vessels are black kidney-shaped seeds, which retain
their vitality two years