CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL,

AND

ENGLISH PHYSICIAN;

Of gathering, drying, and keeping simples, and their juices.

CHAP. IV.

Of Roots.

    1. Of roots, choose such as are neither rotten nor worm-eaten, but proper in their taste, colour, and smell, such as exceed neither in softness nor hardness.
    2. Give me leave to be a little critical against the vulgar received opinion, which is, that the sap falls down into the roots in the Autumn, and rises up again in spring, as men go to bed at night, and rise in the morning ; and this idle talk of untruth is so grounded in the heads, not only of the vulgar, but also of the learned, that a man cannot drive it out by reason. I pray, let such sap-mongers answer me this argument; if the sap falls into the roots in the fall of the leaf, and lies there all the winter, then must the root grow only in the winter. But the root grows not at all in the winter, as experience teacheth, but only in the Summer; therefore if you set an apple kernel in the Spring, you shall find the root grow to a pretty, bigness in the Summer, and be not a whit bigger next Spring.
What doth the sap do in the root all this while? Pick straws? 'Tis rotten as a rotten post. The truth is, when the sun declines from the tropic of Cancer, the sap begins to congeal both in root and branch; when he touches the tropic of Capricorn, and ascends to us-ward (or the other way around in the Southern hemisphere), it begins to wax thin again, and by degrees it is uncongealed. But to proceed...
    3. The drier time you gather the roots in, the better they are, for they have less excrementitious moisture in them.
    4. Such roots as are soft, your best way is to dry them in the sun, or else hang their in the chimney corner upon a string; as for such as are hard, you may dry them anywhere.
    5. Such roots as are great, will keep longer than such as are small; yet most of them will keep all the year.
    6. Such roots as are soft, it is your best way to keep them always near the fire, and take this general rule for it. If in winter time you find any of your herbs, roots, or flower, begin to be moist, as many times you shall, (for it is your best way to look to them once a month) dry them by a very gentle fire, or if you can with conveniency keep them near the fire, you may safe yourself the labour.
    7. It is in vain to dry roots that may commonly be had, as Parsley, Fennel, Plantain, &c. but gather them only for present need.