' Around him lay whatever could excite, With pungent force, the jaded appetite ; Rapes, lettuce, radishes, anchovy brine, With skirrets, and the lees of Coan wine.'

Skirrets have recently re-appeared in the market, and perhaps will once more become the fashion, although they appear to be too sweet to suit modern taste as a vegetable. Those, however, who enjoy parsnips and sweet potatoes may probably relish the skirret, as also the scorzonera, which at one time was highly esteemed, not only as a vegetable, but as a cure for snake bites. It is still sometimes sent to table in France and Spain.

The yam, that gigantic root extensively cultivated in Africa, Asia, America, and the West Indies, is never seen in our markets, but is eaten as bread, either roasted or boiled, by the natives of the countries in which it grows. The roots sometimes weigh as much as thirty pounds, but are not relished by Europeans.

The only other root we need notice here is the Jerusalem artichoke - a name corrupted from girasole, which is the Italian name for sunflower, of which it is a species. It is very easily grown, and not very readily exterminated when once introduced into a garden. It is a native of Brazil, and was Drought over in 1667, being much esteemed before potatoes became so generally cultivated. It is not much relished now by the poor, but is frequently found on the tables of the wealthy, and, when well cooked, is excellent, especially when sent to table, as in France, with white sauce and a garnishing of Parmesan cheese lightly browned. It also makes a capital soup.

But of all vegetables known to us, perhaps the onion and its allies - notwithstanding the suspicion of vulgarity attaching to them - are the most universal and indispensable in the culinary art, for how insipid would soups, sauces, hashes, stews, gravies, salads, and seasonings of all kinds be without the soupcon of the onion, the shalot, or the stronger - and yet more vulgar - garlic. Whilst, as a vegetable, what can be found more grateful to the general palate, and more wholesome also, than the Spanish onion - roasted or stewed - or the leek, the national badge of Wales, and appreciated by epicures everywhere?

The pedigree of the onion family can be traced back to hoar antiquity - so hoary, indeed, that the first parent is unknown, although supposed to have sprung from Central Asia, whence it spread north, south, east, and west, branching off - as aristocratic families, and even plebeian, are apt to do - and assuming new forms under altered circumstances, until all our modern varieties have become developed through the survival of the fittest, and we can now call to our aid the onion proper, in many different sizes and varieties of flavour, from the little pickling onion to the great Spanish bulb weighing half a pound or more; garlic, with its root conveniently divided into cloves, that our cooks may not spoil the dish by too lavish use of that of which very little suffices; the eschalot - or, shortly, shalot - not quite so pungent in flavour, but equally useful; chives, usually eaten green to flavour omelettes, salads, etc.; the leek, so esteemed by the Emperor Nero that his subjects gave him the name of Porrophagus (the Latin name for the leek being Allium porrum), for he ate them, with oil only, for several days in every month to clear his voice, abstaining from bread on these leek-eating days; and, lastly, there is a curious tree-onion, which bears the bulbs on the top of the stem instead of seeds, as in the other species - this is supposed to be a variety of the common onion changed by transplantation to Canada, whence we derive it.

The Welsh, we are told, plant the bulbs of the tree onion as they drop off the parent stem, and they grow to a considerable size. The French call this Vognon d'Egypte, although it is not supposed to have come originally from that country. The ancient Egyptians (2000 B.C.) venerated - some say worshipped - the common onion, and certainly possessed several of the varieties, for we are told that the Israelites in the desert pined for 'the leeks and the onions and the garlic' they had enjoyed so abundantly in Egypt; and, if we are to believe travellers, the onions of Egypt were, and still are, especially good, being larger, softer, and more delicate in flavour than ours.

We have seen how great was the devotion of the Emperor Nero to the leek, although according to Pliny they had not long been introduced in his day, having been brought from Egypt; but onions were largely used by the Romans much earlier, for they gave them to their labourers to strengthen them, and to their soldiers and gamecocks to excite their courage.

Alphonse Karr, in that charming book 'A Tour round my Garden,' thus speaks of the yellow garlic, the moly of Homer: 'The yellow garlic is more than it appears to be; the yellow garlic has the power of keeping us safe from enchantments, spells, and evil presages. A crow may fly by you on your left hand, but you need not entertain any fear, if you have only the yellow garlic in your garden. You meet with a spider in the morning, don't be afraid of it; you spill the salt, the mischance will not fall to you; a hare crosses your path in the morning, be not on that account apprehensive of the crosses of the world; the yellow garlic is cherished by you in your garden and watches over you; the yellow garlic will not allow any of these evil omens to affect you. . . .

'Pliny says that it is one of the most valuable plants to man. Homer relates that it was to the virtues of the yellow garlic that Ulysses owed his fortunate escape from being turned into a pig by Circe as well as his companions, whom he delivered from this disagreeable transformation.'

Although the Greeks cultivated several of the onion tribe for culinary purposes, they are said to have regarded onion-eaters in such abhorrence as to look upon them as profane persons. This we might readily infer from the straight classical nose of the race, to which fastidious organ the rank smell of raw onions would be peculiarly abhorrent. Even to ourselves, the smell of onions or garlic in a public conveyance or place of amusement, is intensely disagreeable, and the strongly-flavoured dishes of the Spaniards and Portuguese - the people of all Europe most given to the eating of garlic - are most unpleasant to the palate of Englishmen; and yet, if we attempted to give a list of English dishes into which the onion in some form enters, we should wellnigh exhaust the cookery book.

Formerly the onion and garlic played an important part in pharmacopoeias, but at present the doctor has given them over to the cook; nevertheless, their medicinal value is known and acknowledged, and the old remedy for cold - onion broth - is still prepared in many households, whilst the garlic has recently regained somewhat of its former reputation as a remedy for bronchial coughs and shortness of breath.

M'Intosh's 'Book of the Garden' tells us that 'Palladius, a Greek physician, recommends the onion to be sown with savory, in which curious opinion Pliny agrees, observing that onions prosper better when savory is sown with them.' 'It was,' says the writer, 'a current opinion in those days that certain plants had an antipathy to, or sympathy with, each other. However absurd such an idea may appear to us, we should take into consideration, that the opinions of the ancients may not have been faithfully handed down to us, or that their works may admit of a somewhat different construction. We find Phillips observes that all the plants which they recommend to be sown or planted together are of very opposite natures, and there may be more reason in the system pursued by the ancients than is generally allowed; for plants drawing the same juice from the earth must naturally weaken each other, whereas those requiring different nutriment may in some degree assist each other, each feeding upon juices that are prejudicial to plants of the other species. In this there is great truth.'

How easy it is to laugh at the wisdom of the ancients; yet in most things we have to come round to their opinions in the long run. Gardeners nowadays are quite alive to the affinities of plants, and their predilection for certain soils and situations; and in planting onions, if they do not grow savory with them, care should be taken that they have good rich loamy soil, and are well weeded and watered. This was probably the secret of their successful cultivation among the Romans. We do not know when the onion and its allies were first introduced into this country, but probably it is one of the benefits we derive from the Roman occupation of Britain. Garlic is first mentioned in 1548, and the leek in 1562. Shakespeare makes it the badge of the Welsh after the Battle of Crecy, and their fondness for the onion tribe is noticed by Worlidge, who says: 'I have seen the greater part of a garden planted with leeks, and a part of the remainder with onions and garlic.' Perhaps it is to this diet that the Welshman owes his pugnacity.