Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses — Context and Discussion

Diction and the Gardener's Vernacular

Kains's word choices reflect both his era and his intended audience. He describes chervil seeds as “rather difficult to keep,” a phrase that implies experience without pedantry. For catnip, he notes that “viability lasts for five years,” a precise, measurable claim typical of agricultural writing. His use of “tony” in the preface—slang for stylish—signals a colloquial register that reappears in phrases like “scotch plates” (clean plates). This blend of scientific exactness and everyday speech gives the text an approachable authority.

Descriptive Precision in Plant Portraits

Kains describes plants with an eye for distinguishing detail. Catnip stems are “erect, square, branching,” with leaves “whitish below” and flowers “far apart below, but crowded close above.” Chervil is defined by its “long, pointed, black seeds with a conspicuous furrow from end to end.” Chives form “thick tufts of abundant, hollow, grasslike leaves.” These descriptions are not merely botanical; they serve the gardener who must identify seedlings and monitor growth. Kains also quantifies: an ounce of catnip seed contains “about 3,400 seeds,” a figure that aids sowing calculations.

Voice and the Implied Reader

Kains addresses a reader who is both thrifty and curious. The preface imagines someone with a “skinny purse” and “voracious appetite” who learns that herbs “convert cheap cuts and 'scraps' into toothsome dainties.” This reader is assumed to be a host or hostess eager to impress. Later, Kains shifts to a more instructional mode, using second-person imperatives: “The seed need only be sown in autumn or spring.” His aside about catnip—that it is “a moribund remedy for infant flatulence”—assumes a reader who shares his skepticism of outdated folk medicine.

Structure and the Encyclopedia Tradition

Each herb entry follows a consistent pattern: common and scientific name, family, description, cultivation, and uses. This structure, familiar from nineteenth-century agricultural manuals, allows quick reference. Kains enlivens it with occasional asides, such as the etymology of Nepeta cataria from “the Etrurian city Neptic.” He also notes economic applications: catnip as “bee forage,” chervil in fines herbes, and chives as an edging plant. The result is a hybrid work—part reference, part personal essay—that rewards both casual browsing and systematic study.

Readers approaching Culinary Herbs will find a text that rewards attention to its author's voice as much as its practical advice. Kains's blend of colloquial charm and botanical precision makes the guide both useful and readable. For those interested in early twentieth-century gardening literature, the book offers a vivid snapshot of how one expert translated his experience into prose—and how he imagined the readers who would follow his instructions.

I’ve spent many evenings with M. G. Kains’s patient words on thyme and sage, hearing his careful voice between the lines. That same unhurried presence, that quiet trust in a place of one’s own making, lingers in A Garden with House Attached — Reading Companion. They sit together well, like old friends comparing weather and soil.