> Has anyone come across an earlier description of various honeys than E. R. Root's?

this is from 1894

> One who is at all conversant with the plant—sweet clover—will have no difficulty at all in recognizing sweet clover honey. It has a faint or very delicate flavor, reminding one of the smell of sweet clover while in bloom. If you bruise the foliage of the sweet clover when the plant is growing rank in the spring, you will also get a strong perfume, quite like the delicate flavor of the honey. Sweet-clover honey ought to be as readily identified as basswood and clover. --  A. I. R.

[BTW, I agree that good sweet clover has the hint of cinnamon. We used to get some every year from Montana. The minty description no doubt refers to basswood (Tilia)]

this is from 1843

> That the prevalent flower of a district will flavor the honey is certain. The delicious honey of the Isle of Bourbon will taste for years of the orange blossoms, from which, we believe, it is gathered, and on opening a bottle of it the room will be filled with the perfume. The same is the case with the honey of Malta. Corsican honey is said to be flavored by the boxtree, and we have heard of honey being rendered useless which was gathered in the neighborhood of onion-fields. 

> No one who has kept bees in the neighborhood of a wild common can fail to have remarked its superior flavor and bouquet. The wild rosemary that abounds in the neighborhood of Narbonne gives the high flavor for which the honey of that district is so renowned. But the plant the most celebrated for this quality is the classic and far-famed thyme of Mount Hymettus. -- The Eclectic Museum of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, Volume 1. edited by John Holmes Agnew, Eliakim Littell

Peter L Borst

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