the acorns and chesnut-buds, etc. from a wild tree, for two years together. I suppose that the tree will either put forth the third year bigger and more plentiful fruit; or else, the same years, larger leaves, because of the sap stored up.

451. IT hath been generally received, thạt a plant watered with warm water, will come up sooner and better, than with cold water or with showers. But our experiment of watering wheat with warm water, as hath been said, succeeded not; which may be, because the trial was too late in the year, viz. in the end of October. For the cold then coming upon the seed, after it was made more tender by the warm water, might check it.

452. THERE is no doubt, but that grafting, for the most part, doth meliorate the fruit. The cause is manifest; for that the nourishment is better prepared in the stock, than in the crude earth: but yet note well, that there be some trees that are said to come up more happily from the kernel than from the graft; as the peach and melocotone. The cause I suppose to be, for that those plants require a nourishment of great moisture; and though the nourishment of the stock be finer and better prepared, yet it is not so moist and plentiful as the nourishment of the earth. And indeed we see those fruits are very cold fruits in their nature.

453. It hath been received, that a smaller pear grafted upon a stock that beareth a greater pear, will become great. But I think it is as true as that of the prime fruit upon the late stock; and e converso; which we rejected before: for the cion will govern. Nevertheless, it is probable enough, that if you can get a cion to grow upon a stock of another kind, that is much moister than its own stock, it may make the fruit greater, because it will yield more plentiful nourishment; though it is like it will make the fruit baser. But generally the grafting is upon a drier stock; as the apple upon the crab; the pear upon a thorn, etc. Yet it is reported, that in the Low-Countries they will graft an apple cion upon the stock of a colewort,

and it will bear a great flaggy apple; the kernel of which, if it be set, will be a colewort, and not an apple. It were good to try whether an apple cion will prosper, if it be grafted upon a sallow, or upon a pop

а lar, or upon an alder, or upon an elm, or upon a horse-plum, which are the moistest of trees. I have heard that it hath been tried upon an elm, and succeeded.

454. It is manifest by experience, that flowers removed wax greater, because the nourishment is more easily come by in the loose earth. It may be, that oft regrafting of the same cion may likewise make fruit greater; as if you take a cion, and graft it upon a

, stock the first year; and then cut it off, and graft it upon another stock the second year; and so for a third or fourth year; and then let it rest, it will yield afterwards, when it beareth, the greater fruit.

Of grafting there are many experiments worth the noting, but those we reserve to a proper place.

453. It maketh figs better, if a fig-tree, when it beginneth to put forth leaves, have his top cut off. The cause is plain, for that the sap hath the less to feed, and the less way to mount: but it may be the fig will come somewhat later, as was formerly touched. The same may be tried likewise in other trees.

456. It is reported, that mulberries will be fairer, and the trees more fruitful, if you bore the trunk of the tree through in several places, and thrust into the places bored wedges of some hot trees, as turpentine, mastic-tree, guaiacum, juniper, etc. The cause may be, for that adventive heat doth cheer up the native juice of the tree.

457. It is reported, that trees will grow greater, and bear better fruit, if you put salt, or lees of wine, or blood to the root. The cause may be the increasing the lust or spirit of the root; these things being more forcible than ordinary composts.

458. It is reported by one of the ancients, that artichokes will be less prickly, and more tender, if the seeds have their tops dulled, or grated off upon a stone.

459. HERBS will be tenderer and fairer, if you take VOL. I.

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them out of beds, when they are newly come up, and remove them into pots with better earth. The remove from bed to bed was spoken of before ; but that was in several years; this is upon the sudden. The cause is the same with other removes formerly mentioned.

460. COLEWORTs are reported by one of the ancients to prosper exceedingly, and to be better tasted, if they be sometimes watered with salt water; and much more with water mixed with nitre; the spirit of which is less adurent than salt.

461. It is reported, that cucumbers will prove more tender and dainty, if their seeds be steeped a little in milk; the cause may be, for that the seed being mollified with the milk, will be too weak to draw the grosser juice of the earth, but only the finer. The same experiment may be made in artichokes and other seeds, when you would take away either their flashiness or bitterness. They speak also, that the like effect followeth of steeping in water mixed with honey; but that seemeth to me not so probable, because honey bath too quick a spirit.

462. It is reported, that cucumbers will be less watery, and more melon-like, if in the pit where you set them, you fill it, half-way up, with chaff or small sticks, and then pour earth upon them; for cucumbers, as it seemeth, do extremely affect moisture, and over-drink themselves; which this chaff or chips forbiddeth. Nay, it is farther reported, that if, when a cucumber is grown, you set a pot of water about five or six inches distance from it, it will, in twenty-four hours, shoot so much out as to touch the pot; which, if it be true, is an experiment of a higher nature than belongeth to this title: for it discovereth perception in plants, to move towards that which should help and comfort them, though it be at a distance. The ancient tradition of the vine is far more strange; it is, that if you set a stake or prop some distance from it, it will grow that way; which is far stranger, as is said, than the other: for that water may work by a sympathy of attraction; but this of the stake seemeth to be a reasonable discourse.

seasons.

463. It hath been touched before, that terebration of trees doth make them prosper better. But it is found also, that it maketh the fruit sweeter and better. The cause is, for that, notwithstanding the terebration, they may receive aliment sufficient, and yet no more than they can well turn and digest; and withal do sweat out the coarsest and unprofitablest juice; even as it is in living creatures, which by moderate feeding, and exercise, and sweat, attain the soundest habit of body.

464. As terebration doth meliorate fruit, so upon the like reason doth letting of plants blood; as pricking vines, or other trees, after they be of some growth; and thereby letting forth gum or tears; though this be not to continue, as it is in terebration, but at some

And it is reported, that by this artifice bitter almonds have been turned into sweet.

465. The ancients for the dulcorating of fruit do commend swine's dung above all other dung; which may be because of the moisture of that beast, whereby the excrement hath less acrimony; for we see swine's and pigs' flesh is the moistest of fleshes.

466. It is observed by some, that all herbs wax sweeter, both in smell and taste, if after they be grown up some reasonable time, they be cut, and so you take the latter sprout. The cause may be, for that the longer the juice stayeth in the root and stalk, the better it concocteth. For one of the chief causes why grains, seeds, and fruits, are more nourishing than leaves, is the length of time in which they grow to maturation. It were not amiss to keep back the sap of herbs, or the like, by some fit means, till the end of summer; whereby, it may be, they will be more nourishing

467. As grafting doth generally advance and meliorate fruits, above that which they would be if they were set of kernels or stones, in regard the nourishment is better concocted; so, no doubt, even in grafting for the same cause, the choice of the stock doth much; always provided, that it be somewhat inferior to the cion : for otherwise it dulleth it. They

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commend much the grafting of pears or apples upon a quince.

468. BESIDES the means of melioration of fruits before mentioned, it is set down as tried, that a mixture of bran and swine's dung, or chaff and swine's dung, especially laid up together for a month to rot, is a very great nourisher and comforter to a fruit-tree.

469. It is delivered, that onions wax greater if they be taken out of the earth, and laid a drying twenty days, and then set again; and yet more, if the outermost pill be taken off all over.

470. It is delivered by some, that if one take the bough of a low fruit-tree newly budded, and draw it gently, without hurting it, into an earthen pot perforate at the bottom to let in the plant, and then cover the pot with earth, it will yield a very large fruit within the ground. Which experiment is nothing but potting of plants without removing, and leaving the fruit in the earth. The like, they say, will be effected by an empty pot without earth in it, put over a fruit, being propped up with a stake, as it hangeth upon the tree; and the better, if some few pertusions be made in the pot. Wherein, besides the defending of the fruit from extremity of sun or weather, some give a reason that the fruit, loving and coveting the open air and sun, is invited by those pertusions to spread and approach as near the open air as it can; and so enlargeth in magnitude.

471. All trees in high and sandy grounds are to be set deep; and in watery grounds more shallow. And in all trees, when they be removed, especially fruit-trees, care ought to be taken, that the sides of the trees be coasted, north and south, etc. as they stood before. The same is said also of stone out of the quarry, to make it more durable ; though that seemeth to have less reason; because the stone lieth not so near the sun, as the tree groweth.

472. TIMBER trees in a coppice wood do grow better than in an open field; both because they offer not to spread so much, but shoot up still in height; and chiefly because they are defended from too much

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