146 ON THE FOLIATION 



fwer to the heavenly bodies ; entirely neglefl- 

 inor the things that grow round about us. 



We 



be not fo good a guide to us as the vegetation of certain plants ; 

 fuppofing we could once fix on the proper one for fowing 

 each kind of feed. I have been told by a common huihand- 

 man in Norfolk, that when the oak calkins begin to fhed 

 their feed, it is a proper time to fow barley; and why might 

 not feme other tree ferve to dired the farmer as to other 

 feeds ? The prudent gardener never venture's to put his houfe 

 plants out, till the mulberry leaf is of a certain growth. 



It appears from Geminus in his elements of aftronomy, 

 that the coincidence of the feafons as to heat, cold, rain, &c. 

 with the rifmgs and fettings of the flars, had caufed a notion 

 to prevail among the antients, that thcfe celeilial phsenomena 

 were not merely the figns, but the caufes of the different 

 feafons. This notion, which he takes feme pains to over- 

 turn, would never have begun in fuch uncertain climates, as 

 are found in thefe parts of the world. But in ^gypt, where 

 the Nile begins to rife regularly upon the appearance of Si- 

 rius, or the dog-ftar, where the Etefian winds begin, and 

 ceafe to blow conflantly about the fame time of the year; 

 ^nd in genera] the variation of the weather is nearly uni- 

 form, fuch a notion might eafily prevail in the minds of an 

 unenlightened, and fuperftiiious people. From them it was 

 propagated into Greece, where, tho' it mull have been fre- 

 quently thwarted by a much lefs conflant uniformity, yet it 

 might ftill be upheld by that blind veneration,which generally 

 attends antiquity, efpecially amongft the ignorant, and un- 

 learned. As for the Romans, they went ftill farther, for 

 without even adapting an almanack to their own climate 

 and time, they fixed the feafons for hulbandry-work of all 

 kinds by the rifings and fettings of the Hars, fuch as they 



found 



