OF TREES. ,47 



We fee trees open their buds, and expand 

 their leaves i from hence we conclude that 



fpring 



found them in the Greek calendars. To this cuftomGeminus 

 certainly alludes when he obferves, that an almanack, which 

 may pretty well foretell the weather in onecountrey is good for 

 nothing in another, as one would think fhould be obvious at firfl: 

 light. Yet this he thought neccfTary to explain, and dilate 

 upon, in order to convince the Romans of their error; for 

 tho\ as Pctavius obferves, the later allronomers went more 

 accurately to work, the prejudice Hill remained in the minds 

 of the countrey people, and the vulgar. Whether Gemi- 

 nus thought thofe prediflions concerning heat, cold, rain, 

 drought, &c. which are found in the Alexandrian, Greek, 

 and Roman calendars, jail in fome of our modern ones, were 

 univerfaJly precarious, or whether he only tliought they were 

 fo in fuch climates, as that of Rome, where he is fuppofed 

 to have lived, he commends Aratus for making ufe of the 

 natural figns, taken from the afpedls of the fun, and fome of 

 the liars, as alfo of the figns taken from brutes, inllead of 

 the rifing and fetting of the liars, and gives this reafon of 

 his preference, that thofe predidlions, which have fome na- 

 tural caufe, have a necelTary efFed; adding, by way of con- 

 firmation of his opinion, that AriHotle, Eudoxus, and many 

 other aftronomers, made ufe of them. Thefe predidions 

 are copied by Virgil, but i do not recollefl any place in his 

 Georgics, where the feafons for ploughing, fowing, &c. are 

 fixed by the appearance of birds of paflagc, or of infefls, or 

 by the flowering of plants, which method was begun by 

 Hefiod, but never afterwards attended to, that i know, till 

 Linnxus wrote. Hefiod fays, that if it Ihould happen to 

 rain three days together when the cuckoiv fings, then late 

 fowing will be as good as early fowing. That when f7mils 

 L 3 begin 



