CENTURY V. 209 



cause is, for that the cion over-ruleth the stock quite, 

 and the stock is but passive only, and giveth aliment, 

 but no motion to the graft. 



Experiments in consort touching the melioration of 



fruits, trees, and plants. 



We will speak now, how to make fruits, flowers, 

 and roots larger, in more plenty, and sweeter than 

 they use to be, and how to make the trees them 

 selves more tall, more spread, and more hasty and 

 sudden than they use to be. Wherein there is no 

 doubt but the former experiments of acceleration 

 will serve much to these purposes. And again, that 

 these experiments, which we shall now set down, do 

 serve also for acceleration, because both effects pro- 

 ceed from the increase of vigour in the tree ; but yet 

 to avoid confusion, and because some of the means 

 are more proper for the one effect, and some for the 

 other, we will handle them apart. 



422. It is an assured experience, that an heap of 

 flint or stone, laid about the bottom of a wild tree, 

 as an oak, elm, ash, &c. upon the first planting, doth 

 make it prosper double as much as without it. The 

 cause is, for that it retaineth the moisture which 

 falleth at any time upon the tree, and suffereth it 

 not to be exhaled by the sun. Again, it keepeth the 

 tree warm from cold blasts and frosts, as it were in 

 an house. It may be also there is somewhat in the 

 keeping of it steady at the first. Query, If laying 

 of straw some height about the body of a tree, will 

 not make the tree forwards. For though the root 



VOL. iv. p 



