46 LETTER II. 



One lingularity of this Tree is, that it is full as 

 big when it firfl arifes out of the Earth, as when 

 it is thirty years old : I have feen them thicker 

 than my Body, when they were but three foot 

 high ; and you will eafily fuppofe, that the Boughs 

 are then proportionally fhort, and of courfe muft 

 naturally lengthen, juft as the Tree advances in 

 age; N.B, common Afparagus fhoots out of the 

 ground in the felf fame manner, their Roots are 

 but tough Fibres refembling the Roots of our 

 EnglifliMulbery-trees. Their Boughs are fecured 

 together at bottom by brown ftringy Threads, 

 (about the fize of ordinary Packthread) that grov^ 

 out of them -, and indeed for about a foot fpace 

 from the top of the Body of the Tree upwards, 

 thefe ftringy Threads are fo interwove, that they 

 lay full as regularly up and down, and crofs each 

 other, as any coarfe Linnen Cloth poffibly can. 

 You have doubtlefs feen many of the Shells of 

 thefe Nuts, tipped with Silver, for drinking out 

 of. The common Pidure of the Tree is very 

 like it ; And if I do not greatly miftake, there 

 was one of them in 1728. growing at Chelfea 

 Garden, in the Hot-houfe cAXtA Barbadoes, 



24. Cocoa-tree is the Chocolate Nut-tree, 

 and in my time was fcarce enough in our 'Englijh 

 Iflands, but grew in whole Groves on the Spanijh 

 Main land, efpecially on the Coait of Carraccas, 

 as alfo upon the Ifland of Porto Rico, It nearly 



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