CHAP, xvii SYLVA 145 



adversion : For he that said but twenty gallons run, 

 does he know how many more might have been 

 gotten out of larger apertures, at the insertion of 

 every branch, and foot in the principal roots during 

 the whole season ? But I conceive I have good au- 

 thority for my assertion, out of the author cited in 

 the margin, whose words are these : Si mense Martio 

 perforaveris betulam, &c. exstillabit aqua limpida^ clara^ 

 & pura, obscurum arboris saporem & odorem referens, 

 qua spatio 1 2 aut 1 4 dierum, praponderabit arbori cum 

 ramis & radicibus, &c. His exceptions about the 

 beginning of March are very insignificant ; since I 

 undertake not punctuality of time ; and his own pre- 

 tended experience shew'd him, that in hard weather 

 it did not run till the expiration of the month, or 

 beginning of April ; and another time, on the tenth 

 of February ; and usually he says, about the twenty- 

 fourth day, &c. at such uncertainty : What immane 

 difference then is there between the twenty-fourth of 

 Feb. and commencement of March ? Besides, these 

 anomolous bleedings, (even of the same tree) happen 

 early or later, according to the temper of the air and 

 weather. In the mean time, evident it is, that we 

 know of no tree which does more copiously attract, 

 be it that so much celebrated spirit of the world, (as 

 they call it) in form of water (as some) or a certain 

 specifique liquor richly impregnated with this bal- 

 samical property : That there is such a magnes in this 

 simple tree, as does manifestly draw to it self some 

 occult and wonderful virtue, is notorious ; nor is it 

 conceivable, indeed, the difference between the efficacy 

 of that liquor which distils from the bole, or parts of 

 the tree nearer to the root (where Sir Hugh would 

 celebrate the incision) and that which weeps out from 



