CHAP, i S Y L V A 209 



rosarum, in which receipt they do best, being taken 

 before they are over-ripe. I have 1 read, that in 

 Syria they make bread of them ; but that the eating 

 of it makes men bald : As for drink, the juice of the 

 berry mixed with cider-apples, makes an excellent 

 liquor, both for colour and taste. 



10. To proceed with the leaf (for which they are 

 chiefly cherish'd) the benefit of it is so great, that 

 they are frequently let to farm for vast sums ; so as 

 some one sole tree has yielded the proprietor a rent of 

 twenty shillings per annum, for the leaves only ; and 

 six or seven pounds of silk, worth as many pounds 

 sterling, in five or six weeks, to those who keep the 

 worms. We know that till after Italy had made 

 silk above a thousand years, (and where the tree it self 

 was not a stranger, none of the ancients writing any 

 thing concerning it) they receiv'd it not in France; it 

 being hardly yet an hundred, since they betook them- 

 selves to this manufacture in Provence, Languedoc, 

 Dauphine, Lionnois, fife, and not in Tourain and 

 Orleans, till Hen. the Fourth's time ; but it is in- 

 credible what a revenue it now amounts to in that 

 kingdom. About the same time, or a little after, it 

 was that King James did with extraordinary care 

 recommend it to this nation, by a book of directions, 

 acts of council, and all other princely assistance. But 

 this did not take, no more than that of Hen. the 

 Fourth's proposal about the environs of Paris, who 

 filled the high-ways, parks, and gardens of France 

 with the trees, beginning in his own gardens for 

 encouragement : Yet, I say, this would not be brought 

 into example, till this present great monarch, by the 

 indefatigable diligence of Monsieur Colbert (Super- 



1 Andr. Medicus apud Athenaeum, Deipnos. lib. 3 cap. 29. 



