CHAP, vii S Y L V A 319 



There is a pestilent green-worm which hides it self 

 in the earth, and gets into pots and cases, eating our 

 seedlings, and gnawing the very roots, which should 

 be searched out : And now we mention roots, over- 

 grown toads will sometimes nestle at the roots of trees, 

 when they make a cavern, which they infect with a 

 poysonous vapour, of which the leaves famish 'd and 

 flagging give notice, and the enemy dug out with the 

 spade: But this chiefly concerns the gardners mural 

 fruit-trees ; though I question not but that even our 

 forest-trees suffer by such pernicious vapours, rats, 

 and other stinking vermine making their nests within 

 them. But of all these, let our industrious planter, 

 (especially the learned favourers of the most refined 

 parts of horticulture) consult the Discourses and 

 experiments of Sign. Fran. Redi, Malphigius, Leven- 

 hock, Swamerdam, <Sfc. with our own learned Doctors, 

 Lyster, Sloane, Hook, (and other sagacious naturalists) 

 to shew, that none of these diseases and infirmities in 

 plants proceed from any pure accidental, but real 

 cause ; flatus, venemous liquor, and infections : Which 

 some, even of the minutest animals, are provided 

 with instruments to pierce the very solid substances 

 of trees and plants, and infuse their pestiferous taint; 

 where likewise they leave their eggs, bearing those 

 nestling places with a certain terebra^ where we find 

 those innumerable perforations which we call worm- 

 eaten ; the wider latebrae are made by erucae^ cater- 

 pillars, ants, and bigger insects, raising morbid tumors 

 and excrescences, and preying upon the fruit, as well 

 as on the leaves, buds and flowers, so soon as their 

 eggs are hatch 'd, when they creep out of their little 

 caverns in armies, like the Egyptian locusts, invading 

 all that's green, and tender rudiments first, and then 



