CHAP, in S Y L V A 65 



learned notes upon this chapter, reproves the instance, 

 and corrects the text, a disparatione procreatioms^ &c. 

 to ad disparationem^ &c. affirming that women are 

 never more sound and healthy than when they are 

 pregnant ; the nutrition deriv'd to the infant, being 

 (according to him) no diminution or prejudice to the 

 mother ; as being but the consumption of that 

 humidity, which enfeebles the bearing woman, and 

 thence infers, that the comparison cannot hold in 

 trees, which become so much stronger by it : But to 

 insist no longer on this ; there is no doubt, that 

 whilst trees abound in over-much, crude, and super- 

 fluous moisture (though it may, and do contribute to 

 their production and fertility, for which reason 

 Lucina was invok'd by parturient women) they are 

 not so fit for the ax as when being discharg'd of it, 

 and that it rises not in that quantity as to keep on 

 the leaves and fruit, those laxed parts and vessels by 

 which the humour did ascend, grow dry and close, 

 and are not so obnoxious to putrefaction, and the 

 worm : Hence it is that he cautions us to take notice 

 of the moon's decline, because of her dominion over 

 liquids, and directs our woodman (some days before 

 he fells downright) to make the gash or overture, 

 usque ad mediant medullam, to the end the whole 

 moisture may exstil ; for that not only by the bark 

 (which those who resemble trees to animals will have 

 to be analogous to arteries) does the juice drain out ; 

 but by that more fatty and whiter substance of the 

 wood it self, immediately under the bark (and which 

 our carpenters call the sap, and therefore hew away, 

 as subject to rot) which they will have to be the 

 veins : It is (say they) the office of these arteries of 

 bark, receiving nourishment from the roots, to derive 



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