Directions for making of Sj/rups, Sfc, 351 



S. Dry them well in the snn, and keep them in papers near the 

 fire, as I shewed vou in the foregoing chapter. 



4. So long as they retain the colour and smell, they are good; 

 either being gone, so is their virtue also. 



CHAP. III. Of Seeds. 

 1. THE seed is that part of the plant which is endowed with a 

 vital faculty to bring forth its like, and it contains potentially the 

 whole plant in it. 



5. As for the place, let them be gathered from the place where 

 they delight to grow. 



3. Let them be full ripe when they are gathered : and forget 

 not the celestial harmony before mentioned ; for I have found by 

 experience that their virtues are twice as great at such limes as at 

 others ; " There is an appointed time for every thing under the 

 " sun." 



4. When you have gathered them, dry them a little, and but a 

 little, in the sun, before you lay them up. 



5. You need not be so careful of keeping them so near the fire, 

 as the other beforementioned, because they are fuller of spirit, and 

 therefore not so subject to corrupt, 



6. As for the time of their duration, it is palpable they will keep 

 a good nianv years ; yet, they are the best the first year, and this 

 I make appear by a good argument. They will grow soonest the 

 first year they be set, therefore tlitn they are in their prime ; aad 

 it is an easy matter to renew them yearly. 



CHAP. IV. Of Koots. 



1. OF roots, choose such as are neither rotten nor worm-eaten, 

 but proper in their taste, colour and smell, such as exceed neither 

 in soilness nor hardness. 



1?. Give me leave to be a little critical against the vulgar received 

 ophiion, which is, that the sap falls down into the roots in the 

 Autumn, and rises again in the Spring, as men go to bed at night, 

 and rise in the morning; and this idle talk of untruth is so 

 grounded in tlie heads, not only of the vulgar, but also of the 

 learned, that a man cannot drive it out by reason. I prav, let 

 such sap-mongers answer me this aigument : if the sap falls into 

 the roots in the fall of the leaf, and lies there ail the winter, then 

 must the root grow only in the winter. But the root grows not 

 at all in the winter, as experience leacheth, but only in the sum- 

 mer ; therefore if you set an apple kernel in the spring, you shall 

 find the root grow to a prettv bigne»s in the summer, and be not 

 a whit bigger next spring. What doth the sap do in the root all 

 this while ? Pick straws ? 'Tis as rotten as a rotten post. 



The truth is, when the sun decline from the tropic of Cancer, 

 the sap begins to congeal both in root and branch j when he 



