98 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



a mess of coleworts upon his table before 

 him, and being suddenly sent for to visit a 

 patient, he covered, at his departure, his 

 dish with another, and found it at his return 

 bedewed with moisture : observing from this 

 circumstance, that the extraction of humidi- 

 ty was very easy, he bent his study so far 

 that way, as to give being to the art of dis- 

 tillation. 



The ancients were firmly persuaded that 

 there was a sympathy in plants, as well as in 

 animals. "The vine, says one of their authors, 

 by a secret antipathy in nature, especially 

 avoids the cabbage, if it has room to decline 

 from it ; but in case it cannot shift away, it 

 dies for very grief." Pliny* says, the cole- 

 worts and the vine have so mortal a hatred 

 to each other, that if a vine stand near a 

 colewort, it will be sensibly perceived that 

 the vine shrinks away from it ; and yet this 

 wort, which causes the vine thus to retire 

 and die, if it chance to grow near origan, 

 margiram, or cyclamen sowbread, will soon 

 wither and die in its turn. The cause is 

 evident, for where two plants are neighboured 

 that require the same juices to support them, 



# Book xxiv. chap. 1. 



