‘ii lo OE EEF Ae SS. 
them to the Female. By this means they fecured 
the Ripening of the Fruit; which might elfe, 
from unfavourable Seafons, or the want of a 
proper Intermixture of the Trees of each Sex, 
have been precarious, or at leaft not to have been 
expected in equal Quantities. 
It feems pretty extraordinary, that this Difco- 
very fhould not have led the Ancients to detect 
the whole Procefs of Nature in the Propagation 
of the various Species of Vegetables ; and yet it 
does not appear, by any of their Writings, that 
are come down to us, that they went farther 
than this obvious Remark upon the Palm-Tree; 
and fome fimilar Notions concerning the Fig. 
They had indeed, from what they faw in thefe 
Plants, formed a Notion that all others were 
Male and Female likewife*; but this Notion 
* Thus Theophraftus: 
« In Trees, confidered univerfally, and taking in each 
« feveral Kind, there are, as has been faid, many Dif- 
« ferences. Oné of thefe is common to them all, 
« namely, that by which they are diftinguifhed into 
«¢ Female and Male, of which the one bears Fruit, 
“ the other not, in fome Kinds; in thofe in which 
© both bear Fruit, that of the Female is the beft, un- 
* lefs thefe are to be called Males, for fo they are 
& called by fome.” 
Hitt. Pl. Book iii. Chap. 9. 
was 
