318 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONSi [aNNO I669. 



To make a successful trial, let the root be bared in the fall of the leaf, taken 

 out of the earth, and at convenient distance from the body of the tree, bowed, 

 and raised a foot above the earth, and then the points and fibres of the root 

 carefully laid about vi^ith fresh earth, and watered till they take well, and till the 

 root raised in the air have a bark like that of a branch of a tree, which probably 

 it will get in the next season of inoculation. The inoculation itself is made on 

 the part raised, after the ordinary way. When it is done, let it be carefully 

 covered with some soft wax, to defend it from the rain. 



The arms of the roots of trees are to be cut for the advantage of their growth, 

 according to the proportion they have to their head and body ; or according to 

 the design you have to increase wood or fruit. For such roots as are more 

 outward feed the wood, but such as are inward the fruit. 



The depth of trees to be set, should never be below the reach of the sun's 

 heat, nor the goodness of the mould, and rather too shallow than too deep; 

 forasmuch as they are apter to sink lower, than to raise themselves upwards, if 

 they be out of the convenient reach of the sun's heat, the cause of pulsion and 

 nourishment. 



The seeds of the fir, pine, &c. which bring up the shells of their seeds on the 

 heads of the first shoot, will either not grow at all, or difficultly, if the blunt 

 end be put downwards, because in that posture it must turn itself, before it can 

 emerge into the air; for the root is shot downwards at the sharp end. But it 

 may very well grow if set horizontally. 



Some young plants, if their heads be kept moist, will live all winter, if it be 

 mild, though their roots be in the air, as I tried in seedlings of apples and 

 crabs. The roots, set afterwards in the spring, grew and lived. The reason 

 why some plants grow in sticks, may be the softness of such wood, apt there- 

 by to receive nourishment like a root, and to shoot out roots and fibres from 

 themselves. But in slips taken from firmer wooded trees, as bays, a moist 

 temperate season is to be observed, and a stone, or chip of wood to be closed 

 to the end of the slip, and set in the earth with it, which helps its rooting. 



The sap of a large walnut in the latter season of its running, i. e. when it 

 yields no sap any longer in the body or branches at any time of the day, runs 

 longer at the roots on the south or sunny side, than on the north or shady 

 side. 



As plenty of rain can cause no more sap than the pores of the root, body, and 

 branches will admit ; which must stay some time to be digested, and converted 

 into nourishment : so too niuch cold rain may, by over-cooling, hinder the sap, 

 by abating from the degree of heat necessary to the pulsion of sap into the root, 

 and to the digestion in the tree, which is also in watering. On this ground it 



