VOL. XXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. 697 



in this lady's case I forbore to use, because of her dropsical disposition, and 

 used only a draught or two of middling ale, impregnated with broom, juniper- 

 berries, daucus seeds, &c. 



The form in which I used to administer this fiery insect, is that of a soft pill 

 or bolus, composed of 3 cantharides prepar. troch. e myrrha 9(J, sem. carui gr. 

 vj. rob. cynosb. q. s. This in stubborn suppressions of the lochia and men- 

 strua, in difficult child birth, and retention of the secundines, does wonders, 

 what heat or pain it produces in the neck of the bladder, is much short of what 

 I have a hundred times seen, and sometimes felt, to proceed from applying an 

 epispastic to the back. 



Experiments and Observations concerning V^egetation. By the Rev. Mr. Abr, De 



la Pryme. N° 281, p. 1214. 



Some have made experiments on meliorating, fertilizing, and multiplying 

 grain, by steeping them in divers liquors. Digby mentions a plant of barley, 

 that by steeping and watering with saltpetre dissolved in water, produces 14Q 

 stalks, and above 18000 grains. And the last edition of Camden mentions a 

 thing very observable, that the corn sown in a field in Cornwall, after a great 

 battle in the civil wars, produced 4 or 5 ears on every stalk. I have tried some 

 such like experiments on several grains, though I have not been so happy as to 

 meet with that increase I expected. They are as below. 



Upon the 22d of March, l6y9, I laid to steep in brimstone-water, a pea, a 

 barley corn, and a wheat corn : in alum-water, a pea, a wheat, a barley, and 

 an oat corn : and the same in an old solution of salt of tartar : in the caput 

 mortuum of sal amm. dissolved in urine, a pea, a wheat, a barley, and an oat: 

 the same in the solution of the salt of walls: the same also in the solution of 

 saltpetre : the same likewise in nostoc or star jelly : and again the same in 

 urine. 



Having steeped them thus for 5 days and 5 nights, and set them in a garden 

 in a good soil against a north wall, full in the sun, on the 27th of the same 

 month, after a rainy night, with a pea, a wheat, a barley and an oat unsteeped. 



On the J 0th of April following, I went to see them, and found that some 

 were just come up, some not. The pea, the barley, and the wheat steeped in 

 brimstone-water all up together. The pea steeped in alum-water very large 

 and swelled, but not so much as sprouted, but the barley, wheat, and oat above 

 ground. The pea steeped in the old solution of salt of tartar, was half come 

 up, the wheat scarcely sprouted, but the barley and oat quite up. The pea, 

 the wheat, the barley, and oat steeped in the caput mortuum of sal ammoniac 

 dissolved in urine, were all up together ; as were also the next row that were 



VOL. IV. 4 U 



