16 Record of the Royal Society. 



trees and other plants ; some instances were brought of Palme trees, 

 plum trees, hollies, Ash trees, Quinces, pionies, &c., wherein a differ- 

 ence was said to be found, either in their bearing of fruit or in 

 their hardnesse and softness, or in their medicall operations : some 

 said that the difference which is in trees as to fertility or sterility 

 may be made by ingrafting. 



"Mention was made by Sr. Rob. Moray of a French Gentleman 

 who having been some while since in England, and present at a 

 meeting of the Society, discoursed that the nature of all trees was 

 to run altogether to wood, which was changed by a certaine way of 

 cutting them, whereby they were made against their nature to beare 

 fruit, and that according as this cutting was done with more, or lesse, 

 skill the more or less fruitfnll the tree would bee. 



" A proposition was offered by Sr, Robert Moray about the planting 

 of Timber in England and the preserving of what is now growing. 



" Mr. Boyle shew'd a Puppey in a certaine liquour, wherein it had 

 been preserved during all the hott months of the Summer, though 

 in a broken and unsealed glasse. 



"Sir James Shaen proposed a CancTraate by Sr. Rob. Moray." 



It is evident that one most important feature of a meeting was the 

 performing of experiments before the members. Tn the warrant 

 issued in 1663, ordering the mace to be made for the Royal Society, 

 the Society is spoken of as " for the improving of Natural. Knowledge 

 by experiments." The experiment was performed for and by itself, 

 and not merely, as now, in illustration of a " paper communicated." 

 Papers were read then as now; but the reading of such papers 

 formed only a part, and by no means a great part, of the business of 

 the meeting. Much time was spent in discussing the bearings of 

 such experiments as were shown, and in devising other experiments 

 to be shown at some subsequent meeting, or in instituting investiga- 

 tions to be carried out in divers places and under various circum- 

 stances. And from the very first much of the energy of the Society 

 was spent in foreign correspondence, in giving information or advice 

 upon inquiries reaching them, in seeking news, or in instigating 

 researches in foreign places. The Letter-books of the Society contain 

 very many letters between the Society and various learned bodies 

 and individuals abroad; the first Letter-book begins with one dated 

 22nd July, 1661 (that is, before the incorporation of the Society), 

 and addressed by the then President, Sir Robert Moray, to one 

 Monsieur de Monmort, requesting the interchange of scientific com- 

 munications. Monsieur de Monmort appears to have been the patron 

 of science at whose house in Paris there assembled that small body 

 of savants who later, in 1666, were incorporated as the " Academic 

 des Sciences." 



