OF FOREST-TREES. 



219 



Vitmvius is for an autumnal fall ; others advise December and January. CHAP. Iir. 

 Cato was of opinion trees should have first borne their fruit, or at least, ^""""""V"**^ 

 not till full ripe ; v^^hich agrees with that of the architect, who begins his 

 fall from the commencement of autumn to the spring, when Favonius 

 begins to breathe ; and his reason is, that from thence, during all the 

 summer, trees are, as it were, going with child, and diverting all their 

 nourishment to the embryo, leaves, and fruit, which renders them weak 

 and infirm. This he illustrates from teeming women, who during their 

 pregnancy, are never so healthful as after they are delivered of their 

 burden, and abroad again ; and for this reason (says he) those merchants 

 who expose slaves to sale, will never warrant one that is with child : 

 the buyer was (it seems) to stand to the hazard *. Thus he : but I re- • vitruv. 

 member Monsieur Perrault in his pompous edition of our author, and ' " ^' 

 learned notes upon this chapter, reproves the instance, affirming that 

 women are never more sound and healthy than when they are pregnant ; 

 the nutrition derived to the infant being (according to him) no diminution 

 or prejudice to the mother, as being biit the consumption of that 

 humidity which enfeebles the bearing woman ; and thence infers, that 

 the comparison cannot hold in trees, which become so much stronger by 

 it. But to insist no longer on this ; there is no doubt, that whilst trees 

 abound in over-much, crude, and superfluous moisture, (though it may, 

 and do contribute to their production and fertility,) they are not so fit for 

 the axe as when being discharged of it, and that it rises not in that 

 quantity as to keep on the leaves and fruit, those laxed parts and vessels 

 by which the humour did ascend, grow dry and close, and are not so ob- 

 noxious to putrefaction and the worm. Hence it is, that he cautions us 

 to take notice of the moon's decline, because of her dominion over liquids, 

 and directs our woodman (some days before he fells doAvnright) to make 

 the gash or opening usque ad mediam meduUam, to the end the whole 

 moisture may extil ; for that not only by the bark (which those who re- 

 semble trees to animals will have to be analogous to arteries) does the 

 juice drain out, but by that more fatty and whiter substance of the wood 

 itself, immediately under the bark, (and which our carpenters call the sap, 

 and therefore, hew away as subject to rot,) which they will have to be the 

 veins : it is (say they) the office of these arteries of bark, receiving nou- 

 rishment from the roots, to derive it to every part of the tree, and to 

 remand what is crude and superfluous by the veins to the roots again ; 

 whence, after it has been better digested, it is made to ascend a second 

 time by the other vessels in perpetual circulation ; and, therefore, neces- 



