364 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK IV. colds of the sliai-pest winters, and their immediate impressions ; as we 

 """'^'f''^ fin(j it in all such places and trees, as, like the blessed and good man, 

 have always fruit upon them, ripe, or preparing to mature ; such as the 

 Pine, Fir, Arbutus, Orange, and most of those which the Indies and 

 more southern tracts plentifully abound in, where Nature provides this 

 continual shelter, and clothes them with perennial garments. 



Let us examine with what care the seeds, (in which the whole and 

 complete tree, though invisible to our dull sense, is yet perfectly and en- 

 tirely wrapped up,) exposed, as they seem to be, to all those accidents of 

 weather, storms, and rapacious birds, are yet preserved from avolation, 

 diminution, and detriment, within their spiny, armed, and compacted re- 

 ceptacles ; where they sleep as in their causes, till their prisons let them 

 gently fall into the embraces of the earth, now made pregnant with the 

 season °, and ready for another burden : for at the time of year she fails 

 not to bring them forth. With what delight have I beheld this tender 

 and innumerable offspring repuUulating at the feet of an aged tree ! 

 from whence the suckers are drawn, transplanted, and educated by hu- 

 man industry, and, forgetting the ferity of their nature, become civi- 

 ^ lized to all his employments. 



Can we look on the prodigious quantity of liquor, which one poor 

 wounded Birch will produce in a few hours, and not be astonished? is it not 

 wonderful that some ti*ees should, in a short space of time, weep more than 

 they weigh ? and that so dry, so feeble, and wretched a branch, as that 

 which bears the grape, should yield a juice that cheers the heart of man ? 

 that the Pine, Fir, Larch, and other resinous trees, planted in such rude 

 and uncultivated places, amongst rocks and dry pumices, should transude 

 into turpentine, and pearl out into gums and precious balms ? 



In a word, so astonishing and wonderful is the organism, parts, and 

 functions of plants and trees, that some have, as we said, attributed 

 animal life to them, and conceived that they were living creatures ; for 

 so did Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and even Plato himself. 



° Virgil beautifully marks this season ; 



Vera tument terrse, et genitalia semina poscunl. 



geOrg. ii. 



