OF FOUEST-TREES. 11 



forced out by collision : but which yet, methinks, does not so fully enlighten inTROD. 

 this hypothesis, which we only mention : for the design of this Discourse ^-^^V"^ 

 is not to persuade men to sit still, and let Nature work alone, but to aid 

 and assist her as much as they are able, from seeds and plants already 

 perfected, and qualified for more speedy propagation. It is not in any 

 sort my meaning throughout this Discourse, as if (where I speak of spon- 

 taneous productions) I believed that any vegetables raised themselves 

 without some predisposed qualified seed or principle : But by spontaneous, 

 I understand such trees and plants as were not sown or cultivated by 

 human industry : as most of our forest-trees never were, and yet had their 

 original from perfect seeds. And if I think the same of all animals, 

 even to the minutest worm and insect, there are so many learned persons 

 and experiments to justify it, that I need say no more. Most ingenious, 

 in the mean time, is what some, upon an accurate and narrow guess, 

 have not feared to pronounce ; namely, that all planting by seed was but 

 a kind of inoculation ; and propagation by cions and sprouts, but a 

 subterranean grafting. And upon this account I am the more willing to 

 assent, that, in removing of wild trees taken out of incumbered places, 

 (so it be performed with all due circumstances,) there may happen con- 

 siderable improvements ; since as there is something in super-graffing, or 

 the repetition of graffing, for the enlargement and melioration of fruit, 

 so there may be also in a careful removal ; especially the tree being of a 

 kind apt to dilate its roots_, and taken whilst those roots may be safely and 

 entirely transferred ; and likewise, because it is presumed that most 

 trees, propagated by seeds, emit a principal root very deep into the earth, 

 which frequently extracting but a coarser nutriment (though it may haply 

 yield a close and firmer timber) is not yet so apt to shoot and spread^ as 

 what are by removal deprived of that root ; and by being more impreg- 

 nate with the sun, dews, and heavenly influences near the surface, 

 enabled to produce larger, more delicate, and better tasted fruit ; sup- 

 posing nuts, mast, or berries ; for we would not go out of our forest for 

 instances ; and yet even in these descents of the tap-root, it sometimes 

 penetrating to a vein of some rich marl or other mould, the extraordinary 

 flourishing and expedition of growth will soon give notice of it. But to 

 make some trial of this, it were no difficult matter, when one plants a 

 nursery or grove, to experiment what the earth, as far as the roots are 

 like to reach, will advance and discover to us. 



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