OF FOREST-TREES. 



63 



or two, whilst the tardy and less forward so tire the hopes of the husband- CHAP, 

 man, that he many times digs up the plats and beds in which they were 

 sown, despairing of a crop, at the very time they were ready to spring 

 and come up, as I have found by experience to my loss. Those of hard 

 shell and integument will lie longer buried than others ; for so the 

 Libanus Cedar, and most of the coniferous trees, shed their cones late, 

 which sometimes remain two winters and as many summers, to open 

 their scales glued so fast together, without some external application of 

 fire or warm water, which is yet not so natural as when they open of 

 themselves The same may be observed of some minuter seeds, even 

 among the Olitories, as that of Parsley, which will hardly spring in less 

 than a year ; so of the seed of Beet, part in the second and third month, 

 which, upon inspecting the skins and membranes involving them, would 

 be hard to give a reason for ^ To accelerate this, they use imbibitions 

 of piercing spirits, salts, emollients, &cc. not only to the seeds, but to the 

 soil, which we seldom find signify much, but rather produce abortion or 

 monsters ; and being forced to hasty birth, become nothing so hardy, 

 healthful, and lasting as the conception and birth the plants receive from 

 nature. These observations premised, I should now proceed to parti- 

 culars, and boldly advance into the thickest of the forest, did not method . 

 seem to require something briefly to be spoken of trees in general, as they 

 are under the name of Plants and Vegetables, especially such as we shall 

 have occasion to discourse of in the following work: though we also take 

 in some less vulgarly known and familiar, of late endenizened among us, 

 and some of them very useful. 



By trees then is meant a ligneous plant, whose property is, for the most 

 part, to grow up and erect itself with a single stem or trunk, of a thick 

 compacted substance and bulk, branching forth large and spreading 



■J The cones of the Fir tribe should be laid in the sun early in the spring, which 

 will open their scales and permit the seeds to be shook out : the pi*actice of opening the 

 cones, by laying them upon the floor of a malt-kiln, is highly to be condemned. This ex- 

 peditious method is often practised by seedsmen — which rationally accounts for the badness 

 of the Fir-seed sometimes purchased from wholesale dealers. 



' In this particular, Mr. Evelyn seems to have been misinformed. Parsley-seed remains 

 in the earth about four weeks, and the seed of tlie Beet generally appears in about ten 

 days after sowing. 



