OF FOREST-TREES. 2S7 



suggest a cause why trees flourish more on the south-side, and have their CH. xviii. 

 integument and coats thicker on those aspects annually, with divers other '-^'V"^ 

 useful speculations, if in the mean time they seem not rather to be punc- 

 tilios over nice for a plain forester. Let the curious further consult the 

 Philosophical Transactions, No. xliii, xliv, xlvi, xlviii, Ivii, Iviii, Ixviii, 

 Ixx, Ixxi, for farther instances and trials upon this subject of sap ; also 

 that excellent treatise of Hen. Meibomius, De Cerevisiis Potihusque et 

 Ehriaminihus extra Vinum, annexed to Turnehus de Vino, Sgc. where he 

 shows how, and by whom, after the first use of water and milk, were in- 

 troduced the drinks made from vegetables, vines, corn, fruits, and juJces, 

 tapped out of trees, 



7. To show our reader yet, that these are no novel experiments, we are 

 to know, that a large tract of the world almost altogether subsists on these 

 Treen liquors, especially that of the Date, whi ch being grown to about 

 seven or eight feet in height, they wound, as we have taught, for the sap, 

 which they call Toddy, a very famous drink in the East Indies. This 

 tree increasing every year about a foot, near the opposite part of the first 

 incisure, they pierce again, changing the receiver ; and so still, by oppo- 

 site wounds and notches, they yearly draw forth the liquor, till it arrive 

 to near thirty feet upward, and of these they have ample groves and 

 plantations, which they set at seven or eight feet distance ; but then they 

 use to percolate what they extract through a stratum made of the rind of 

 the tree, well contused and beaten, before which preparation it is not 

 safe to di'ink it ; and it is observed that some trees afford a much more 

 generous wine than others of the same kind. In the Cocoa and Palmeto 

 trees, they chop a bough, as we do the Betula ; but in the Date ^ make 



^ Mr. Evelyn seems to have been misinformed in the manner of procuring the juice from 

 the Date-tree. Dr, Shaw, in his " Observations on several parts of Barbaiy and the Levant," 

 describes the operation in the folio vring maimer: This C meaning the juice) they procure by 

 cutting off the head or crown of the more vigorous plants, and scooping the top of the 

 trunk into the shape of a basin ; where the sap, in ascending, lodges itself at the rate of 

 three or four quarts a day, during the first week or fortnight ; after which the quantity 

 daily diminishes, and at the end of six weeks, or two months, the juices are entirely con- 

 sumed ; the tree then becomes dry, and serves only for timber or fire-. wood. This liquor, 

 which has a more luscious sweetness than honey, is of the consistence of a thin sirup, but 

 quickly grows tart and ropy, acquiring an intoxicating quality, and giving upon distillatioij 

 an agreeable spirit of araky, according to the general names of these people for all hot 

 liquors extracted by the Alembech. P. 142. 



