Mr. Ray of the Number of Plants. 349 



the Seed will give you a Plant void of thofe Marks, 

 which are propagated in the Slip or Branch. 



I am not ignorant that fome do make the differen* 

 ces of great and little fingly, to be fufficient notes 

 whereon to ground a diftinftion of Species. So in 

 Parkinfon and Gerard's Herbals, we find many Plants 

 put down for diftin£fc Species , which the Author? 

 themfelves confefs to differ in no other point, than in 

 being in all parts lefs the one than the other. Now 

 though I grant there are certain bounds and mea- 

 sures of littlenefs, and great nefs, which both Plants 

 and Animals cannot exceed or fall fhort of: As for 

 Example, a Sheep will never come to be fo big as an 

 Elephant, nor fo little as a Moufe •> nor a Goofe-berryr 

 bufh fo tall as an Oak, or fo low and fmall as Adian- 

 thum aureum minus, when grown to its ftature, be it 

 in what Gountrey you pleafe j yet is there a very great 

 Latitude in this particular between many Plants of the 

 fame Species, the difference of ten, nay twenty to 

 one being only in magnitude: Which difference is 

 yet wholly to be imputed either to the richnefs or 

 poverty of the Soil, the moiftneCs or drought of the 

 Seafon, the coldnefs or *heat of the Climate, or fome 

 other Accident > which is evident in that if you take 

 the Seed of the fmalleft and pooreft Plant in its kind, 

 provided it will admit culture > and fow it in a rich 

 Soil well water'd, you fhall foon get an Ofspring ten 

 times as great as their mother Plants. Nay take a 

 root of a perennial, and removable Plant, from off a 

 (Cold barren Mountain, and plant it in a fat warm 

 Garden, and it ihall attain twice the ftature or di- 

 menfions it would have gotten, had it remained in 

 its native Place. The like is obferved in Animals, we 

 having here in England of Sheep r from five to fifty 

 Pound a Score j and of Beafts, from three to twenty 

 Pound apiece. This is all I have to fay to the firft 

 .j^ueftioHu 



The 



