C 2 ) 
of them, take the advantage of their want of knowledge; and, inr 
order the better to deceive them, put up a great variety of forts in 
a very neat manner: when the feeds arrive here, and come to be 
examined by perfons of judgement, they foon find that moft of 
them have been collefted many years ; confequently are decayed, 
and of no value. To prevent this fraud for the future, it would be 
proper to examine the ftate they are in before they are purchafed. 
And though it is very difficult to judge how long they may have 
been gathered, yet we may form a tolerable judgement of them by 
cutting fome of the larger ones acrofs, and bruifing the fmaller 
ones : By the help then of a magnifying glafs of two inches focus, 
we may difcover, whether their internal part, which contains the 
feminal leaves, appears plump, white, and moift. If fo, thefe are 
good figns of their being in a vegetating ftate ; but if they are 
fhriveled, inclining to brown or black, and are rancid, they can- 
not in the leaft be depended upon. 
The refident faftors in China are the propereft perfons to col- 
left the choiceft kinds; they will follow any ufeful hints with 
chearfulnefs. Many valuable trees, unknown in Europe, grow in 
the northern provinces of China; the feeds of thefe may be ob- 
tained by means of the miftionaries at Pekin: that climate, though 
in 40 degrees of North latitude, is liable to more fevere cold than 
ours in winter. So that trees from thence would thrive well with 
us in the open air, but much better in the fame latitude of North- 
America, on account of the great heat of the American fummers. 
The Secretary of the Royal Society of London correfponds with 
the Miftionaries; and there is no doubt but, upon a proper applica- 
tion, they would with pleafure oblige the Society, as they have 
done formerly, in fending many curious feeds. But as the diftance 
is great, and the manner of preferving the feeds properly, fo as to 
keep them in a ftate of vegetation, is an affair of confequence, the 
following 
