OF TREES. 
1 47 
We fee trees open their buds, and expand 
their leaves ; from hence we conclude that 
fpring 
found them in the Greek calendars. To this cuftom Geminus 
certainly alludes when he obferves, that an almanack, which 
may pretty well foretell the weather in one countrey is good for 
nothing in another, as one would think Ihould be obvious at firft 
fight. Yet this he thought neceflary to explain, and dilate 
upon, in order to convince the Romans of their error ; for 
tho’, as Petavius obferves, the later aftronomers went more 
accurately to work, the prejudice ftill remained in the minds 
of the countrey people, and the vulgar. Whether Gemi- 
nus thought thofe predictions concerning heat, cold, rain, 
drought, &c. which are found in the Alexandrian, Greek, 
and Roman calendars, juft in fome of our modern ones, were 
univerfally precarious, or whether he only thought they were 
fo in fuch climates, as that of Rome, where he is fuppofed 
to have lived, he commends Aratus for making ufe of the 
natural figns, taken from the afpeds of the fun, and fome of 
the ftars, as alfo of the figns taken from brutes, inftead of 
the rifing and fttting of the ftars, and gives this reafon of 
his preference, that thofe predidions, which have fome na-i 
tural caufe, have a neceflary efFed ; adding, by way of con- 
firmation of his opinion, that Ariftotle, Eudoxus, and many 
other aftronomers, made ufe of them. Thefe predictions 
are copied by Virgil, but i do not recoiled any place in his 
Georgies, where the feafons for ploughing, fowing, &c. are 
fixed by the appearance of birds of paftage, or of infeds, or 
by the flowering of plants, which method was begun by 
Heftod, but never afterwards attended to, that i know, till 
Linnaeus wrote. Heftod fays, that if it fhould happen to 
rain three days together when the cuckow fings, then late 
fowing will be as good as early fowing. That when fnaih 
L 2 begin 
