OF TREES. 
157 
public, if one in every province would yearly 
make obfervations in this way, and at laft com- 
municate them in the fame manner,, as aftro- 
nomers do their meteorological ones to the 
royal lociety, or academy of fciences ? 
It will befides be neceffary to remark what 
fowing, made on different days in the fpring, 
produces the belt crop ; that comparing thefe 
with the foliation of different trees, it might 
appear which is the moft proper time for this 
purpofe. In like manner it will not be amifs to 
note at what time certain plants, efpecially the 
moll remarkable in every province, blow ; that 
it might appear whether t^e year made a flower 
or a quicker progrefs. For we fee, although 
obfervations of this kind have yet not come 
into ufe, that the mower can guefs at the time 
proper for cutting grafs, either from the flow- 
ers of th eparnaffia, the devil's bit , the marjh gen- 
tian , or the baftard afphodel burfting forth, or 
from the flowers of the purple meadow trefoil 
withering, or from the ripening of the feeds of 
the yellow rattle , or in higher places from the 
yellow hue of the leaves of the leopard's bane . 
Would botanifts like aftronomers note the time 
of foliation, and flowering of trees and herbs, 
and the days on which the feed is fown, flowers 
and 
