But to pursue this to some farther advantage; as to what concerns the election of your seed, it is to be consider'd, that there is vast difference, (what if I should affirm more than an hundred years) in trees even of the same growth and bed, which I judge to proceed from the variety and quality of the seed: This, for instance, is evidently seen in the heart, procerity and stature of timber; and therefore chuse not your seeds always from the most fruitful-trees, which are commonly the most aged, and decayed; but from such as are found most solid and fair: Nor, for this reason, covet the largest acorns, &c.

but (as husbandmen do their wheat) the most weighty, clean and bright: This observation we deduce from fruit-trees, which we seldom find to bear so kindly and plentifully from a sound stock, smooth rind, and firm wood, as from a rough, lax, and untoward tree; which is rather prone to spend itself in fruit, (the ultimate effort, and final endeavour of its most delicate sap,) than in solid and close substance to encrease the timber.

And this shall suffice, though some haply might here recommend to us a more accurate microscopical examen, to interpret their most secret schematismes, which were an over-nicety for these great plantations.
5.

As concerning the medicating and insuccation of seeds, or enforcing the earth by rich and generous composts, &c.

for trees of these kinds, I am no great favourer of it; not only because the charge would much discourage the work; but for that we find it unnecessary, and for most of our forest-trees, noxious; since even where the ground is too fertile, they thrive not so well; and if a mould be not proper for one sort, it may be fit for another: Yet I would not (by this) hinder any from the trial, what advance such experiments will produce: In the mean time, for the simple imbibition of some seeds and kernels, when they prove extraordinary dry, as the season may fall out, it might not be amiss to macerate them in milk or water only, a little impregnated with cow-dung, &c.