during the space of twenty four hours, to give them a spirit to sprout and chet the sooner; especially if you have been retarded in your sowing without our former preparation: But concerning the mould, soiling and preparations of the ground, I refer you to my late Treatise of Earth, if what you meet with in this do not abundantly encounter all those difficulties.
6.

Being thus provided with seeds of all kinds, I would advise to raise woods by sowing them apart, in several places destin'd for their growth, where the mould being prepar'd (as I shall shew hereafter) and so qualified (if election be made) as best to suit with the nature of the species, they may be sown promiscuously, which is the most natural and rural; or in streight and even lines, for hedge-rows, avenues, and walks, which is the more ornamental: But, because some may chuse rather to draw them out of nurseries; that the culture is not much different, nor the hinderance considerable (provided they be early and carefully removed) I will finish what I have to say concerning these trees in the seminary, and shew how they are there to be raised, transplanted, and govern'd till they can shift for themselves.
As to the air and water, they are certainly of almost as great importance to the life and prosperity of trees and vegetables; and therefore it is to be wish'd for and sought, where they are defective; and which commonly follow, or indicate the nature of the soil, or the soil of them; (taking soil here promiscuously for the mould;) that they be neither too keen or sharp, too cold or hot; not infected with foggs and poys'nous vapours, or expos'd to sulphurous exhalations, or frigiverous winds, reverberating from hills, and other ill-situate eminencies, pressing down the incumbent particles so tainted, or convey'd through the inclosed valleys: But such as may gently enter and pervade the cenabs and vessels destin'd and appointed for their reception, intromission, respiration, and passage, in almost continual motion: In a word, such as is most agreeable to the life of man, the inverted head compared to the root, both vegetables and animals alike affected with those necessary principles, air and water, soon suffocated and perishable for the want of either, duly qualified with their proper mixts, be it nitre, or any other vegetable matter; though we neither see, nor distinctly taste it: So as all aquatics, how deeply soever submerg'd, could not subsist without this active element the air.
The same qualification is (as we said) required in water, to which 'tis of so near alliance, and whose office it is, not only to humectate, mollify, and prepare both the seeds, and roots of vegetables, to receive the nutrition, pabulum, and food, of which this of water as well as air, are the proper vehicles, insinuating what they carry into the numerous pores, and through the tubes, canales, and other emulgent passages and percolutions to the several vessels, where (as in a stomach) it is elaborated, concocted, and digested, for distribution through every part of the plant; and therefore had need be such as should feed, not starve, infect or corrupt; which depends upon the nature and quality of the mix'd, with what other virtue, spirit, mineral, or other particles, accompanying the purest springs, (to appearance) passing through the closest strainers.

This therefore requires due examination, and sometimes exposure to the air and sun, and accordingly the crudity, and other defects taken off and qualified: All which, rain-water, that has had its natural circulation, is greatly free from, so it meets with no noxious vapours in the descent, as it must do passing through fuliginous clouds of smoak and soot, over and about great cities, and other vulcanos, continually vomiting out their acrimonious, and sometimes pestiferous fervor, infecting the ambient air, as it perpetually does about London, and for many adjacent miles, as I have elsewhere{9:1} shew'd.
In the mean time, whether water alone is the cause of the solid and bulky part, and consequently of the augmentation of trees and plants, without any thing more to do with that element (tho' as it serves to transport some other matter) is very ingenuously discuss'd, and curiously enquired into by Dr._Woodward_, in his _History of the Earth_; fortified with divers nice experiments, too large to be here inserted: The sum is, that water, be it of rain, or the river (superior or inferior) carries with it a certain superfine terrestrial matter, not destitute of vegetative particles; which gives body, substance, and all other requisites to the growth and perfection of the plant, with the aid of that due heat which gives life and motion to the vehicles passage through all the parts of the vegetable, continually ascending, 'till (having sufficiently saturated them) it transpires the rest of the liquid at the summity and tops of the branches into the atmosphere, and leaving some of the less refined matter in a viscid hony-dew, or other exsudations, (often perceived on the leaves and blossoms,) anon descending and joining again with what they meet, repeat this course in perpetual circulation: Add to this, that from hence those regions and places crowded with numerous and thick standing forest-trees and woods, (which hinder the necessary evolition of this superfluous moisture, and intercourse of the air) render those countries and places, more subject to rain and mists, and consequently unwholsome; as is found in our American plantations, as formerly nearer us, in Ireland; both since so much improved by felling and clearing these spacious shades, and letting in the air and sun, and making the earth fit for tillage, and pasture, that those gloomy tracts are now become healthy and habitable.

It is not to be imagined how many noble seats and dwellings in this nation of ours, (to all appearance well situated,) are for all that unhealthful, by reason of some grove, or hedge-rows of antiquated dotard trees; nay, sometimes a single tuft only, (especially the falling autumnal leaves neglected to be taken away) filling the air with musty and noxious exhalations; which being ventilated, by glades cut through them, for passage of the stagnant vapours, have been cur'd of this evil, and recovered their reputation.
But to return to where we left; water in this action, imbib'd with such matter, applicable to every species of plants and vegetables, does not as we affirm'd, operate to the full extent and perfection of what it gives and contributes of necessary and constituent matter, without the soil and temper of the climate co-operate; which otherwise, retards both the growth and substance of what the earth produces, sensibly altering their qualities, if some friendly and genial heat be wanting to exert the prolifick virtue: This we find, that the hot and warmer regions produce the tallest and goodliest trees and plants, in stature and other properties far exceeding those of the same species, born in the cold north: So as what is a gyant in the one, becomes a pumilo, and in comparison, but a shrubby dwarf in the other; deficient of that active spirit, which elevates and spreads its prolifick matter and continual supplies without check, and is the cause of not only the leaves deserting the branches, whilst those trees and plants of the more benign climate, are clad in perennial verdure: And those herbacious plants, which with us in the hottest seasons hardly perfect their seeds before Winter, and require to be near their genial beds and nurse, and sometimes the artificial heat of the hot-bed.

Lastly, to all this I would add that other chearful vehicle, light; which the gloomy and torpent north is so many months depriv'd of; the too long seclusion whereof is injurious to our exotics, kept in the conservatories, since however temper'd with heat, and duly refresh'd; they grow sickly, and languish without the admission of light as well as air, as I have frequently found.
FOOTNOTES: {4:1} Nam specimen sationis, & infitionis origo Ipsa fuit rerum primum natura creatrix: Arboribus quoniam baccae, glandesque caducae Tempestiva dabant pullorum examina subter, &c.
_Lucret._ l.