86 Natural Magick. < Bool^: j.

thereof, you must take your seed,and that will yeeld you the largest fruit. And thisis experienced not in Gourds onely, but also in all other fruits: for the feeds whichgrow in the bowels or belly, as it were,of any fruit, are commonly most perfect,andyeeld most perfect sruitjwheras the feeds that grow in the outward parts,croduceforthe most part weak & unperfect fruit. Likewise the grains that are in the middle ofthe ear, yeeld the best corn; whereas both the highest and the lowest are not so per-fect : but because Gourds yeeld great increase, therefore the experience hereof ismore evidently in them then in any other. Cucumbers will be of a great growth,as the Quintiles fay, if the feeds be set with their heads downward ; or else if youset a vessel full of water under them in the ground,that so the roots may be drench-ed therein : for we have known them grow both sweeter and greater by this De-vice.

Chap. XIT.

How to produce fruit that Jhall not have any stone or kernel in it.

IT is a received thing in Philosophy, especially amongst those that have set forthunto us the choicest and nicest points of Husbandry , that if you take Quicksets,or any branches that you would plant, and get out the pith of them with lome ear-picker, or any like instrument made of bone,they will yeeld fruit without any stone,and without any kernel: for it is the pith that both breedeth and nourifheth thesubstance of the kernel. But the Arcadians are of a quire contrary opinion : for,fay they, every tree that hath any pith in it at all, will live ; but if all the pith betaken out of it, it will be so far from yeelding any stonelefs fruit, that it cannotchuse but die, and be quite dried up. The reason is, because the pith is the moistestand most lively part of any tree or plant: for the nourishment which the ground-sends up into any plant, is conveyed especially by the pith into all the other parts:for Nature hath so ordained it, that all the parts draw th§ir nourist ment, as it weretheir foul and their breath, thorow the marrow or pith of the stock, as it were tho-row a c qnirt or Conduit-pipe, Which may appear by experience, (eeing any boughor stalk, so soon as the marrow is gone, returns and crooks backward, till it be quitedried up, as the Ancients have shewed. But I for my part must needs hold bothagain tlTheophrasttu, and against others also that have written of Husbandry , boththat trees may live after their marrow is taken from them, and also that they willbring forth fruit having stones or kernels in them , though there be no pith in thetrees themselves, as I have shewed more at large in my books of Husbandry. Not-withstanding, lest I should omit any thing belonging to this argument,I have thoughtgood here to set down the examples which those Ancients have delivered in writing,that every man that lists may make trial hereof ; and haply some amongst the restusing greater diligence in the proof hereof then I did,may finde beuer success here-in then I have found. There be many means, whereby PlantlPfmy be depri-ved of kernels ; as namely, by engraffing, by taking out their pith, by soiling withdung, or by watering, and by other Devices. We will first begin, as our wontedmanner is, with engrafting; and will (hew how to produce

c Peach-apple without a stone.'

Palladim faith he learned this new kinde of engrafting of a certain Spaniard , whichhe faith also he had experienced in a Peach-tree. Take a Willow-bough about thethickness of a mans arm ; but it must be very sound, and two yards long at the least:bore it thorow the middle,and carry it where a young Peach-tree grows: then stripoff all the Peach-tree-fprigs all bur the very top , and draw it thorow the hole ofthe Willow-bouah : then stick both ends of the Willow into the ground, that itmay staod bending like a bowe ; and fill up the hole that you bored, with dirt andmoss, & bind them in with thongs. About a year after, when the Peach-tree and theWillow are incorporated into each other, cut the plant beneath the joyning place,and remove it, and coyer both the Willow-hough and the top of the plant also with

earth;