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Natural Magic k. ‘Bool ^ ±.

Chap. II.

How Flowers map be preserved upon their own stalls.

B y the like de vices as those were* we may also preserve flowers upon their ownstalk ; yet not so easily as fruits may be preserved upon their own Trees: Nei-ther yet can they be made to last s« long as fruits, because fruits are of an hardersubstance, but flowers are soft and tender. First therefore we will thew

How Roses map be preserved upon their own stalks.

If you take a Reed or Cane, and cleave it when it is green as it grows by the Roses,and put in the Rose-bud as it is upon the stalk, within the Reed, and then bindesome paper about the Reed somewhat loosely, that it may have as it were * breast-ing place ; your Roses will thereby be well preserved upon their stalk, as Dpdimmreport ech. Palladnu faith; If yon shut up your Rose-buds as they grow upon theirstalk, into a growing Reed which you have cleft for that purpose, and close up theReed again, that the cleft do not gape, you shall have fresh Roses when you will, ifyou open your Reed again. I have tried this device, and found it in some sort to beame, and answerable to my intendment: I took the Rose-buds before they wereblown, and shut them up into a Reed (for the Roses and the Reeds must be plantedveer together) and the cleft which I had made in the Reed, being but slender, Ibound it up again that it might not stand gaping, (onely I left a tit paflage for theRose stalk to stand in) and so I preserved them a great while. The like deviceI used

To preserve Li&ies upon theirfasts for a long time,

I cleft the Cane betwixt the joints, and put the billies into it as they grow upontheir stalk before they were blown, and so the joint of the Cane closing upon thembeneath, and the cleft above being stopt with wax, the billies were thereby longpreserved upon their stalk. The very fame experiment I practised upon Clove-gil-liflowers, and so I had them growing upon their stalk a great while: And whensoeverI would use them, I brake up their cases wherein they were preserved, and so by thecomfort and force of the Sun, they were blown and opened themselves.

Chap. III.

How to make Fruit fases, or places wherein fruits may corsveniently be preserved.

N Ow we will shew how you may preserve fruits when they ate taken off fromthe Trees whereon they grow. Wherein because our chiefest care and labouris,to keep them from putrefaction, therefore, that we may so do, we must first knowthe causes of their putrefaction. The Philosophers hold, that the temperature of theair being of it self exceeding variable by reason of the variety of celestial in-fluences which work upon it, is also of that*force, that it causeth every thingwhich it Cometh at, even whatsoever is contained under the cope Of the Moon, tohasten towards an end, and by little and little to decay continually. For the airwhich is apt to search every thing when it lights upon any fruit, finds in it a certainnatural heat somewhat like to its own heat; and presently closes with it, and enti-ces as it were the heat of the fruit to come into the air: and the fruit it self, ha-ving a natural coldness as well as heat, is very well content to entertain the heatof the circumstant air, which qxhausteth the own heat of the fruit, and de-voureth the moisture of it, and so the fruit shrinks, and withereth, and consumesaway. But man is not of such a dull sense, and of such a blockish wit,but that he can tell how to prevent these inconveniences, and to devise iun-dry kinds of means, whereby the sounrinesse of Fruits may he maintainedagainst the harms and dangers both cf cold, and of heat. And first we will