110

A DISCOURSE

known to bring these excresences to maturity; the white and imper-forated are the best; of all which, and their several species, see Casp.Bauhinus, and the excellent Malpighius, in his Discourse de Gallis, andother morbous tumours raised by, and producing insects, infecting theleaves, stalks, and branches of this tree with a venomous liquor or froth,wherein they lay and deposite their eggs, which bore and perforate theseexcrescences when the worms are hatched, so as we see them in gallsk

What benefit the mast does universally yield, once in two yearsat least, for the fatting of hogs and deer, I shall show upon anotheroccasion before the conclusion of this difcourse. A peck of Acornsa day, with a little bran, will make a hog, it is said, increase a poundweight per diem for two months together. They give them also to oxen,mingled with bran, chopped or broken ; otherwise they are apt to sproutand grow in their bellies®. Others say they should first be masceratedhi water to extract their malignity, cattle many times perishing without

this preparation. Cato advises the husbandman to reserve two hundredand forty bushels of acorns for his oxen, mingled with a like quantityof beans and lupines, and to drench them well. But, in truth, they aremore proper for swine, and, being so made small, will fatten pigeons,peacocks, turkeys, pheasants, and poultry ; nay, it is reported that somefishes feed on them, especially the tunny, in such places of the coastwhere trees hang over arms of the sea. Acorns, before the use of wheat

f Linnseus, Geoffroy, Scopoli , and Schaeffer have given us very minute descriptionsof the different kinds of insects that deposite their eggs upon the leaves of the Oak, Alder,Willow, Poplar, &c.

-The flowery leaf

Wants not its soft inhabitants. Secure,

Within its winding citadel, the stone

Holds multitudes. But chief the forest-boughs,

That dance unnumber’d to the playful breeze,

The downy orchard, and the melting pulpOf mellow fruit, the namelefs Nations feed

Of evanefcent Insects. Thomson.

g The food taken in by ruminant animals does not remain long enough in the stomachand intestinal canal to occasion the germination of acorns, mast, or any kind of seed.And even if such a luxuriancy of vegetation should take place, still no bad consequencescould pofsibly arise from it.