OF FOREST-TREES.

237

suggest a cause why trees flourish more on the south-side, and have their ch. xvm,integument and coats thicker on those aspects annually, with diver3 otheruseful speculations, if in the mean time they seem not rather to be punc-tilios over nice for a plain forester. Let the curious further consult thePhilosophical Transactions , No. xliii. xliv, xlvi, xlviii, lvii, Ivin, lxvin,lxx, Ixxi. for farther instances and trials upon this subject of sap; alsothat excellent treatise of Hen . Meibomius, De Cerevisiis Potibusque etEbriaminibus extra Vinum , annexed to Turnebus de Vino, Sic. where heshows how, and by whom, after the first use of water and milk, were in-troduced the drinks made from vegetables, vines, corn, fruits, and juicestapped out of trees.

7. lo show our reader yet, that these are no novel experiments, we areto know, that a large tract of the world almost altogether subsists on theseTreen liquors, especially that of the Date, which being grown to aboutseven or eight feet in height, they wound, as we have taught, for the sap,which they call Toddy, a very famous drink in the East Indies. Thistree increasing every year about a foot, near the opposite part of the firstincisure, they pierce again, changing the receiver; and so still, by oppo-site wounds and notches, they yearly draw forth the liquor, till it arriveto near thirty feet upward, and of these they have ample groves andplantations, which they set at seven or eight feet distance ; but then theyuse to percolate what they extract through a stratum made of the rind ofthe tree, well contused and beaten, before which preparation it is notsafe to drink it; and it is observed that some trees afford a much moregenerous wine than others of the same kind. In the Cocoa and Palmetotrees, they chop a bough, as we do the Betula ; but in the Date f , make

f Mr. Evelyn seems to have been misinformed in the manner of procuring the juice fromthe Date-tree. Dr. Shaw, in his “ Observations on several parts ofBarbary and the Levant,”describes the operation in the following manner: This (meaning the juice) they procure by-cutting off the head or crown of the more vigorous plants, and scooping the top of thetrunk into the shape of a bason ; where the sap, in ascending, lodges itself at the rate ofthree or four quarts a day, during the first week or fortnight; after which the quantitydaily diminishes, and at the end of six weeks, or two months, the juices are entirely con-firmed ; the tree then becomes dry, and serves only for timber or fire-wood. This liquor,which has a more luscious sweetnefs than honey, is of the consistence of a thin syrup, butquickly grows tart and ropy, acquiring an intoxicating quality, and giving upon distilla-tion an agreeable spirit of araky, according to the general names of these people for allhot liquors extracted by the Alembeck. P. 142 .