V

j 50 A DISCOURSE

ix. mingled and well hardened with a little loamy earth and horse-dungnewly made.

Dr. Plot speaks of an Elm growing near the bowling-green at Mag-dalen-College, quite round disbarked, almost for a yard near the ground,which yet flourishes exceedingly ; upon which he dilates into an accurate

only a receptacle : So that also the Hop, Mulberry, Strawberry , and Blite, can producefruit, though their seeds do not ripen, because their fruit is nothing but a receptacle orcalyx. Some botanists, who were ignorant of this, seeing those trees produce fruit withoutprevious impregnation, thought they had found an unanswerable argument against thegeneration of plants; but they did not consider, that the fruit of the Fig is not a seed-vefsel, but a common receptacle. Yet it appears, that the fruit of the Fig , if the seeds areimpregnated, grow to a much larger size than those which are not; which Tournefort also observed ; for he tells us, that a Fig-tree, in Franche Compte , where there is nocaprification, produced every year only twenty-five pound weight of Figs ; but that anotherof the same size in one of the islands of the Archipelago , produced yearly two hundred andeighty pound weight of Figs, which is above ten times the quantity of the other. Thisage hath clearly refuted the opinion of Camerarius, who maintained that the seeds of Figs ,never produced any plants. For Linnaeus tells, that Fig-trees are raised every year inHolland from the seeds, provided the fruit is brought from Italy . But if the fruit grewin France, England, Germany, or Sweden , where there are no Wild Figs, the seedsproduce nothing ; on the other hand, if those seeds are sown, which grew in Italy or theGreek islands, where the male Fig abounds, the plants readily spring up, putting forthleaves, which at first are like those of the Mallow. The same experiment was tried withgood succefs in the Upfal garden in the year 1744. I shall now mention the utilityof insects in the fecundation of plants. In a great many flowers there is a honey-juice,separated by the flower, which Pontedera thinks is that balsam which the seeds imbibe,to make them keep and preserve their vegetative quality longer; and as long as thebalsam is not dried up or spoiled, so long the seeds are fit to germinate. Several insects, asbees, flies, butterflies, live on this honey-juice only. Quintilian , the Roman Orator, hasa very singular case in one of his Orations: “ A poor man and a rich man,” fays he,“ bad two small adjoining gardens. The rich men had many fine flowers in hisgarden, and the poor man had bees in bis. The rich, man complained that his flowerswere spoiled by the poor man’s bees, which he warned him to remove. The poor man notcomplying, the other scattered poison on his flowers ; on which the poor man’s beesall died; and Dives is guilty of this great injury. The poor man pleads that the bees didno hurt at all to the rich man’s flowers; that neither the Creator nor any human laws, hadever restrained bees within any certain limits; and therefore the rich man might hinderthe bees from settling on his flowers it he could.” But the other might have objected,that the bees were so far hurtful to his flowers, that they sucked the honey-juice, andcarried off 1 the fertilizing dust. After all, it is probable that the bees are more useful thanhurtful to flowers, since by their unwearied labours they spread the fertilizing dust, so that