18.6

A DISCOURSE

book in, does, in .another chapter of the fame treatise, speak of the age of trees.

/ The difcourse is both learned, rational, and full of encouragement ; forhe does not scruple to affirm, that even some fruit-trees may pofsibly ar-rive to a thousand years of age ,; and if so fruit-trees, (whose continualbearing does so much impair and shorten their lives, as we see it doestheir form and beauty) how much longer might we reasonably imaginesome hardy and slow-growing forest-trees may probably last ? I rememberPliny tells us of some Oaks growing in his time in the Hercynian forest, kwhich were thought coevous with the world itself; their roots had evenraised mountains, and where they encountered, swelled into goodly archeslike the gates of a city : But our more modern author’s calculation forfruit-trees, (I suppose he means Pears , Apples, &c.) is three hundredyears for growth, as much for their stand, as he terms it, and threehundred for their decay, which does in the total amount to no lefs thannine hundred years. This conjecture is deduced from Apple-trees grow-ing in his orchard, which having known for forty years, and upon diligentinquiry of sundry aged persons, of eighty years and more, who remem-bered them trees all their time, he finds by comparing their growth withothers of that kind, to be far short in bignefs and perfection, viz. by morethan two parts of three, yea, albeit those other trees have been much hin-.dred in their stature through ill government and misordering.: And this tome seems not at all extravagant, since I find mention of a Pear-tree near Rofsin Herefordshire , which being of no lefs than eighteen feet circumference,and yielding seven hogsheads of cyder yearly, must needs have been --oF very long standing and age, though perhaps not so near Methusalah’s.

To establish this, he afsembles many arguments from the age ofanimals, whose state and decay double the time of their increase by thesame proportion. If then (saith he) those frail creatures, whose bodiesare nothing in a manner but a tender rottennefs, may live to that age,I see not but a tree of a solid substance, not damnified by heat or cold,capable of, and subject to any kind of ordering or drefsing, feeding

k In eadem Septentrionali plaga, Hercyniae Silva; roborum vastitas intacta arvis, etcongenita mundo, prope immortal! sorte miracula excedit. Constat attolli colies occursan-tium inter se radicum repercufsu; aut ubi secuta tellus non sit, arcus ad ramos usque, etipsos inter se rixantes, curvari portarum patentium modo, ut turmas equitum transmit-iant. Plin. 1. xvi. c. ii.

IV;

■A