78

A DISCOURSE

the rains descend on it, impregnates ground by the difsolution of its sper-matic salts ? I only name the naked phlegm of plants distilled, either touse alone, or extract the former salt; but I say I only mention them forthe curious to examine, and ex abundanti. For certainly (to return a little,and speak freely my thoughts concerning them) most exalted menstrua ,(and as they dignify them with[a great name) Efsentiated Spirits, all hastymotions, and extraordinary fermentations, though indeed they may pos-sibly give sudden rise, and seemingly exalt the present vigour of plants,are as pernicious to them as brandy and hot waters are to men ; andtherefore wherever these ardent spirits are applied, they should be pouredat convenient distances from any part of the plant, that the virtue may beconveyed through some better qualified medium. But, when all is done,waters moderately impregnated and embodied with honest composts, andset in the sun, are more safe, and, I think, more natural z ; for, as thelearned Dr. Sharrock truly affirms, water is, of its own constitution alone,a soil to vegetables, not only as the most genuine vehicle of the riches

which it imparts to plants, through the several strainers, and by means

of which all change and melioration is effected, but for that it is, of allother substances, best disposed to insinuate into and fertilize the earth,which is the reason that floated and irriguous grounds are so pregnant.Besides, it is, of all that pretend to it, nearest of blood (as I may say)to the whole Vegetable Family. For to afsert with any confidence what.part of the mere Earth pafses into their composition, or whether it serve(as we touched before) only for stability, or as a womb and receptacleto their seeds and eggs, (for so we are taught to call the seeds of plants,)I shall not undertake to discufs. Every body has heard of Van Helmont ’sAsh-tree a ; and may, without much difficulty, repeat what has been ex-perimented, by exquisitely weighing the mould before and after a gourd

z Here our. excellent Author, after enumerating the wild and phantastical opinions ofothers, at last gives his own, than which nothing can be more just.

1 Van Helmont .planted a willow-tree, which weighed five pounds, in two hundredpounds of earth dried in an oven, and watered it with rain, or distilled water, after care,fully covering the case in which it stood, with a perforated tin-cover, to prevent the ad.mifsion of any other earthy particles. Five years after, he weighed the tree, adding all theleaves it had produced in that time, and found its weight amount to one hundred and sixty-«ine pounds two ounces, while the earth was only diminished about two ounces.