branch, and foot in the principal roots during the whole season? But I conceive I have good authority for my assertion, out of the author cited in the margin, whose words are these: _Si mense Martio perforaveris betulam, &c. exstillabit aqua limpida, clara, & pura, obscurum arboris saporem & odorem referens, quæ spatio 12 aut 14 dierum, præponderabit arbori cum ramis & radicibus, &c._ His exceptions about the beginning of March are very insignificant; since I undertake not punctuality of time; and his own pretended experience shew’d him, that in hard weather it did not run till the expiration of the month, or beginning of April; and another time on the tenth of February; and usually he says, about the twenty-fourth day, &c. at such uncertainty: What immane difference then is there between the twenty-fourth of Feb. and commencement of March? Besides, these anomolous bleedings, (even of the same tree) happen early or later, according to the temper of the air and weather. In the mean time, evident it is, that we know of no tree which does more copiously attract, be it that so much celebrated spirit of the world, (as they call it) in form of water (as some) or a certain specifique liquor richly impregnated with this balsamical property: That there is such a _magnes_ in this simple tree, as does manifestly draw to it self some occult and wonderful virtue, is notorious; nor is it conceivable, indeed, the difference between the efficacy of that liquor which distils from the bole, or parts of the tree nearer to the root (where Sir Hugh would celebrate the incision) and that which weeps out from the more sublime branches, more impregnated with this astral vertue, as not so near the root, which seems to attract rather a cruder, and more common water, through fewer strainers, and neither so pure, and aerial as in those refined percolations, the nature of the places where these trees delight to grow (for the most part lofty, dry, and barren) consider’d. But I refer these disquisitions to the learned; especially, as mentioned by that incomparable philosopher, and my most noble friend, the Honourable Mr. Boyle, in his second part of the _Usefulness of Natural Philosophy_, Sect. 1. Essay 3_d._ where he speaks of the _manna del corpo_, or trunk-manna, as well as of that liquor from the bough; also of the _sura_ which the coco-trees afford; and that Polonian secret of the liquor of the walnut-tree root; with an encouragement of more frequent experiments to educe saccharine substances upon these occasions: But the book being publish’d so long since this _Discourse_ was first printed, I take only here the liberty to refer the reader to one of the best entertainments in the world.