19. They are rais’d of the seeds or berries with extraordinary facility, or propagated by layers, _taleae_, and cuttings, set about the latter end of August, or earlier at St. James-tide, where-ever there is shade and moisture. Besides that of the wood, the leaves of this laurel boil’d in milk, impart a very grateful tast of the almond; and of the berry (or cherries rather, of which poultrey generally feed on) is made a wine, to some not unpleasant: I find little concerning the uses of this tree; of the wood are said to be made the best plow-handles. Now that this rare tree was first brought from Civita Vecchia into England, by the Countess of Arundel, wife to that illustrious patron of arts and antiquities, Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Great Great Grand-Father to his Grace the present Duke of Norfolk, whom I left sick at Padoa, where he died; highly displeased at his grand-son Philip’s putting on the friars-frock, tho’ afterwards the purple, when Cardinal of Norfolk: After all, I cannot easily assent to the tradition, tho’ I had it from a noble hand: I rather think it might first be brought out of some more northerly clime, the nature of the tree so delighting and flourishing in the shady and colder exposures, and abhorrence of heat. To crown this chapter then, tho’ in the last place, (for so _finis coronat opus_) we reserve the bay tree. 20. Bays, [_laurus vulgaris_]. The learned Isaac Vossius and etymologists are wonderfully curious, in their conjecture concerning its derivation; (_a laude_ says Issidor,) and from the ingenious poet, we learn how it became sacred to Apollo, the patron of the wits, and ever since the meed of conquerors and heroic persons. But leaving fiction, we pass to the culture of this noble and fragrant tree, propagated both by their seeds, roots, suckers or layers: They (namely, the berries) should be gather’d dropping-ripe: Pliny has a particular process for the ordering of them, not to be rejected, which is to gather them in January, and spreading them till their sweat be over; then he puts them in dung and sows them: As for the steeping in wine, water does altogether as well, others wash the seeds from their mucilage, by breaking and bruising glutinous berries; then sow them in rich ground in March, by scores in a heap; and indeed so they will come up in clusters, but nothing so well, nor fit for transplantation, as where they are interr’d with a competent scattering, so as you would furrow pease: Both this way, and by setting them apart (which I most commend) I have rais’d multitudes, and that in the berries, kept in sand till the Spring, without any farther preparation; only for the first two years, they would be defended from the piercing winds, which frequently destroy them; and yet the scorching of their tender leaves ought not to make you despair, for many of them will recover beyond expectation; nay, tho’ quite cut down, they repullulate and produce young suckers: Such as are