31. Whether the expression of our Saviour in the Parable of the Sower, and the increase of the Seed _unto thirty, sixty and a hundred fold_, had any reference unto the ages of Believers, and measures of their Faith, as Children, Young and Old Persons, as to beginners, well advanced and strongly confirmed Christians, as learned men have hinted; or whether in this progressional assent there were any latent Mysteries, as the mystical Interpreters of Numbers may apprehend, I pretend not to determine. But, how this multiplication may well be conceived, and in what way apprehended, and that this centesimal increase is not naturally strange, you that are no stranger in Agriculture, old and new, are not like to make great doubt. That every Grain should produce an Ear affording an hundred Grains, is not like to be their conjecture who behold the growth of Corn in our Fields, wherein a common Grain doth produce far less in number. For barley consisting but of two _Versus_ or Rows, seldom exceedeth twenty Grains, that is, ten upon each Στοῖχος, or Row; Rye, of a square figure, is very fruitfull at forty: Wheat, besides the _Frit_ and _Uruncus_, or imperfect Grains of the small Husks at the top and bottom of the Ear, is fruitfull at ten treble _Glumæ_ or Husks in a Row, each containing but three Grains in breadth, if the middle Grain arriveth at all to perfection; and so maketh up threescore Grains in both sides. Yet even this centesimal fructification may be admitted in some sorts of _Cerealia_, and Grains from one Ear: if we take in the _Triticum centigranum_, or _fertilissimum Plinii_, Indian Wheat, and _Panicum_; which, in every Ear, containeth hundreds of Grains. But this increase may easily be conceived of Grains in their total multiplication, in good and fertile ground, since, if every Grain of Wheat produceth but three Ears, the increase will arise above that number. Nor are we without examples of some grounds which have produced many more Ears, and above this centesimal increase: As _Pliny_ hath left recorded of the _Byzacian_ Field in _Africa_. _Misit ex eo loco Procurator ex uno quadraginta minus germina. Misit et Neroni pariter tercentum quadraginta stipulos, ex uno grano. Cum centessimos quidem Leontini Siciliæ campi fundunt, aliique, et tota Bœtica, et imprimis Ægyptus._ And even in our own Country, from one Grain of Wheat sowed in a Garden, I have numbred many more than an hundred.