of a more hard and induring nature. You shall know
then that for gathering of Abricots, Peaches, Date-Plumbes, and such
like grafted Plumbes, you shall duely consider when they are perfectly
ripe, which you shall not iudge by their dropping from the tree, which
is a signe of ouer-much ripnesse, tending to rottennesse, but by the
true mixture of their colour, and perfect change from their first
complexion: for when you shall perceiue that there is no greenenesse nor
hardnesse in their out-sides, no, not so much as at the setting on of
the stalke, you may then iudge that they are ready to be gathered, and
for a perfecter tryall thereof you may if you please, take one which you
thinke ripest from the tree, and opening it if you see the stone comes
cleane and dry away and not any of the in-part of the fruit cleauing
vnto it, then you may assure your selfe that the fruit is ready to be
gathered, which you shall with great deligence and care gather, not by
any meanes laying one Plumbe vpon another, but each seuerally by
another, for these dainty Plumbes are naturally so tender that the least
touch, though of themselues, doth bruise them, and occasion
rottennesse. Now when you haue gathered them, if either you haue desire
to send them any iourney, as in gratulation to your friends, or for
other priuate commoditie, you shall take some close, smooth, boxe,
answerable to the store of fruit you are to send, and first line it
within all ouer with white paper, then lay your Plumbes one by one all
ouer the bottome of the boxe, then couering them all ouer with white
paper, lay as many moe vpon the toppe of them, and couer them likewise
with paper, as before, and so lay row vpon row with papers betweene
them, vntill the boxe be sufficiently filled, and then closing it vp
sende it whether you please, and they will take the least hurt, whereas
if you should line the boxe either with hay or straw, the very skinnes
are so tender that the straw would print into them and bruise them
exceedingly, and to lay any other soft thing about them, as either wooll
or bumbast, is exceeding euill, because it heateth the Plumbes, and
maketh them sweat, through which they both loose their colour and rot
speedily. As touching the gathering of Plumbes when they are hard, and
to ripen them afterward by laying them vpon nettles, to which consenteth
the most of our London-Fruiterrers, I am vtterly against the opinion,
because I both know Nature to be the perfec