tifie our laborious wood-man with a draught of his
own liquor; and the rather, because these kind of secrets are not yet
sufficiently cultivated; and ingenious planters would by all means be
encourag'd to make more trials of this nature, as the Indians and other
nations have done on their palmes; and trees of several kinds, to their
great emolument. The mystery is no more than this: About the beginning
of March (when the buds begin to be proud and turgid, and before they
explain into leaves) with a chizel and a mallet, cut a slit almost as
deep as the very pith, under some bough or branch of a well-spreading
birch; cut it oblique, and not long-ways (as a good chirurgion would
make his orifice in a vein) inserting a small stone or chip, to keep the
lips of the wound a little open. Sir Hugh Plat, (giving a general rule
for the gathering of sap, and tapping of trees) would have it done
within one foot of the ground, the first rind taken off, and then the
white bark slit over-thwart, no farther than to the body of the tree:
Moreover, that this wound be made only in that part of the bark which
respects the south-west, or between those quarters; because (says he)
little or no sap riseth from the northern, nor indeed when the east-wind
blows. In this slit, by the help of your knife to open it, he directs
that a leaf of the tree be inserted, first fitted to the dimensions of
the slit, from which the sap will distil in manner of filtration: Take
away the leaf, and the bark will close again, a little earth being
clapped to the slit. Thus the Knight for any tree. But we have already
shew'd how the birch is to be treated: Fasten therefore a bottle, or
some such convenient vessel appendant; this does the effect as well as
perforation or tapping: Out of this aperture will extil a limpid and
clear water, retaining an obscure smack both of the tast and odor of the
tree; and which (as I am credibly inform'd) will in the space of twelve
or fourteen days, preponderate, and out-weigh the whole tree it self,
body and roots; which if it be constant, and so happen likewise in other
trees, is not only stupendous, but an experiment worthy the
consideration of our profoundest philosophers: _An ex sola aqua fiunt
arbores?_ whether water only be the principle of vegetables, and
consequently of trees: I say, I am credibly inform'd; and therefore the
late unhappy{144:1} angry-man might have spar'd his animadversion: For
he that said but twenty gallons