lib. 25. cap. I.

5. I am assur'd (by a person most worthy of credit) that in the
territory of Alzey (a country in Germany, where they were miserably
distressed for wood, which they had so destroy'd as that they were
reduc'd to make use of straw for their best fuel) a very large tract
being newly plowed, (but the wars surprizing them, not suffer'd to sow,)
there sprung up the next year a whole forest of pine-trees, of which
sort of wood there was none at all, within less than fourscore miles; so
as 'tis verily conjectur'd by some, they might be wafted thither from
the country of Westrasia, which is the nearest part to that where they
grow: If this be true, we are no more to wonder, how, when our
oak-woods are grubb'd up, beech, and trees of other kinds, have
frequently succeeded them: What some impetuous winds have done in this
nature, I could produce instances almost miraculous: I shall say nothing
of the opinion of our master Varro, and the learned{227:1} Theophrastus,
who were both of a faith, that the seeds of plants drop'd out of the
air. Pliny in his 16th. book, chap. 33. upon discourse of the Cretan
cypress, attributes much to the _indoles_, and nature of the soil,
virtue of the climate, and impressions of the air. And indeed it is very
strange, what is affirm'd of that pitchy-rain, (reported to have fallen
about Cyrene, the year 430. U. C.) after which, in a short time, sprung
up a whole wood of the trees of _Laserpicium_, producing a precious gum,
not much inferior to benzoin, if at least the story be warrantable: But
of these aerial irradiations, various conceptions, and aequivocal
productions without seed, &c. difficulties to be solv'd by our
philosophers, whence those leaves of the platan come; which Dr. Spon
tells us (in his _Travels_) are found floating in some of the fountains
of the isles of the Strophades; no such tree growing near them by 30
miles: But these may haply be convey'd thro' some unknown subterranean
passage; for were it by the wind, it having a very large leaf, they
would be been flying in, or falling out of the air.

6. In transplanting of these coniferous trees, which are generally
resinaceous, viz. fir, pine, larix, cedar, and which have but thin and
single roots, you must never diminish their heads, nor be at all busie
with their roots, which pierce deep, and is all their foundation, unless
you find any of them bruised, or much broken; therefore such down-right
roots as you may be forc