testimony, who was
more than somewhat doubtful of such alliances; though something like it
in Palladius speaks it not so impossible;

A cherry graft on laurel-stock does stain
The virgin fruit in a deep double grain.{308:1}

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 glutinou