What benefit the mast does universally yield (once in two years at least) for the fatting of hogs and deer, I shall shew upon another occasion, before the conclusion of this Discourse. A peck of acorns a day, with a little bran, will make an hog (’tis said) increase a pound-weight per diem for two months together. They give them also to oxen mingled with bran, chop’d or broken; otherwise they are apt to sprout and grow in their bellies. Others say, they should first be macerated in water, to extract their malignity; cattle many times perishing without this preparation. Cato advises the husband-man to reserve 240 bushels of acorns for his oxen, mingled with a like quantity of beans and lupines, and to drench them well. But in truth they are more proper for swine, and being so made small, will fatten pidgeons, peacocks, turkeys, pheasants and poultry; nay ’tis reported, that some fishes feed on them, especially the tunny, in such places of the coast where trees hang over arms of the sea. Acorns, esculus ab esca (before the use of wheat-corn was found out) were heretofore the food of men, nay of Jupiter himself, (as well as other productions of the earth) till their luxurious palats were debauched: And even in the Romans time, the custom was in Spain to make a second service of acorns and mast, (as the French now do of marrons and chesnuts) which they likewise used to rost under the embers.
..........Fed with the oaken mast
The aged trees themselves in years surpass’d.[57:1]
And men had indeed hearts of oak; I mean, not so hard, but health, and strength, and liv’d naturally, and with things easily parable and plain.
Blest age o’th’ world, just nymph, when man did dwell
Under thy shade, whence his provision fell;
Sallads the meal, wildings were the dissert:
No tree yet learn’d by ill-example, art,
With insititious fruit to symbolize,
As in an emblem, our adulteries.[58:1]
As the sweet poet bespeaks the dryad; and therefore it was not call’d Quercus, (as some etymologists fancy’d) because the Pagans (quæribantur responsa) had their oracles under it, but because they sought for acorns: But ’tis in another[58:2] place where I shew you what this acorn was; and even now I am told, that those small young acorns which we find in the stock-doves craws, are a delicious fare, as well as those incomparable salads of young herbs taken out of the maws of partridges at a certain season of the year, which gives them a preparation far exceeding all the art of cookery. Oaks bear also a knur, full of a cottony matter, of which they anciently made wick for their lamps and candles; and among the Selectiora Remedia of Jo. Prævotius, there is mention of an oil e querna glande chymically extracted, which he affirms to be of the longest continuance, and least consumptive of any other whatsoever for such lights, ita ut uncia singulis mensibus vix ab sumatur continuo igne: The ingenious author of the Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, tells us, that (upon his own experience) a rod of oak of 4, 5, 6 or 8 inches about, being twisted like a with, boil’d in wort, well dry’d, and kept in a little bundle of barley-straw, and then steep’d again in wort, causes it to ferment, and procures yest: The rod should be cut before mid-May, and is frequently us’d in this manner to furnish yest, and being preserv’d, will serve, and produce the same effect many years together; and (as the historian affirms) that he was shew’d a piece of a thick wyth, which had been kept for making ale with for above 20 years, &c. In the mean time, the leaves of oaks abundantly congested on snow, preserve it as well for wine, as a deep pit, or the most artificial refrigeratory. Nor must we pass by the sweet mel-dews, so much more copiously found on the leaves of this tree, than any other; whence the industrious bees gather such abundance of honey, as that instead of carrying it to their hives, they glut themselves to death: But from this ill report (hastily taken up by Euricius Cordus) our learned Mr. Ray has vindicated this temperat and abstemious useful creature. Varro affirms, they made salt of oak ashes, with which they sometimes seasoned meat, but more frequently made use of it to sprinkle among, and fertilize their seed-corn: Which minds me of a certain oak found buried somewhere in Transilvania, near the Salt-pits, that was entirely converted into an hard salt, when they came to examine it by cutting. This experiment (if true) may possibly encourage some other attempts for the multiplying of salt: Nor less strange is that which some report of a certain water somewhere in Hungary, which transmutes the leaves of this tree into brass, and iron into copper. Of the galls is made trial of spaw-water, and the ground and basis of several dies, especially sadder colours, and are a great revenue to those who have quantities of them: Nor must I forget ink, compos’d of galls ℥iiij, coppras ℥ij, gum-arabic ℥i: Beat the galls grossly, and put them into a quart of claret, or French-wine, and let them soak for eight or nine days, setting the vessel (an earthen glaz’d pitcher is best) in the hot sun, if made in summer; in winter near the fire, stirring it frequently with a wooden spatula: Then add the coppras and gum, and after it has stood a day or two, it will be fit to use. There are a world of receipts more, of which see Caneparius de Atramentis. Of the very moss of the oak, that which is white, composes the choicest cypress-powder, which is esteemed good for the head; but impostors familiarly vend other mosses under that name, as they do the fungi (excellent in hemorages and fluxes) for the true agaric, to the great scandal of physick. Young red oaken leaves decocted in wine, make an excellent gargle for a sore mouth; and almost every part of this tree is soveraign against fluxes in general, and where astringents are proper. The dew that impearls the leaves in May, insolated, meteorizes and sends up a liquor, which is of admirable effect in ruptures: The liquor issuing out between the bark, (which looks like treakle) has many soveraign vertues; and some affirm, the water stagnate in the hollow stump of a newly fell’d oak, is as effectual as lignum sanctum in the foul disease, and also stops a diarrhæa: And a water distill’d from the acorns is good against the pthisick, stitch in the side, and heals inward ulcers, breaks the stone, and refrigerates inflammations, being applied with linnen dipp’d therein: nay, the acorns themselves eaten fasting, kill the worms, provoke urine, and (some affirm) break even the stone it self. The coals of oak beaten and mingled with honey, cures the carbuncle; to say nothing of the viscus’s, polypods, and other excrescences, of which innumerable remedies are composed, noble antidotes, syrups, &c. Nay, ’tis reported, that the very shade of this tree is so wholesome, that the sleeping, or lying under it becomes a present remedy to paralyticks, and recovers those whom the mistaken malign influence of the walnut-tree has smitten: But what is still more strange, I read in one Paulus a Physician of Denmark, that an handful or two of small oak buttons, mingled with oats, given to horses which are black of colour, will in few days eating alter it to a fine dapple-grey, which he attributes to the vitriol abounding in this tree. To conclude; and upon serious meditation of the various uses of this and other trees, we cannot but take notice of the admirable mechanism of vegetables in general, as in particular in this species; that by the diversity of percolations and strainers, and by mixtures, as it were of divine chymistry, various concoctions, &c. the sap should be so green on the indented leaves, so lustily esculent for our hardier and rustick constitutions in the fruit; so flat and pallid in the atramental galls; and haply, so prognostick in the apple; so suberous in the bark (for even the cork-tree is but a courser oak) so oozie in the tanners pit; and in that subduction so wonderfully specifick in corroborating the entrails, and bladder, reins, loins, back, &c. which are all but the gifts and qualities, with many more, that these robust sons of the earth afford us; and that in other specifics, even the most despicable and vulgar elder imparts to us in its rind, leaves, buds, blossoms, berries, ears, pith, bark, &c. Which hint may also carry our remarks upon all the varieties of shape, leaf, seed, fruit, timber, grain, colour, and all those other forms [62:1] that philosophers have enumerated; but which were here too many for us to repeat. In a word, so great and universal is the benefit and use of this poly-crest, that they have prohibited the transporting it out of Norway, where there grows abundance. Let us end with the poet:
When ships for bloody combat we prepare,
Oak affords plank, and arms our men of war;
Maintains our fires, makes ploughs to till the ground,
For use no timber like the oak is found.[62:2]
[31:1] Saturn. lib. II. cap. 16.
(Cærula distinguens inter plaga currere posset
Per tumulos, & convalles, camposque profusa:
Ut nunc esse vides vario distincta lepôre
Omnia, que pomis intersita dulcibus ornant
Arbustisque tenent felicibus obsita circum).
Lucret. l. 5.
[37:1] See what Vossius has written in his Observations on Catullus, p. 204. Indomitus turbo contorquens flamine......