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General rules for the collection and frefervaticn of f.mples.

Roots.

Annual roots are to be taken upbefore they (hoot out ftalks orflowers: biennial ones, chieflyin the autumn of the fame yearin which the feeds were fown :the perennial, when the leavesfall off, and therefore generallyin the autumn. Eeing wafhedclean from dirt, and freed fromthe rotten and decayed fibres,they are to be hung up in a[warm] lhadv, airy place, tilllijfficiently dried. The thickerroots require to be flit longitu-dinally, or cut tranfverfely intothin flices. Such roots as loietheir virtues by exficcation [orare defired to be preferved in afrefh Hate, for the greater con-veniency of their ufe in certainforms] are to be kept buried indry fand [£.]

Ther rare twofeafons,in whichthe biennial and perennial rootsare reckoned the moft vigorous,the autumn and fpring ; or ratherthe time when the ftalks or leaveshave fallen off, and that in whichthe vegetation is juit going tobegin again, or loon after it hasbegun; which times are foundto differ confiderably in differentplants.

The college of Edinburgh, inthe two firil editions of their phar-macopoeia diretted them to be dugin the fpring, after the leaves wereformed; in the third edition, theautumn is preferred, and this ruleis continued in the fucceeding ones.The generality of roots appear, in-deed to be molt efficacious in thefpring: but as at this time they

are alfo the molt juicy, andconfe-quently fhrivelmuchindrying, andare rather more difficultly preferv-ed, it is commonlythoughtmoft ad-vifable to take them up in autumn.No rule however can be given,thatfliall obtain univerfally: arumroot is taken even in the middle offummer, without fufpicion of itsbeing lefs aftivc than at otherfealons; while angelica root isinert during the fummer, in com-parifon of what it was in the au-tumn, fpring, or winter.

Herbs and Leaves.

Herbs are to be gathered whenthe leaves have come to theirfull growth, before the flowersunfold ; but of fome plants theflowery tops are preferred. Theyare to be dried in the famemanner as roots [£.]

Fo r the gathering ofleaves, therecannot perhaps be any univerfalrule, anv more than for roots; forthough moft herbs appear to be intheir grcateft vigour about the timeof their flowering, or a little be-fore, there are fome in which themedicinal parts are more abundantat an earlier period.

Thus mallow and marfhmallowleaves arc molt mucilaginous whenyoung, and by the time of flower-ing approach more to a woody na-ture. A difference of the famekind is more remarkable in theleaves of certain trees and fhrubs:the young buds, or rudiments ofthe leaves, of the black poplar tree,have a flrong fragrant fmell, ap-proaching to that of ftorax, but bythe time that the leaves have come

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