Bauhinus, and the excellent Malpighius, in his Discourse _de
Gallis_, and other morbous tumors, raised by, and producing insects,
infecting the leaves, stalks and branches of this tree with a venomous
liquor or froth, wherein they lay and deposite their eggs, which bore
and perforate these excrescences, when the worms are hatch'd, so as we
see them in galls.

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
(_quaeribantur res