Germany's Prosperity /

When he has found the tree, he holds it dear because its fruits are the most beautiful and best in the garden. He also cares for that tree well above others, gives dung or manure to its roots, cuts off the dead wood from it, and searches whether wild little branches have shot out which bring no fruits and yet draw the best part of the tree to themselves, and thereby deprive the fruitful branches of their nourishment. Such wild offshoots, which are called Verbenæ sacred or medicinal herbs/offshoots, he cuts off smooth to the tree with a sharp curved knife, and he lets whatever else serves for the maintenance of the tree be his concern.

Just so does a diligent Chymicus chemist/alchemist when he walks about in his Laboratorio laboratory to search through nature, and a golden apple happens to come into his view. He looks around for such a tree from which it has fallen; when he finds it, he holds it in honor above others in hope of enjoying more such good apples from it. And he acts just like a good gardener: he places manure or dung at its root, that is Salpeter saltpeter, and cuts off the dead unfruitful wood together with the harmful fat side-branches, id est that is, Sul-