A True Recipe

herbs are putrefied, the waters that pass through them carry away the salt that was in the said straw and other herbs or hay. And just as you see that a salted cod, or other fish, which has soaked for a long time would finally lose all its saline substance and in the end have no taste, in a similar case you must believe that manure loses its salt when it is washed by the rains. And as for what you could allege to me by saying that manure remains manure and that, being carried into the earth, it will still be able to be of much use, I will give you a contrary example. Do you not know well that those who extract the essences of herbs and spices will extract the substance of cinnamon without undoing the form in any way? Nevertheless, you will find that in the liquor they have extracted from the cinnamon, they have carried away from the said cinnamon the flavor, the scent, and entirely the virtue of it. Yet, the cinnamon will remain in its form and will have the appearance of cinnamon as before; but if you eat it, you will find neither scent, nor flavor, nor virtue. This is an example that should suffice to make you believe the above.

Even if you had preached to me for the space of a hundred years, you would still not know how to make me believe that there is salt in manure, nor in all species of plants, as you wish to make me believe.

I will give you arguments now that will make you believe what you ignore, or else you must have the head of an ass upon your shoulders. In the first place, you must confess to me that the salicor glasswort is an herb that grows commonly in the marshy lands of Narbonne and Xaintonge. Now, the said herb being burned is reduced into a stone of salt, which salt the apothecaries and alchemical philosophers call salt alcaly alkali salt; in short, it is a salt derived from an herb.

Item, the fern is also an herb, and being burned, it is reduced into a stone of salt, as witnessed by the glassmakers, who use the said salt to make their glass, along with other things that we will state when the topic presents itself, while treating of stones. Item, consider a little the canes from which one makes sugar; it is a knotted herb