shai Hie ae wy se An sat Uytayatyts Wavad 1 a hat Sosa thea tee Hyostie atest sb i ated Me ee 4 Sebed iPulsietlinsiitee tks Ue DM Da i i ALISA a be 3 ae Ault d eodhl f ng ot) rit taas ah) ADR pint eat 2 eae gs eee tes rt5 vous SS Bee a " Hise yd aaa a Katy i : i a + ar ui ‘ ~~ i te it ht ate atl jae yr ny i ibe suet Hol ooh ase eo 4 a see ‘ Hilda tits aft Raat Mb TT ie iH vet dates He fijee PRY Te pisyvaviot se Hoshi gees sede e ral yey yt Tprsaatts Fpactter doe Sporhed poe eehiote 7) fie igita! a o pit od 7 * tisghistipacan taste tn ‘bhanhate Piaeieeet teary EreHipcorert ERT head pete a: ree 5 oe By ways M4 au neiep nicest , chy ei 1 ee ieee t try 3 ty ries oiStaena seestunesys serotnitrerripr rite eh By bet 4 bb Fah 9 ae of ou a yee stdin cae enact We titasmueretere rheles at sy aptitt vase 4 Lepebr: Sr VA: OR, A DISCOURSE OF FOREST-TREES, AND THE PROPAGATION OF TIMBER IN HIS MAJESTY’S DOMINIONS; AS IT WAS DELIVERED IN THE ROYAL SOCIETY, ON OCTOBER XV. MDCLXII. UPON OCCASION OF CERTAIN QUERIES PROPOUNDED TO THAT ILLUSTRIOUS ASSEMBLY, BY THE HON. THE PRINCIPAL OFFICERS AND COMMISSIONERS OF THE NAVY. TOGETHER WITH AN historical Account of the Sacredness anv Use of STANDING GROVES. TO WHICH IS ADDED THE TERRA: A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE OF EARTH. BY JOHN EVELYN, Esa. F.R.S. WITH NOTES, BY A. HUNTER, M.D. F.R.S. L.& E. THE FIFTH EDITION, WITH THE EDITOR’S LAST CORRECTIONS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II, LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. MDCCCXXY. , * Ta) S ty lO aay gn 3 _ ba t¢ vet ae "hy! * a. , Daly a 1 \ cd a _" ire” é f ry) a , iv 5 “es ‘i 1, es "ee, f ¥ , ) 4 i? x . | Y i wie sd] - , ee. % . e ; . ; 3 ’ rs . pet $O eH ay PROTO BETA ent * “quanrieee wae Bt Bh - samrndhe oie 27109, KO, ETHIC TAKOR wAIASIS VCATHED MO nowAno0 WE ey TIM ABAAS ‘ed oinzavtat TABS, Or: Kut oreee ne ie NURE Paret bie) Aa secaUent OD awa aazorr70 ¥s i Btw ni weeonT r to sel en paar od eee eavono SuIGMATa: ci dean ai. sora OU: oe naec my aut MWPAAL YO aantoonNd ¢ TKO ts Risk a aa rent 5 not Vs hale 2 hie @ aie Oe ear at sateen ara yourian vane, ant. AO ETORTRSS: Lhicatag bie “ur ee eee ba er ee « cainthg yt a tt OF SILVA. DENDROLOGIA. BOOK THE SECOND. CHAPTER I. The CEDAR, JUNIPER, CYPRESS, SAVIN, TAMARISK, and THUY A. Bur now after all the beautiful and stately trees, clad in perpetual verdure, let me not forget the CEDAR, * which grows in all extremes ; in the moist Barbadoes, the hot Bermudas, (I speak of those trees so denominated,) and in the cold New-England ; even where the snow lies, * The Cepar of Lesanon is now classed with the Pines; and the other Cedars described by Mr. Evelyn, are classed with the Junipers. But as I did not choose to disturb the order of the chapters, I have reserved the description of the Cedar for this place. Linnzus calls it Pinus folits fasciculatis acutis. Sp. Pl. 1420. This tree is generally supposed to be an inhabitant of Mount Libanus only, but it is now found upon Mount Taurus, Amanus, &c.; and, from its hardy nature, it is probable that it may easily be naturalized to any climate. Having procured the cones from the Levant, or of our own growth, the seeds, a little before sowing, should be got out in the following manner: Let a hole be bored with a passer exactly up the centre of each cone, from the base to the apex; after this operation put them into a tub of water, where they should remain till the next day; then having a wooden peg, rather bigger than the passer, let it be thrust down the hole, and Volume IT. B CHAP. I. BOOK I. rw 6 A DISCOURSE as I am told, almost half the year; for so it does on the mountains of Libanus, from whence I have received cones and seeds of those few remaining trees. Why then should it not thrive in Old England ? I know not, save for want of industry and trial. It grows in the bogs of America, and in the mountains of Asia, so as there is, it seems, no place or clime which affrights it. And I have it will so divide the cones, that the different scales may be taken, away, and the seeds picked out. In doing this, great care must be taken not to bruise or hurt the seeds. The soil in which you sow these seeds should be rather of a sandy nature; or, for want of this, some mould taken fresh from a rich pasture, and mixed with a little drift sand, will serve the purpose. Having the seeds ready, let them be sown about the middle of March in pots or boxes, near half an inch deep. In about seven or eight weeks the plants will come up, when they should be removed into the shade from the heat of the sun, where they may stand, but not under shelter, all the summer; during which time they should be kept clean of weeds, and watered now and then. In winter they must be removed into a warmer situation ; and if the season be likely to prove very severe, they should be sheltered either by mats, or removed into the green-house, or covered with a hot-bed frame; for they are subject to lose their young tops at first by the severity of frosts. In the beginning of April following, these plants may be pricked out, in beds, four inches asunder ; and if the weather prove dry, they should be shaded and watered till they have taken root; after which they will want little shading and less watering, Indeed, nothing more is required than keeping them clean from weeds, and covering the ground so as to keep it moist, and prevent its chapping by the rays of the sun. In these beds they should continue two years, when, in the spring, they should be transplanted into the nursery, where they may remain till they are planted out for good. ' During the time they are in the nursery, and after planting out, many will have a tendency to droop in their leading shoot. As soon, therefore, as this is perceived, an upright stake must be driven into the ground, to which the shoot should be tied with bass matting, to keep them in their upright growth. The Larch-tree, which is nearly allied to this species, will sometimes rebel in this way; so that it would not be amiss, in both cases, when the first sign of such a tendency is discovered, to lighten the head by nipping off the extremities of some few of the largest branches. When these trees are planted out for good they should be left to nature, after being pro- perly fenced. Not a knife nor a hatchet should come near them ; lopping even their lowest branches is so injurious, that it both retards their growth and diminishes their beauty. It is matter of surprise, that this tree hath not been more cultivated in England formerly ; for, till within a few years past, there were but few here; since it would be a great ornament to barren bleak mountains, where few other trees will grow so well, it being a native of the coldest parts of Mount Libanus, where the snow continues great part of the year. And, from the observations made of those now growing in England, it is found they Vol. 2. “i NY Z Wy, ~ : = WZ a . SSAA \, | yy, * WB : WW — ri = VY Lo S uN ZL EE) 7S sf x =\ ZZ | \\\V [SSA xc NIZA Sz —_-_-F Six g geen — ——— S NS Pr, : Dy, SW a, bl Gel Se ae 3 ¢ i W Mor lel & Ter ty Z Z a SSS SIZE ZY LGA 4 Siz Zz LE EE Se: Ge py el che (ee ¢ Ze Wider Nhe th, Oeil I, (< OF FOREST-TREES. ' 59 thousand soldiers, which even covered the sea, exhausted rivers, and thrust mount Athos from the continent, to admire the pulchritude and procerity of one of them; and became so fond of it, that, spoiling both himself, his concubines, and great persons of all their jewels, he covered it with gold, gems, necklaces, scarfs, and bracelets, and infinite riches : in sum, was so enamoured of it, that for some days neither the concern- ment of his grand expedition, nor interest of honour, nor the necessary motion of his portentous army, could persuade him from it: he styled it his mistress, his minion, his goddess; and when he was forced to part leaves and flowers come out at the same time with the former, and the seeds ripen in autumn. The PLATANUS is of the class and order Monoecia Polyandria. The flowers come out late in the spring, and are so small as scarcely to be visible to the naked eye. The buds of the leaves of the oriental sort, begin to swell about the fourteenth of April, and the leaves are generally out by the latter end of the same month. Besides the two species already described, there are two varieties: 1. The Spanish Plane. tree ; 2. The Maple-leaved Plane-tree. 1. The Spanish Plane-tree has larger leaves than either of the other sorts; they are more divided than those of the Occidental, but not so much as the eastern. Some of the jeaves are cut into five, and others into three lobes; these are sharply indented on the edges, and are of a light green ; the foot-stalks are short, and covered with a short down. This is by some called the Middle Plane-tree, from its leaves being shaped between those of the two other sorts. It grows rather faster than either of the other kinds. 2. The Maple-leaved Plane-tree differs from the two genuine species, in having its leaves not so deeply cut as the eastern, nor lobed as the western kind. The foot-stalks of the leaves are much longer than those of the above sorts, and the upper surface of the leaves is rougher, The Oriental and Spanish Plane-trees are propagated from seeds, when they can be procured. The ground proper for the seminary, should be moist and shady, well dug, and raked till the mould is fine; then, in autumn, soon after the seeds are ripe, let them be scattered over this ground, and the seeds raked in, in the same manner as turnip- - seed. In the spring, many of the young plants will come up, though you must not expect the general crop till the second year ; the succeeding spring, they may be taken out of the seminary, and planted in the nursery in rows one yard asunder, and at one foot and a half distance in the rows. Here they may remain with the usual care of digging between the rows, and keeping them clean, till they are of sufficient size to plant out for good. Where the seeds of these trees cannot be procured, layering must be the method of propagation, For this purpose a sufficient number must be planted out for stools on a spot of earth double dug: after they have stood one year, they should be cut down, in order CHAP. IIT. Sey at BOOK II. er e/ 60 A DISCOURSE from it, he caused the figure of it to be stamped on a medal of gold, which he continually wore about him. Wherever they built their sump- tuous and magnificent colleges for the exercise of youth in gymnas- tics, as riding, wrestling, running, leaping, throwing the discus, &c. and where the graver philosophers also met to converse together, and improve their studies, they planted walks of Platans, to refresh and shade the Pa- lestrite, as you have them described by Vitruvius, lib. v. cap. xi. and as Claudius Perrault has assisted the text with a figure, or ichnographical plot. These trees the Romans first brought out of the Levant, and cul- tivated with so much industry and cost, for their stately and proud heads only, that the great orators and statesmen, Cicero and Hortensius, would exchange now and then a turn at the bar, that they might have the pleasure to step to their villas, and refresh their Platans, which they would often irrigate with wine instead of water: Crevit et affuso latior to make them throw out young wood for layering. The autumn following, these should be laid in the ground, with a little nick at the joint; and by that time twelvemonths they will be trees of a yard high, with good roots ready to be planted out in the nursery, where they may be managed as the seedlings ; and as the stools will have shot up fresh young wood for a second operation, this treatment may be continued as long as you please. The Occidental Plane-tree is propagated by cuttings; which if they are taken from strong young wood, and planted early in the autumn, in a moist good mould, will seldom fail. They are generally planted thick, and then removed into the nursery-ground, as the layers of the other sort: but if a large piece of moist ground was ready, the cuttings may be placed at such a distance as not to approach too near each other, before they are of a sufficient size to plant out for good ; and this would save the expense and trouble of a re- moval. The Oriental Plane-tree will grow from cuttings, but not so certainly as this ; and whoever has not the conveniency of proper ground for the cuttings, must have recourse to layers with this tree also; which, indeed, is the surest and most effectual method. The Plane-tree delights in a moist situation, especially the Occidental sort. Where the land is inclined to be dry, and Plane-trees are desired, the two varieties are to be pre- ferred. At Ribston, the seat of Sir Henry Goodrick, Bart. there is now growing a most beauti- ful Platanus, the principal limb of which extends forty-four feet from the bole; and what is very remarkable, this tree grows close to the original Apple-tree, known by the name of the Risston Pippin, from whose stock have sprung a numerous progeny, bearing a most * delicious fruit. : At Shadwell-Lodge, in the county of Norfolk, the seat of John Buxton, Esq. there may be seen a Plane-tree, which is remarkable for its speedy growth. When planted in April OF FOREST-TREES. 61 umbra mero. And so prized was the very shade of this tree, that when afterwards they transplanted it into France, they exacted a solarium, by way of tribute, of any of the natives who should presume but to put his head under it. Whether for any extraordinary virtue in the shade, or other propitious influence issuing from the tree, a worthy knight, who staid at Ispahan, in Persia, when that famous city was infected with a raging pestilence, told me, that since they have planted a greater number of these noble trees about it, the plague has not come nigh their dwellings. Pliny affirms there.is no tree whatsoever which so well defends us from the heat of the sun in summer, nor that admits it more kindly in winter. And, for our encouragement, I do, upon experience, assure you, that they will flourish and abide with us, without any more trouble than frequent and plentiful watering, which, from their youth, they excessively delight in, and gratefully acknowledge by their growth 1744, it was eight feet high; and when measured in April, 1775, the following were its dimensions : Feet. Inches: IB Gree Gadsoonncunoro docroonsunoc eroseacaane spnccbdaam eye 2) Circumference at half a foot from the ground 7 9 INU AU 1S. cogpocdaDece905000000000000000 nctuecesense (0! VO At ten feet ...sessecrseeee nooceae0doN0000, GanctnoBcoDG (0) IAGISIXtEEMbLee beset eiiasstenaepop acces cbc enasciscessoln til Oo At twenty feet ......0s apes aceReatojoage sdoaceonaue es yD The Oriental Plane-tree was greatly respected by the ancients for its cooling shade : Jamque ministrantem Platanum potantibus umbram. VIRG. And so great was their veneration for it, that in the height of their enthusiasm they used to refresh its roots with wine instead of water. ‘ Tantumque postea honoris increvit, ut mero infuso enutriantur: compertum id maxime prodesse radicibus: docuimusque etiam arbores vina potare.”—PLIN. In the Academia, or school of Plato, the philosophers used to walk and converse together under the shade formed by these delightful trees; to which custom Horace alludes : Atque inter Silvas Academi querere verum. LIB. lj. EP. li. Pliny informs us, that this tree was first brought over the Ionian sea, into the Island of Diomedes, for a monument to that hero: thence it passed into Sicily, and so into Italy, where it has continued ever since to give coolness and refreshment to the inhabitants in the height of summer. Volume IT. I CHAP. IIT. > ae BOOK IL. ae! ee ———— rrr 62 A DISCOURSE accordingly ; so as I am persuaded that, with very ordinary industry, they might be propagated to the incredible ornament of the walks and avenues to great men’s houses. The introduction of this true Plane among us is, perhaps, due to the great Lord Chancellor Bacon, who planted those (still flourishing ones) at Verulam ; as to mine, I owe it to that honour- able gentleman, the late Sir George Crook, of Oxfordshire, from whose bounty I received an hopeful plant, now growing in my villa. There was lately at Basil, in Switzerland, an ancient goodly Plata- netum, and now in France they are come again in vogue: I know it was anciently accounted a&xap7os; but they may with us be raised of their seeds with care, in a moist soil, as here I have known them. But the reason of our little success is, that we very rarely have them sent us ripe; these should be gathered late in autumn, and brought us from some more Levantine parts than Italy. They come also of layers abundantly, affect- ing a fresh and feeding ground; for so they plant them about their rivulets and fountains. The West-Indian Plane is not altogether so rare, but it rises to a goodly tree, and bears a very ample and less jagged leaf. That the Turks use their Platanus for the building of ships, I learn out of Ricciolus Hydr, lib, x. cap. xxxvii. And Pliny informs us that canoes and vessels for the sea have been excavated out of their pro- digious trunks. LOTUS.° I have the same opinion of the LOTUS ARBOR, (another lover of the water,) which in Italy yields both an admirable shade, and timber ° Of this TREE there are three species : 1. CELTIS (avusrraxrs) foliis lanceolatis, acuminatis, serratis, nervosis. Mill. Dict. Netile-tree with spear=shaped, pointed leaves, which are veined, and sawed on their edges. Celtis fructu nigricante. Tourn. Inst. 612. Lote-tree with a black Sruit. Lotus s. Celtis, Cam. epit. 155. Lotus Arbor. Lob. I. 186. THE COMMON NETTLE-TREE. This sort grows naturally in the south of France, in Spain, and Italy, in which countries it grows to a tree of considerable size ; in England it is not so common as the second kind. It rises with an upright stem to the height of forty or fifty feet, sending out many slender branches upward, which haye a smooth, dark-coloured bark, with some spots of gray; these are garnished with leaves placed alternately, which are near four inches long, and about two broad in the middle, ending in long, sharp points, and deeply sawed on their edges, having several transverse veins which are prominent on their under side. The flowers come out from the wings of the leayes all along the branches ; they haye a male and an hermaphrodite OF FOREST-TREES. 63 immortal, growing to a vast tree, where it comes spontaneously ; but its fruit seems not so tempting as it is storied it was to the companions of Ulysses. The first who brought the Lotus out of Virginia, was the late industrious Tradescant. Of this wood are made pipes and wind- flower generally at the same place, the male flowers being situated above the others: these have no petals, but a green herbaceous empalement, so make no figure; they come out in the spring, at the same time when the leaves make their first appearance, and generally decay before the leaves have grown to half their size. After the flowers-are past, the germen of the hermaphrodite flowers becomes a round berry, about the size of a large pea, which is black when ripe. 2. CELTIS (occipenTAtis ) foliis obliqué ovatis, serratis, acuminatis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 1478. Vettle-tree with oblique, oval-pointed leaves, which are sawed on their edges. Celtis fructu obscuré purpurascente. Mill. Dict. Lote-tree mith a dark purple fruit. Lotus Arbor Virginiana, fructu rubro. Raii Hist. 1917. Tur occIDENTAL NETTLE-TREE. This grows naturally in North America, and delights in a moist, rich soil, in which it becomes a very large tree. It rises with a straight stem, which in young trees is smooth and of a dark colour, but as they advance, it becomes rougher, and of a lighter green. The branches are much diffused on every side, and are garnished with oblique oval leaves, ending in points, and sawed on their edges; they are placed alternately on the branches, with pretty long foot-stalks. The flowers come out opposite to the leaves upon pretty long foot-stalks, the male flowers standing above the hermaphrodite, as in the other species; after these decay, the hermaphrodite flowers are succeeded by roundish berries, which are smaller than those of the first sort, and when ripe, are of a dark purple colour. This tree flowers in May, and the seeds ripen in October. Of this sort there are several pretty large trees in the English gardens, some of which produce great quantities of fruit annually, which, in favourable seasons, come to maturity, so that from these seeds there have been plants raised, and there are few years in which there is not fruit of this sort sent from America, whereby this species is now become pretty common in the English nurseries. 3. CELTIS (orizn Tatts ) foliis ovato cordatis, denticulatis, petiolis brevibus. Mill. Dict. Neitle-tree mith oval, heart-shaped deaves, slightly indented, and short foot-stalks. Celtis orien- talis minor, foliis minoribus et crassioribus, fructu flavo. Tourn. Smaller Eastern Lote-tree, avith smaller and thicker leaves, and yellow fruit. THE ORIENTAL NETTLE-TREE. This sort was discovered by Dr. Tournefort in Armenia ; from whence he sent the seeds to the Royal Garden at Paris, where they succeeded, and the trees, which were there raised, have produced fruit for several years ; so that most of the curious gardens in Europe have been furnished with it from thence. It rises with a stem about ten or twelve feet high, dividing into many branches, which spread horizontally on every side, having a smooth, greenish bark, garnished with leaves about an inch and a half long, and near an inch broad, inclining to a heart-shape, but are oblique, one of the ears of the base being smaller and lower than the other ; they are of a thicker texture than those of the common sort, and of a paler green, placed alternate on the branches, and have short foot-stalks. The flowers come out from the foot-stalks of the leaves, in the same manner as the former, and are succeeded by oval, yellow berries, which, when fully ripe, turn to a darker colour. The wood of this tree is very white. 12 CHAP. IIL. SS ant BOOK II. ai 64 A DISCOURSE 3 instruments: and of its root, hafts for knives and other tools. The offer of Domitian to Crassus for half a dozen of these trees, growing about The CELTIS is of the class and order Polygamia Monoecia. ‘These trees are all propagated by seeds, which should be sown Soon after they are ripe, when they can be procured at that season ; many of them will come up the following spring ; whereas, those which are sown in the spring, will not come up till a twelvemonth after. It is the best way to sow them in pots or tubs, that they may be easily removed ; those sown in the spring should be placed in a shady situation in summer, and constantly kept clean from weeds; but, if in autumn, they should be placed in a warm situation, plunging the pots into the ground; and if they are covered over with a little tan from a decayed hot-bed, it will prevent the frost from penetrating the earth to injure the seeds ; if these pots are placed on a gentle hot-bed in the spring, it will greatly forward the vegetation of the seeds, whereby the plants will have more time to get strength before the winter: but when the plants appear above ground, they must have a large share of air admitted to them, otherwise they will be drawn up weak; and as soon as the weather is warm, they must be exposed to the open air, and in summer they must be con- stantly kept clean from weeds; if the season prove dry, they will require water two or three times a-week. In autumn, it will be proper to remove the pots, and place them under a hot-bed frame, to shelter them in winter from severe frost; or, where there is not that conveniency, the pots should be plunged into the ground near a wall or hedge; and as the plants, when young, are full of sap, and tender, the early frosts in autumn frequently kill the upper parts of the shoots ; therefore the plants should be either covered with mats, or a little straw, or peas-haulm laid over to protect them. In the following spring the plants should be taken out of the seed-pots, and planted in the full ground: this should be done about the latter end of March, when the danger of frost is over; therefore a bed or two should be prepared (according to the number of plants raised) in a sheltered situation, and, if possible, in a gentle, loamy soil. The ground must be well trenched, and cleared from the roots of bad weeds, and, when levelled, should be marked out in lines at one foot distance; then the plants should be carefully turned out of the pots and separated, so as not to tear their roots, and planted in the lines at six inches asunder, pressing the earth down close to the roots. If the ground be very dry when they are planted, and there is no appearance of rain soon, it will be proper to water the beds, to settle the ground to the roots of the plants; and after this, if the surface of the ground be covered with some old tan or rotten dung, it will keep it moist, and prevent the drying winds from penetrating to the roots of the plants. The following summer, the necessary care must be to keep them constantly clean from weeds; but after the plants are pretty well established in the ground, they will not require any water, especially toward the latter end of summer; for that will occasion their late growth, whereby they will be in great danger of suffering by the autumn frosts ; for the more any of these young trees are stopped in their growth by drought towards autumn, the firmer will be their texture, which will enable them to bear the severity of winter. The plants may remain in the nursery two years, by which time they will have obtained sufficient strength to be transplanted where they are designed to remain; for as these plants extend their roots wide every way, if they stand too long in the nursery, their OF FOREST-TREES. 65 a house of his in Rome, testifies in what esteem they were had for their CHAP. 111. incomparable beauty and use. ra eae roots will be cut in removing, which will be a great prejudice to the future growth of the trees. All the kinds are hardy enough to thrive in the open air in England, after they are be- come strong ; but for the first two winters after they come up from seeds, they require a little protection, especially the third sort, which is tenderer than either of the former.—The young plants of this kind frequently have variegated leaves, The wood of the Lotus-tree was anciently used for flutes and other musical instruments : et horrendo lotos adunca sono, ovip. Fast. Mr, Evelyn judges very properly when he supposes that the fruit of the Lotus Arbor could not be the same that was feasted upon by the companions of Ulysses. The enchant- ing fruit, described by the ancients, is produced in Barbary upon a shrub which Linneus calls Rhamnus (Lotus) aculeis geminatis ; altero recurvo, foliis ovato oblongis. Tournefort ealls it Zizyphus Sylvestris. Dr, Shaw, in his Travels into Barbary, had frequent opportunities of examining the shrub in question: he says, “This shrub, which is very «common in the Jereede, and other parts of Barbary, has the leaves, prickles, flower, and «fruit of Zizyphus, or Jubeb; only with this difference, that the fruit is here round, «< smaller, and more luscious, and at the same time, the branches, like those of the Paliurus, ‘*are neither so much jointed nor crooked, The fruit is in great repute, tastes something “like gingerbread, and is sold in the markets all over the southern districts of these king- sdoms. The Arabs call it Aneb enta el Seedra, or the Jubeb of the Seedra, which Olaus «Celsius had so high an opinion of, that he has described it as the Dudaim of the Sacred “ Scriptures.” This word has occasioned much controversy : in our translation of the Bible, it is rendered Mandrake. Ludovicus thinks it was the Mushroom, and Rudbeckius de- scribes it as the Rubus Ideus, or Raspberry. But as the Mandrake (Mandragora) was anciently supposed to remove barrenness in women, it seems a plant very likely to be anxiously asked for by Rachel, who wanted to have a child. Genesis, ch, xxx. The shrub described by Dr, Shaw is mentioned by Homer. It gave name to a race of people described in the ninth Odyssey : They went, and found an hospitable race ; Not prone to ill, nor strange to foreign guest : They eat, they drink, and Nature gives the feast ; The trees around them all their food produce, ‘Lotus the name— divine, nectareous juice ! (Thence call’d Lotophagi_) which whoso tastes, Insatiate’ riots in the sweet repasts ; Nor other home, nor other care intends, But quits his house, his country, and his friends, POPE. It will be proper to distinguish between the Rhamnus Lotus, and an herb often mentioned by the ancients, under the name of Lotus. Homer speaks of it as being fed upon by the horses of Achilles: and Virgil mentions it as proper for sheep, to increase their milk : At cui lactis amor, cytisum, /otosque frequentes Ipse manu, falsasque serat presepibus herbas, GEORG. ili, BOOK II. ee 66 A DISCOURSE ACACIA. The ACACIA ®, together with that from Virginia, deserves a place among our avenue trees, (could they be made to grow upright,) adorning our walks with their exotic leaf and sweet flowers, very hardy against the pinching winter, but not so proof against its blustering winds, though it be armed with thorns; nor do the roots take such hold of the ground, ® The TRIPLE-THORNED Acacia is titled, Gleditsta spinis triplicibus azillaribus. In the Upsal catalogue it is termed simply, Gledztsia; in the Hortus Cliffortianus, Casalpinoides foliis pinnatis ac duplicato-pinnatis. Micheli calls it Melilobus ; Duhamel, Gleditsta spinosa ; Plukenet, Acacia Americana, Abrue folio, triacanthos ; and Catesby, Acacia, Abrue folio, triacanthos, capsula ovali unicum semen claudente. GLEDITSIA is of the class and order Polygamia Dvoecia. The growth of the Acacia is naturally upright, and its trunk is guarded by thorns: three or four inches in length. . These thorns have also others coming out of their sides at nearly right angles: their colour is red. The branches are smooth, and of a white colour.— These are likewise armed with red thorns, that are proportionally smaller: they are of several directions, and at the ends of the branches often stand single. The young shoots of the preceding summer are perfectly smooth, of a reddish green, and retain their leaves often until the middle of November. Although there is a peculiar oddity in the nature and position of the spines, yet the leaves constitute the greatest beauty of these trees: they are doubly pinnated, and of a delightful shining green. The pinnated leaves that form the duplication, do not always stand opposite by pairs on the middle rib; the pinne of which they are composed are small and nunierous; no less than ten or eleven pair belong to each of thera ; and as no less than four or five pair of small leaves are arranged along the middle rib, the whole compound leaf consists often of more than two hundred pinn of this fine green colour: they sit close, and spread ‘open in fine weather ; though at the approach of bad weather they will droop, and their upper surfaces nearly join, as if in a sleeping state. The flowers are produced from the sides of the young branches in July: they are a greenish catkin, and make little show ; many are succeeded by pods, that have a wonderful effect ; for these are exceedingly large, more than a foot, and some- times a foot and a half in length, and two inches in breadth, and of a nut-brown colour when ripe. There is a variety of this species, with fewer thorns, smaller leaves, and oval pods. It has nearly the resemblance of the other ; but the thorns being less frequent, and the pods smaller, each containing only one seed, this sort loses that singular effect which the other produces by their means. The culture of these beautiful and noble trees is not very difficult. We receive the seeds from America in the spring, which keep well in the pods, and are for the most part, good. They generally arrive in February ; and, as soon after as possible, they should OF FOREST-TREES. 67 insinuating, and running more like liquorice, and apt to emaciate the cpap. LI. soil: I will not therefore commend it for gardens, unless for the variety, of which there are several, some without thorns. They love to be planted in moist ground. One thing there is, which (for the use and benefit which these and the like exotics afford us) I would take hold of, as upon all occasions I be sown in a well-sheltered, warm border of light sandy earth. If no border is to be found that is naturally so, it may be improved by applying drift sand, and making it fine. The seeds should be sown about half an inch deep ; and they will, for the most part, come up the first spring. If the summer should prove dry, they must be constantly watered ; and if shade could be afforded them in the heat of the day, they would make stronger plants by theautumn. A careful attention to this article is peculiarly requisite: for as the ends of the branches are often killed, if the young plant has not made some progress, it will be liable to be wholly destroyed by the winter’s frost, without protection; and this renders the sowing the seeds in a warm border, under an hedge, in a well-sheltered place, so ne- cessary ; for there these shrubs will endure our winters, even when seedlings, and so will require no farther trouble; nay, though the tops should be nipped, they will shoot out again lower, and soon recover themselves. It will be proper to let them remain two years in the seed-bed, before they are planted out in the nursery. The spring is the best time for the work. Their distance should be one foot by two. The earth between the rows should be dug every winter ; and, being weeded in summer, the plants may remain, with no other particular care, until they are set out for good. These trees are late in the spring before they exhibit their leaves, but keep shooting late in the autumn. They should not only join in wilderness-quarters, with others of their own growth, but some of them should be planted singly in opens, where their triple spines, fine leayes, and large pods, will be seen to advantage. The False ACACIA is titled Robinia (FsEvDo-acActa ) racemis pedicellis unifloris, foliis ime paripinnatis, stipulis spinosis. Sp. Pl. 1043. Tournefort calls it, Pseudo-acacia vulgaris ; Ray names it, Acacia Americana, siliquis glabris; and Catesby, Pseudo-acacia hispida, floribus roseis. THE LOCUST-TREE. Tt is of the class and order Diadelphia Decandria, This tree is also a native of North America. Its branches are armed with strong crooked thorns, and garnished with winged leaves, composed of eight or ten pair of oval lobes, terminated by an odd one. They are of a bright green, and sit close to the midrib. The flowers come out from the sides of the branches in pretty long bunches, hanging downe ward like those of the Laburnum, each flower standing on a slender foot-stalk: these are of the butterfly, ar pea-blossom kind; are white, and smell very sweet. They appear in June, and when the trees are full of flowers, they make 4 fine appearance ; but they are —F~\/a BOOK I. ei Ad 68 A DISCOURSE do in this work ; namely, to encourage all imaginable industry of such as travel into foreign countries, and especially gentlemen who have concerns in our American plantations, to promote the culture of such plantsand trees, especially timber, as may yet add to those we find already agreeable to our of short duration, seldom continuing more than a week in beauty. After the flowers fade, the germen becomes an oblong compressed pod, which in warm seasons comes to perfection in England ; these ripen late in autumn. The leaves come out late in the spring, and fall off early in the autumn, which renders this tree less valuable than it would otherwise be. ‘ The False Acacia is best propagated by seeds, which should be sown in a bed of light earth about the latter end of March, or the beginning of April; and if the bed has a warm exposure, the plants will appear in six weeks, requiring no other care than keeping them clear from weeds. In this bed the plants should remain till the following spring, when they should be transplanted into the nursery about the end of March, placing them in rows at three feet. distance, and a foot and a half asunder in the rows. In this nursery they should remain two years, by which time they will be of size for transplanting into the places where they are designed to grow. As these trees, when they stand long unre- moved, send forth long, tough roots, it will be advisable to cut them off when they are transplanted. This operation, however, sometimes occasions their miscarrying. These trees will grow well almost upon any soil, but they prefer a light, sandy ground,- in which they have been known to shoot six feet in one year. While the trees are young, they make a fine appearance, being well furnished with leaves; but when old, they are rather unsightly, from the branches being frequently broken by high winds, especially when they happen to stand in an exposed situation. In America, this tree is called the Locust-tree. My excellent friend, Joseph Harrison, Esq. of Bawtry, has favoured me with the following observations, in a letter dated July 25, 1782. ‘ The first experiment that «I know of, respecting the application of the timber of the Locust-tree, to any purposes in “ ship-bnilding, was in Virginia, where I resided some time about the year 1733: and, there, “ happening to be acquainted with an ingenious ship-wright, that had bven sent over by *¢ some merchants of Liverpool, to build two large ships, I had frequent conversations with «him, respecting the qualities of the several principal timber-trees of that country. Being “a person of observation, he had made many useful remarks on that subject ; which the “nature of his employment afforded many opportunities of doing with advantage. He « yeckoned the Oaks, Elms, Ashes, and many other timber-trees common to both countries, “much inferior to the same sorts in England: but frequently spoke of the Locust-tree, as of extraordinary qualities both for strength and duration *; and used often to say, if a “ sufficient quantity could be had, it would be the best timber he had ever met with for “building of ships. After he had completed his engagements with his employers at Li- “ Duration, This property has been well ascertained by some pieces of Locust-tree, still continuing firm and sound in some old houses in New England, that were built when the country was first settled. ° , OF FOREST-TREES. 69 climate in England. “What we have said of the Mulberry, and the vast CHAP. III. emolument raised by the very leaves, as well as wood of that only tree, were sufficient to excite and stir up our utmost industry. History tells us, the noble and fruitful country of France was heretofore thought so * verpool, he set a small vessel on the stocks for himself; but unluckily, not having a suffi- “cient quantity of iron for the purpose, and none being to be had at that time in the *‘ country, he was obliged to put a stop to the work, till he bethought himself of the follow- ing succedaneum, He had formerly (as hinted above) observed the extraordinary strength and firmness of the Locust-tree, and on this occasion took it into his head that “trenails* of that timber might be substituted for iron boltst in many places where “]east liable to wrench, or twist, as in fastening the floor-timbers to the keel, and the “knees to the end of the beams, which two articles take up a large proportion of the “ iron used in a ship; purposing, when he arrived in England, to bore out the Locust tre- ‘nails, and drive iron bolts in their stead. When he first informed me of this scheme, I «must own I thought the experiment very hazardous: however, as necessity has no law, “he put it in practice. The ship was built in that manner, loaded, and sailed for Livers «pool, where she arrived safe ; and though they met with some blowing weather on the «* passage, she never made so much water, but that one pump could easily keep her free. “She returned back to Virginia the next year, when I had an opportunity of being in- «formed by the builder himself (who was then captain of her) of what had been the result “of his project: he said, that during the passage, especially in blowing weather, he was very attentive in examining the water-ways{, as, at that place, weak ships are most “liable to work and strain, but that he could not perceive any thing more than is usual in «other vessels. When unloaded, she was hauled ashore upon the bank, in order to be «< searched both outside and inside ; when, on the strictest examination, it was found that «the Locust trenails, that had been substituted instead of iron bolts, seemed (to all ap- “ pearance) to have effectually answered the purpose intended ; however, it was thought “ prudent to take several of them out, and put in iron bolts in their room: and this opera- «tion afforded another proof of their extraordinary strength and firmness; as they * TRENAILS, or Tree-Nal_s, are wooden pins, that fasten the planks to the ribs or timbers ;—and to prevent drawing, or the planks starting, they are wedged at both ends, inside and out, so that the strength of a ship depends much on the goodness of the trenails; and if they are not made of wood that is both hard and tough, they will not endure driving so tight as to bear the strain that lies upon them; for in fact it is the -trenails that hold together the several pieces of which a ship is composed. + Bouts. are round iron pins, used to fasten the floor-timbers to the keel, and the beams that support the decks to the sides of the ship, and on all other occasions where trenails are not strong enough to bear the strain that is to be supported. +The WaTER-wayY is that part of a ship’s deck that is next to the sides of the ship; this seam, or joint, is very difficult to keep tight, and in weak vessels will open and shut in carrying sail, when it blows hard, Volume IT. K weary BOOK II. aye 70 A DISCOURSE steril and barren, that, nothing almost prospering in it, the inhabitants were quite deserting it, and with their wives and children going to seek some other more propitious abode; when some of them happening tocome into Italy, and tasting the juice of the delicious grape, the rest of their countrymen took arms, and invaded the territories where those vines grew, which they transplanted into Gallia, and have so infinitely improved since, that France alone yields more of that generous liquor, than not only Italy and Greece, but all Europe and Asia beside: who almost would believe that the austere Rhenish, abounding on the fertile banks of the Rhine, should produce so soft and charming a liquor, as does the same « endured to be backed * but with a set-bolt, just as well as though they had been iron ; where- ‘as Oak trenails are usually bored out with an auger. The next voyage the ship made, was “to the West-Indies, where the captain died, and with him ended (for the present) any «further prosecution of this matter: for though the success of the above experiment was «known to many, yet (as is frequently the case with new discoveries) none, that I ever « heard of, made any use of Locust trenails in ship-building, till many years after ; «though on the goodness of that article greatly depends the strength and durableness of “aship. I frequently recommended it, when opportunities offered, but all to no purpose, « till about twenty years ago, when I was settled in trade at Rhode Island, I persuaded ‘some ship-builders to try the experiment; but notwithstanding all my endeavours, the “use of Locust trenails still continued to be little practised or known, till it happened to “be adopted by a builder of some eminence at New York, and of late years has been ‘introduced into general use there, and in some parts of New England: but as yet the “use of the Locust-tree, in ship-building, is confined to the article of trenails, on account * of its scarcity ; for, was it near as plentiful as Oak, it would be applied to more purposes, * such as knees ft, floor-timbers {, foot-hooks ||, &c. being much superior to it, both as to “strength and duration ; and from its spreading into branches, affords full as large a pro- “ portion of crooks, or compass-timber, as the Oak. « The growth of the Locust-tree has of late been much encouraged in North America: ‘and here, in England, several gentlemen have propagated great quantities of it, parti- SS = BacKING out a bolt, or trenail, is driving it out by means of a tool called a set-bolt, which is an iron punch, something smaller than the bolt or trenail, to be taken out, against which it is driven, with a heavy black, smith’s sledge, or hammer; but Oak trenails, except such as are very hard and sound, will scldom bear this operation ; in which case, they are obliged to bore them out with an auger. + KwWEEs are those crooked pieces, that, by means of iron bolts, fasten the ends of the beams to the sides of the ship. + FLoor-TimBErs are those ribs or timbers that lie across the keel, and are bolted into it. j| Foor-Hooks are those circular ribs or timbers that form the body of the ship from the flaor to the top- timbers: and all pieces of timber that are not straight, are called crooks or compass-timber. ‘ OF FOREST-TREES. 71 vine, planted among the rocks and pumices of the so remote and mountainous Canaries ? This for the encouragement and honour of those who improve their countries with things of use and general benefit : now, in the mean time, how have I beheld a florist, or meaner gardener, transported at the casual discovery of a new little spot, double-leaf, streak or dash extraordinary in a Tulip, Anemone, Carnation, Auricula, or Amaranth! cherishing and calling it by his own name, raising the price of a single bulb to an enor- mous sum, till a law was made in Holland to check that Tulipamania ; “cularly Sir George Savile, who has many thousands now growing in his plantations at “ Rufford ; so that in the next generation, it is probable there may be sufficient for the article “of trenails, which alone would be a considerable improvement in the building of ships. “At present, the choicest pieces only of the very best Oak timber are applied to that “purpose ; and as the Oaks of Sussex are generally reckoned the best in England, most “ ship-wrights (even those in the north) have their trenails from thence: and the de- “mand for them is so great, that trenail-making is there become a considerable manufac- ‘ture. «The Locust-tree is not only valuable. on account of the excellence of its timber, but “its leaves also are useful, and afford wholesome food for cattle *. I knew a gentleman ‘in New England that sowed several acres for that purpose, which proved a good summer “pasture for cows ; it is excellent in that country, where the grass is very apt to fail, “from being burnt up by the summer droughts.—Hogs are extremely fond of it, and horses “ seem to like it. “« The method of propagating the Locust-tree in New England is by seeds, suckers, or “sets, as Willows are here; but the first method is the best, as those plants raised from “seeds, are found to thrive better and produce larger trees than the others. The seeds “are first sown in a nursery, and then planted out young into the places where they are to “ remain. « Jonathan Acklom, Esq. of Wiseton, has now in his garden a Locust-tree, which, as * three feet from the ground, is four feet ten inches in circumference, and sixty feet high: “also another of nearly the same height, but not so thick; and in his nursery are several ‘young plants from the seeds of these trees. They are both, at this time, (July 1782,) full << of flowers, and likely to produce many seeds, if the remainder of the summer prove favour- “able. They were raised from seeds brought from North Carolina in 1742, so are now just “ forty years old.” * There is a dissertation upon this property of the Acacia, in one of the foreign Literary Journals: I think it as the Menioirs of the Imperial Academy at Vienna: K 2 CHAP. IIT. we ee BOOK II. Na aie od 72 A DISCOURSE the florist, in the mean time, priding himself as if he had found the grand elixir, performed some notable achievement, or discovered a new country. This for the defects, (for such are those variegations produced by prac- tice, or mixture, mangonisms, and starving the root,) of a fading flower : how much more honour then were due in justice to those persons, who bring in things of much real benefit to their country ? especially trees for fruit and timber; the Oak alone, (beside the shelter it afforded to our late Sovereign Charles IT.) having so often saved and protected the whole na- tion from invasion, and brought it in so much wealth from foreign coun- tries. I have been told there was an intention to have instituted an Order of the Royal Oak ; and truly I should think it to become a green ribbon, next to that of St. George, superior to any of the romantic badges to which is paid such veneration abroad, deservedly to be worn by such as have signalized themselves by their conduct and courage, in the defence and preservation of their country. Bespeaking my reader's pardon for this digression, we now proceed to other useful exotics. : Vel. 2. Eage ol EM, a3 PE Sf ane SESS \ = LZ ———————" ‘i SIS a__ _=——_ S=S_ i a a a € Ne Loe. ¢ S pp } . cle Mller del 5 eSealn. OF FOREST-TREES. 73 CHAP. IV. The CORK, ILEX, ALATERNUS, CELASTRUS, LIGUS- TRUM, PHILLYREA, MYRTLE, LENTISCUS, OLIVE, GRANATUM, SYRINGA, and JASMINE, We do not exclude this useful tree from those of the glandiferous and forest. And being inclined to gratify the curious, I have been in- duced to say something farther of such semper virentia, as may be made to sort with those of our own, SUBER. The CORK-TREE*. Of this there are two sorts, one of a narrow, or less jagged leaf, and perennial ; the other of a broader, and falling in winter. It grows in the coldest parts in Biscay, in the north of New-England, in the south-west of France, especially the second 4 QUERCUS (suzer) foliis ovato-oblongis indivisis serratis subtus tomentosis, cortice rimoso fungo. Lin, Sp. Pl. 1412. Ouk, with oval, oblong, undivided leaves, which are sawed, and woolly on their under side, and nith a fungous, cleft bark. Suber latifolium semperyirens,— C. B. P. 424, THE CORK-TREE. , ‘It is of the class and order Monoecia Polyandria. “This is a timber-tree in Portugal and Spain, and other southern parts of Europe, where it grows naturally. In the plantations made here, it should be placed near the middle of the largest quarters ; and a few also should be planted singly in opens, that the fungous bark may be in view ; not that there is any great beauty merely in the sight, but with us it is a curiosity, being the true Cork, and of the same nature with what comes from abroad. The bark on the trunk and main branches is rough and spongy; but on the young shoots it is smooth and gray, and on the youngest, white and downy. The leaves are of an oblong, oval figure, with sawed edges. Their upper surface is smooth, and of a strong green colour, but their under is downy. They grow alternately on the branches, on very short, though strong foot-stalks, and indeed differ in appearance very little from many sorts of the Ilex. The flowers of this species of Oak make no show, and the acorns, when ripe, are long, smooth, and of a brown colour, There is a variety of this tree called the Narrow-leaved Cork-tree. Its leaves are smaller, which qualifies it for a place in our plantations, where variety is required. The best Cork is taken from the oldest trees, the bark on young trees being too porous for use. They are, nevertheless, barked before they are twenty years old; and CHAP. IV. (Rs! BOOK ILI. iti Bd 74 A DISCOURSE species, fittest for our climate; and in all sorts of ground, dry heaths, stony and rocky mountains, so as the roots will run even above the earth, where they have little to cover them; all which considered, methinks we should not despair. We have said where they grow plentifully in France: but by Pliny, (Nat. Hist. 1. xvi. c viii.) it should seem they were since transplanted thither; for he affirms there were none either there or in Italy in his time : but I exceedingly wonder that Carolus Stephanus and Cursius should write so peremptorily that there were none in Italy, where I myself have travelled through vast woods of them about Pisa, Aquin, and in divers tracts between Rome and the kingdom of Naples, and in France. The Spanish Cork is a species of Enzina, differing chiefly in the leaf, which is not so prickly, and in the bark, which is frequently four or five inches thick. The manner of decortication thereof, is once in two or three years to strip it in a dry season, otherwise the intercutaneous moisture endangers the tree, and therefore a rainy season is very pernicious ; when the bark is off, they unwarp it before the fire, and press it even, and that with weights upon the convex part, and so it continues, being cold. The uses of Cork are well known amongst us, both at sea and land, for its resisting both water and air; the fishermen who deal in nets, and this operation is necessary, to make way for a better bark to succeed ; it being observable that, after every stripping, the succeeding bark increases in value. They are generally peeled once in ten years, with an instrument for that purpose, and this is so far from injuring the trees, that it is necessary, and contributes to their being healthy; for without it they thrive but slowly; nay, in a few years they will begin to decay, and in less than a century, a whole plantation will die of age ; whereas those trees that have been regularly peeled, will last upwards of two hundred years. The bark of this tree was formerly used for making bee-hives; and Varro says, that those which are made of this material are the best: “ Optime fiunt corticee, deterrime fictiles, quod et frigore hyeme, et estate calore vehementissime hic commoventur.”== Virgil, speaking of providing commodious habitations for his bees, says : Ipsa autem, seu corticibus tibi suta cavitis, Seu lento fuerint alvearia vimine texta, Angustos habeant aditus. GEORG. iy. The bark of the Cork-tree was by the ancients called Cortex, by way of eminence: “Tu cortice levior.” And Pliny says, the Greeks not inelegantly called this tree the Bark-tree: “Non infacete Greci certicis arborem appellant.” OF FOREST-TREES. 75 all who deal in liquors, cannot be without it; ancient persons prefer it before leather for the soles of their shoes, being light, dry, and resisting moisture; whence the Germans name it pantoffel-holts, (slipper-wood,) perhaps from the Greek mavlo¢ et o2)Ao¢ ; for I find it first applied to that purpose by the Grecian ladies, whence they were called light-footed : 1 know not whether the epithet do still belong to that sex; but from them it is likely the Venetian dames took it up for their monstrous choppiness; affecting or usurping an artificial eminency above men, which nature has denied them. Of one of the sorts of cork are made pretty cups, and other vessels, esteemed good to drink out of for hectical persons. The Egyptians made their coffins of it, which, being lined with a resinous composition, preserved their dead incorrupt. The poor people in Spain lay broad planks of it by their bed-side to tread on, (as great persons use Turkey and Persian carpets,) to defend them from the floor, and sometimes they line or wainscot the walls and inside of their houses built of stone, with this bark, which renders them very warm, and corrects the moisture of the air; also they employ it for bee-hives, and to double the insides of their contemplores and leather- cases, wherein they put flasqueras with snow to refrigerate their wine, This tree has beneath the Cortex, or Cork, two other coats, or libri, of which one is reddish, which they strip from the bole when it is felled only, and this bears a good price with the tanner; the rest of the wood is very good firing, and applicable to many other uses of building, palisade-work, &e. The ashes drunk, stop the bloody-flux, ILE X. ILEX* major Glandifera, or, Great Scarlet OAK, of several species, and various in the shape of their leaf, pointed, rounder, longer, &c. * QUERCUS (1rex) foliis ovato-oblongis indivisis serratisque petiolatis subtus incanis, cortice integro, Lin, Sp. Pl. 1412. Ilex arborea. Bauh. Hist. i. p. 95. THg EVERGREEN OAK. The ILEX is of the class and order Monoecia Polyandria. ~ This is a well-known evergreen, of which there are several varieties, differing greatly in the size and shape of their leaves; but these will all arise from acorns of the same tree ; nay, the lower and upper branches of the same tree are frequently garnished with CHAP. IV. aA BOOK II. at me 6 A DISCOURSE (a devoted tree of old, and therefore zxcedua, ) thrives manifestly with us; witness his Majesty’s privy garden at Whitehall, where once flourished a goodly tree, of more than fourscore years’ growth ; and there was lately a sickly imp of it remaining: and now very many raised by me, have thriven wonderfully, braving the most severe winters, planted either in standards or hedges, which they most beautifully become. The only difficulty is in their being dexterously removed out of the nursery, with the mould adhering to their roots, otherwise they are apt to miscarry ; and therefore it is best trusting to the acorn for a goodly standard, which may be removed without prejudice. rials should be made by graffing the Ilex on the Oak stock, taken out of our woods, or better, grown from the acorn to the bigness of one’s little finger. By what I have touched in the chapter of the Elms, concerning the peregrination of that tree into Spain, (where even in Pliny’s time there were none, and where now they are in great abundance,) why should we not more generally endeavour to propagate the Ilex amongst us ; I mean that which the Spaniards call the Enzina, and of which they have such woods and profitable plantations? They are an hardy sort of tree, and familiarly raised from the acorn, if we could have them sound, and well put up in earth or sand, as I have found by experience. The wood of these Ilexes is serviceable for many uses, as stocks of tools, mallet-heads, mall-balls, chairs, axle-trees, wedges, beetles, pins, and above all, for palisadoes used in fortifications : besides, it affords so good fuel, that it supplies all Spain almost with the best and most lasting of charcoals in vast abundance. Of the first kind is made the painters’ lac, extracted from the berries ; to speak nothing of that noble confection, alkermes, and that noble scarlet dye the learned Mr. Ray leaves very different in size and shape from each other : those on the lower branches being much broader, rounder, and their edges indented and set with prickles ; but those of the upper are long, narrow, and entire. The leaves of the Ilex are from three to four inches long, and one broad near the base, gradually lessening to a point; they are of a lucid green on their upper side, but whitish and downy on their under, and are entire, standing upon pretty long foot-stalks; these remain green all the year, and do not fall till they are thrust off by the young leaves in the spring. The acorns are smaller than those of the common Oak, but of the same shape. OF FOREST-TREES. "7 gives us the process of at large, in his chapter of the Ilexes. To this add that most accurate description of this tree, and the Vermicula, (see Quiqueranus, 1.11. de Tvanid. Provincie, 1550,) naturally abounding about Alost. The acorns of the Coccigera, or Dwarf Oak, yield excellent nourishment for rustics, sweet, and little, if at all, inferior to the Chestnut, and this, and not the Fagus, was doubtless the true Esculus of the ancients, the food of the Golden Age: The wood of the Enzina, when old, is curiously chambletted and embroidered with natural vermiculations, as if it were painted. Note, That the Kermes-tree does not always produce the Coccum, but near the sea, and where it is very hot; nor indeed when once it comes to bear acorns; and therefore the people do often burn down the old trees, that they may put forth fresh branches, upon which they find them. This (as well as the Oak, Cork Beech, and Corylus) is numbered amongst the felices and lucky trees; but for what reason the Alaternus, which I shall next speak of, together with the Aquifolium, (Holly,) Pines, Salix, &c. should be excommunicated, as infelices, I know not, unless for their being dedicated to the infernal deities ; of which Macrob. Sat. lib. ii. c. xvi. In the mean time, take this for a general rule, that those were called infelices only, which bore no fruit; for so Livy, hb. v. Nulla felix arbor, nihil frugiferum in agro relictum. Whence that of Phoedrus, lib. iii. Fab. upon Jupiter's Ksculus, O nata, merito sapiens dicere omnibus: - Nisi utile est quod facimus, stulta est gloria. Reciting the ancient trees sacred to the deity, the most desirable being those that were fruitful, and for use.* ALATERNUS‘:. Tuts tree, which we have lately received from the hottest parts of Languedoc, (and that is equal with the heat of almost any country in Europe,) thrives with us in England, as if it were an indigene and * RHAMNUS (4L4TERNUS) inermis, floribus dioecis, stigmate triplici, foliis serratis.— Lin. Sp. Pl.481. Common aLaTeRNus. It is of the class and order Pentandria Monogynia.— Of this evergreen shrub there are many varieties, all of which are naturalized to our climate. Volume IT. L CHAP. IV. i gl od 78 _ A DISCOURSE BOOK II. natural; yet sometimes yielding to a severe winter, followed with a tedious eastern wind in the spring, of all the enemies of our climate the most hostile and cruel; and therefore to be artificially and timely provided against with shelter. I have had the honour to be the first who brought it into use and reputation in this kingdom, for the most beautiful and aseful of hedges and. verdure in the world, the swiftness of the growth considered, and propagated it from Cornwall even to Cumberland: the seeds grow ripe with us in August, and the honey-breathing blossoms afford an early and marvellous relief to the bees. CELASTRUS* and LIGUSTRUM". Or these shrubs I shall say no more, than that they are flexible and accommodated for topiary works. PHILLYRE A‘ Tur PHILLY REA * (of which there are five or six sorts, and some variegated) is sufficiently hardy, especially the Serratifolia, which makes t CELASTRUS (sutLatus) inermis, foliis ovatis integerrimis. Lin. Sp, Pl. 285.— SMOOTH STAFF-TREE. It is of the class and order Pentandria Monogynia. Of this shrub there are five species; but this and the Celastrus Scandens are the only ones that can bear the severity of our winters, EES * LIGUSTRUM (ruteare) Lin. Sp. Pl. 10. Priyet. Of this shrub there is a variety, which is an evergreen. Ligustrum is of the class and order Diandria Monogynia. Both kinds make a close and handsome hedge. _—————— x Of this GeNuS there are only three real species: all of which are hardy evergreens, and deserve a place in all shrubberies : 1. PHILLYREA (mepr4) foliis ovato-lanceolatis subintegerrimis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 10.— OV AL-LEAVED PHILLYREA. 2. PHILLYREA (ANGuSsTIFOLIA ) foliis lineari-lanceolatis integerrimis, Lin. Sp. Pl. 10. NARROW-LEAVED PHILLYREA. OF FOREST-TREES. 79 me wonder to find the Angustifolia planted in cases, and so charily set into stoves, amongst the oranges and lemons; when, by long experience, I have found it equalling our Holly, in suffering the extremest rigours of our cruel frosts and winds, which, doubtless, of all our English trees, is the most insensible and stout. They are (both Alaternus and this) raised of the seeds, (though those of the Phillyrea will be long under ground,) and being transplanted for espalier hedges or standards, are to be governed by the shears, as oft as there is occasion: the Alaternus will be up in a month or two after it is sown. Iwas wont to wash them out of the berry, and, drymg them in a piece of cloth, commit them to the nursery-bed. Plant them out at two ‘ years’ growth, and clip them after rain in the spring, before they grow sticky, and whilst the shoots are tender; thus will they form an hedge, (though planted but in single rows, and at two feet distance,) of a yard in thickness, twenty feet high if you desire it, and furnished to the bottom: but for an hedge of this altitude it would require the friendship of some wall, or a frame of lusty poles, to secure against the winds one of the most delicious objects in nature: but if we could have store of the Phillyreafolio leviter serrato, (of which I have raised some very fine plants from the seeds,) we might fear no weather; the verdure is incomparable, and all of them tonsile, fit for cradle-work and umbracula frondium. MYRTLE’. Tue vulgar Italian wild MYRTLE (tho’ not indeed the most fragrant) grows high, and supports all weathers and climates. They thrive abroad 3. PHILLYREA ( Larrrotr4) foliis cordato-ovatis serratis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 10. Broap- LEAVED PHILLYREA. Phillyrea is ofthe class and order Diandria Monogynia. The Phillyrea and Alaternus appear so much alike, that they are frequently mistaken for each other by many gardeners; but it may be proper to observe, that the number of stamina are different ; the flowers of the Alaternus having five stamina with their anthere, whilst the flowers of the Phillyrea have only two. They not only therefore belong to different classes, but another obvious difference presents itself, and that is, the leaves of the Phillyrea stand opposite on the branches by pairs, whereas those of the Alaternus stand singly, and are produced in an alternate manner. Y Of this most delicately looking shrub there are thirteen species described by Linnzus. L 2 CHAP. IV. nye 80 A DISCOURSE BOOK II. in Brittany, in places cold and very sharp in winter ; and are observed no- where to prosper so well as by the sea-coasts, the air of which is more propitious to them, as well as to oranges and lemons, than the inland air. I know of one near eighty years old, which has been continually exposed, unless it be that, in some exceedingly sharp seasons, a little dry straw has been thrown upon it; and where they are smitten, being cut down near the ground, they put forth and recover again; which many times they do not in pots and cases, where the roots are very obnoxious to perish with mouldiness. The shelter of a few mats and straw secured very great trees, both leaf and colour in perfection, this last winter also, which were planted abroad, whilst those that were carried into the con- serve were most of them lost. Myrtles, which are of six or eight sorts, may be raised of seeds; but with great caution, and after all, seldom prove worth the pains, being so abundantly multiplied of suckers, slips, and layers. The double-flower, which is the most beautiful, was first discovered by the incomparable Fabr. Peyresc; a mule having cropt it from a wild shrub. Note, That you cannot give those plants too much compost or refreshing, nor clip them too often, even to the stem, which will grow tall, and prosper in any shape ; so as arbours have been made of single trees of the hardy kind, protected in the winter with sheds of straw and reeds. Both leaves and berries refrigerate, and are very astringent and drying, and therefore seldom used within, except in fluxes: The common kind is called Myrtus floribus solitariis 3 involucro diphyllo, Sp. Pl. 673. THE RROAD-LEAVED MYRTLE. It is of the class and order Icosandria Monogynia, The common broad-leaved Myrtle is the hardiest of all the kinds, The leaves are an inch and a half long and one inch broad, of a lucid green, and stand upon short foot-stalks. The flowers are larger than the other sorts, and come out from the sides of the branches on pretty long foot-stalks: these are succeeded by oval berries of a dark purple colour, inclosing three or four hard kidney-shaped seeds. It flowers in July and August, and. the berries ripen in winter. This, by some, is called the Flowering Myrtle. Of this species there are many varieties, all of which require the shelter of a green-house in winter. By sowing the seeds of the common Myrtle, new kinds may be obtained. Myrtles are easily propagated by slips, cuttings, and layers. The practice is well known. Amongst the ancients every tree had its protector. The Myrtle was favoured by Venus ; but whether from the delicacy and elegance of its form, or its love to the sea-shore, “ amantes littora Myrtos,” or from any other cause, I shall not take upon me to decide, OF FOREST-TREES. 81 the berries mitigate inflammations of the eyes, and consolidate broken CHAP. LV. bones: a decoction of the juice, leaves, and berries, dyes the hair black, “7 et enecat vitiligines, as Dioscorides says, lib. i. cap. exxviil. There is an excellent sweet. water extracted from the distilled leaves and flowers. The varieties of this rare shrub, when furnishing the gardens and porti- coes as long as the season and weather suit, and even in the severest win- ters, when placed in the conclave, may be cut and contrived into various figures: they are of divers variegations, most likely to be produced by seeds, as our learned Mr. Ray believes, rather than by layers, suckers, or slips, or from any difference of species. In the mean time, let gardeners make such trials, whilst those most worth the culture are the Small and Broad-leaved, the Tarentine, the Belgic, the Double-flowered, and several more among the curious. The Myrtle, of old, was sacred to Venus, and so called from a virgin (Myrsine) beloved of Minerva. Garlands of the leaves and blossoms impaled the brows of imcruentous victors at ovations. * CANDLEBERRY-TREE*. AND now if here, for the name only, I mention the MYRTUS BRABANTICA, or CANDLEBERRY SHRUB, (which our plan- tations in Virginia and other places have in plenty,) let it be admitted : it bears a berry which, being boiled in water, yields a suet or pinguid substance, of a green colour; after being scummed and taken off, they 2 A Myrtle crown was worn by the general to whom an ovation was decreed; but at a TRIumMPH the victor always wore a Laurel one. The reason of this is given by Plutarch in the Life of Marcellus, viz. That as an ovaTION was decreed for some remarkable success obtained by treaty, or without much bloodshed, it was proper that the general at his public appearance, should be crowned with the tree sacred to Venus, who, of all the deities, was supposed to be the most averse to the horrors of war. @This is the MYRICA (cerirera) foliis lanceolatis syubserratis, caule arborescente. Lin, Sp. Pl, 1453. THe CANDLEBERRY-TREE, It is of the class and order Dioecia Tetrandria, This tree grows naturally in Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Kalm says that it thrives best near the sea, never having seen it at any distance from the shore. From it is obtained a green wax, with which the Americans make candles. For the method of pres paring the wax, consult Catesby’s History of Carolina. BOOK II. Pa 82 A DISCOURSE make candles with this, in the shape of such as we use of tallow, or wax rather ; giving not only a very clear and sufficient light, but a very agreeable scent. The candles are now frequently brought hither to us, and also the tree itself, of which I have seen a thriving one. LENTISCUS’. Tus is a very beautiful evergreen, and refuses not our climate when protected with a little shelter ; it is propagated by suckers and layers. Of this tree are made the best tooth-pickers in the world, and the mastick, or gum, produced from it, is of excellent use in fastening the teeth. OLIVE’. As the Lentise, so may the OLIVE be admitted, though it produce no other fruit than the verdure of the leaf; nor will it kindly breathe our air; nor the less tender Oleaster,* without the indulgent winter- house take them in. > PISTACIA (LenrIscus ) foliis abrupte pinnatis: foliolis lanceolatis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 1455. THE MASTICK-TREE. From this tree is obtained the gum mastick. It is of the class and order Dioecta Pentandria. Martial observes of this tree, that it makes excellent tooth-picks : Lentiscum melius ; sed si tibi frondea cuspis Defuerit, dentes penna levare potest. Li 14. EP. 22. =D © Of this Genus there are two species: 1. OLEA (£vRopxa ) foliis lanceolatis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 11. Olive mith spear-shaped leaves. Olea Sativa. Bauh. Pin. 472. HE OLIVE-TREE. 2. OLEA (capensis ) foliis ovatis. Lin. Sp. Pl- 11. Olive with oval leaves. THE cAPE OLIVE. The Olive is of the class and order Diandfia Monogynia. It will be unnecessary to give any directions concerning the cultivation of those trees, as neither of them can stand the cold of our climate. The first,is a native of the southern parts of Europe, from the fruit of which is expressed an oil of general use. The other is a native of the Cape of Good Hope. 4 The title of the OLEASTER, or Wild Olive, is, Elaagnus folits lanceolatis. In the Hortus Cliffortianus it is termed simply, Eleagnus. Caspat Bauhine ealls it, Olea sylvestris, folio molli OF FOREST-TREES. 83 GRANATUM*. MALUS PUNICA. Tuts is nothing so nice. There are of this glorious shrub three sorts, easily enough educated underany warm shelter, even to the raising hedges of them, nor indeed affects it so much heat, as plentiful watering. They supported a very severe winter in my garden, 1663, without any trouble or artifice; and if they present us their blushing double flowers for the pains of recision and well pruning, (for they must diligently be purged of superfluous wood,) it is recompense enough; when placed in a very benign aspect, they have sometimes produced a pretty small pome. It is a Perdifolia in winter, and growing abroad, requires no extraordinary rich earth, but that the mould be loosened and eased about the root, and hearty compost applied in spring and autumn: thus cultivated, it will rise to a pretty tree, though of which there is not in nature so adulterous ashrub. It is best increased by layers, approach and inarching, as they incano. It grows naturally in Bohemia, Spain, Syria, and Cappadocia. It is of the class and order Tetrandia Monogynia. This tree will grow to near twenty feet in height. The branches are smooth, and of a brown colour. The preceding year’s shoots are white and downy, and the silvery leaves are placed irregularly on them: these are of a spear-shaped figure, about two, and sometimes three inches long, and three quarters of an inch broad, and are as soft as satin to the touch. They continue on the tree great part of the winter. The flowers appear in July, but make no figure: they are small, and come out at the foot-stalks of the leaves; their colour is white, and they are possessed of a strong scent. The fruit that succeeds them much resembles a small Olive. Of this shrub there is a variety with yellow flowers, © Of this Genus there are two species : 1. PUNICA (Granartum ) foliis lanceolatis, caule arboreo. Lin. Sp. Pl. 676, Pomegra- CHAP. IV. a ain A nate with spear-shaped leaves, and a tree-like stem. Malus Punica Sativa. B. P. 438, THE ~ POMEGRANATE. This tree is now pretty common in the English gardens, where formerly it was nursed up in cases, and preserved in green-houses with great care, (as was also the double-flowering kind,) but they are both hardy enough to resist the severest cold of our climate in the open air ; and, if planted against warm walls in a good situation, the first sort will often produce fruit, which in warm seasons will ripen tolerably well; but as these fruits do not ripen till late in the autumn, they are seldom well-tasted in England, for which reason the sort with double flowers is commonly preferred. Of this species there are the following varieties:—1. The Wild Pomegranate with single and double flowers.—2. The Sweet Pomegranate,—3. The BOOK II. 84 A DISCOURSE term it, and is said to marry with Laurels, the Damson, Ash, Almond, Mulberry, Citron; too many I fear to hold. But, after all, they do best being cased, the mould well mixed with hogs’ rotten dung, its peculiar delight, and kept to a single stem, and treated like other plants in the winter shelter; they open the bud and flower, and sometimes with a pretty small fruit ; the juice whereof is cooling, and the rest of an astrin- gent quality. The rind may also supply the all for making ink, and will tan leather. LiIDTAacs Tuer LILAC is easily propagated by suckers and layers. Of this there are two sorts, one with a white, and another with a pale purple flower. Besides these, there is another with purple flowers and small spear-shaped leaves, by our botanists called Persian Jasmine, which leads me to the other Jasmines. Small-flowering Pomegranate with single and double flowers.—4. The Pomegranate with striped flowers. The double-flowering kind is most esteemed in this country for the sake of its large, fine, double flowers, which are of a most beautiful scarlet colour; and, if the trees are well supplied with nourishment, they will continue to produce flowers for two months successively, which renders it one of the most valuable flowering-trees yet known. The Balaustia of the shops are the impalements of the flowers of this kind. 2. PUNICA (nana) foliis linearibus, caule fruticoso. Lin. Sp. Pl. 676. Pomegranate with linear leaves and a shrubby stem. Punica Americana nana s. humillima. Tourn. Inst. 636. THE AMERICAN DWARF POMEGRANATE. This sort grows naturally in the West-Indies, where the inhabitants plant it in their gardens to form hedges. It seldom rises more than five or six feet high in those countries, so may be kept within compass, and there the plants keep flowering great part of the year. The flowers of this kind are much smaller than those of the common sort; the leaves are shorter and narrower, and the fruit is not larger than a nutmeg, and has little flavour, so it is chiefly propagated for the beauty of its flowers. The PomecranatE is of the class and order Icosandria Monogynia. [ae f Though the varieties of LILAC are numerous, the real distinct species are only two. 1. SYRINGA (rutearis ) foliis ovatoscordatis, Lin. Sp. Pl.11. Syringa with oval heurt- shaped leaves, THE COMMON LILAC. OF FOREST-TREES. 85 JASMIN E®. THis, especially the Spanish larger flower, far exceeds all the other sweet-smelling shrubs for the use of the perfumer, on account of its agreeable odour. The commen White and Yellow will flower plenti- fully in our groves, and climb about the trees, being as hardy as any of our Periclimena and Honey-suckles. How it is increased by submersion and layers, every gardener skills ; and were it as much employed for nosegays, &c. with us, as it is in Italy and France, they might make money enough of the flowers; one sorry tree in Paris, where they abound, has been worth to a poor woman near a pistole a-year. There is no small curiosity and address in obtaining the oil, or essence, as we call it, of this delicate and evanid flower, which I leave to the chymist and the ladies, who are worthy the secret. 2, SYRINGA (persrcs) foliis lanceolatis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 11. Syringa with spear-shaped leaves. Commonly called Persian 745MINE. Syrinea is of the class and order Diandria Monogynia. Both these kinds, together with their varieties, are best propagated by suckers and layers. The first sort may be raised from seeds, which ripen in autumn, & Of the JASMINE there are six species ; but there are only three adapted to our hardy plantations : 1, JASMINUM (orriciwaze) foliis oppositis pinnatis, Lin. Sp. Pl. 9. Jasminum vul- gatius, flore albo. C. B. Tue common wHire F4sMINE. This plant, though so common and hardy with us, is a native of India. 2. JASMINUM (rruricans) foliis alternis ternatis simplicibusque, ramis angulatis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 9. Tue survey vELLow 74SMINE. It grows common in the southern parts of Europe, and is able to resist the severity of our climate. 3. JASMINUM (avaize ) foliis alternis ternatis pinnatisque, ramis angulatis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 9. Jasminum humile luteum. Bauh. Pin. 397. Tue pwarF YELLOW ¥45MINE. It grows common in Italy, and is able to resist the frosts of our climate. JasMINE is of the class and order Diandria Monogynia. Volume I. M CHAP. IV. 86 A DISCOURSE ~ C Haw Avice : > The ARBUTUS, LAUREL, and BAY. BOOK II. Arsutus. * The STRAWBERRY-TREE, This is, I think, too —Y™ much neglected by us, making that a rarity which grows so common and naturally in Ireland: it is indeed with some difficulty raised by seeds, h Of this Genus there are five species : 1, ARBUTUS fuvepo) foliis glabris serratis, baccis polyspermis, caule arboreo.— Lin. Sp, Pl. 566. Strawherry-tree with smooth, sawed leaves, berries having many seeds, and a tree-like moody stem. Arbutus folio serrato, C. B, P. 460, Arbutus. Cam. Epit. 163.— THE STRAWBERRY~TIREE, This sort grows naturally in Italy, Spain, and also in Ireland, and is now very common in the English gardens. It produces the following varieties, viz. one with an oblong flower and_ oval fruit ; another with a double flower ; and a third with red flowers. ; 2. ARBUTUS (aypracune ) foliis glabris integerrimis, baccis polyspermis, caule arboreo, Lin. Sp. Pl. 566. Strawberry-tree with smooth, entire leaves, berries full of seeds, and a tree- like woody stem. Arbutus folio non serratv. C.B. P. 460, Andrachne Theuphrasti. Clus, Hist. 1. p. 48. Tae OR1EW TAL sTRAWBERRY>TREE. This kind grows naturally in the East, particularly about Magnesia, where it is so common, as to he the principal fuel used by the inhabitants of the country. It grows to a middle- sized tree; the branches are irregular, and are garnished with large oval leaves, somewhat like those of the Bay-tree, but not quite so long; these are smooth and entire, haying no serratures on their edges; the flowers are shaped like those of the common Arbutus, but grow thinly on the branches. The fruit is oval, and of the same colour and consistence with the common sort, but the seeds of this are flat, whereas those of the common sort are pointed and angular, 3. ARBUTUS (acaprewsis) caulibus procumbentibus, foliis ovatis subserratis, floribus sparsis, baccis polyspermis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 566, Arbutus with truiling stalks, oval leaves, somewhat indented, flowers growing loosely, and berries with many seeds. Vitis idea Acadiensis, foliis Alaterni. Tourn. Inst. 608. THe scaDIAN STRAWBERRF-TREE, This sort grows naturally in Acadia, and other northern parts of America, upon swampy land, which is frequently overflowed with water; it is a low bushy shrub, with slender trailing branches, which are garnished with oval leaves, a little sawed on their edges; the flowers come out from the wings of the leaves, growing in thin loose bunches. This sort —— Sy YY = EZ Ezy Z thtisijip \ Fage 86. Bs Uber del et- a Li Shunterri eS He" eh € She G e - ah A 7 1 > y en ~ OF FOREST-TREES. 87 but easily propagated by layers; if skilfully pruned, it grows to a goodly tree, patient of our clime, unless the weather be very severe; it may be contrived into most beautiful palisades, and is ever verdant: I am told the tree grows to a huge bulk and height on Mount Athos, and in other countries. Virgil reports its inoculation with the nut. Bauhinus com- never produces fruit in England, and it is with difficulty that the plants themselves are kept alive in this country. 4. ARBUTUS (axpiwa) caulibus procumbentibus, foliis rugosis serratis. Lin. Sp. PI. 566. Arbutus with trailing stalks and rough sawed leaves. Vitis idea foliis oblongis albicantibus.—~ C. B. P. 470. Vitis idea. Clus. Hist. ALPINE STRAWBERRY-TREE. This grows naturally on the Alps and the Helvetian mountains. It never rises high, but sends out from the root many slender branches, which trail upon the ground, and are garnished with oblong, rough leaves of a pale green colour; the flowers are produced from the wings of the leaves, upon long slender foot-stalks, and are succeeded by berries about the size of the common black cherry, which are first green, afterwards red, and when ripe are black. These are of a pleasant taste, so are frequently eaten by the inhabitants of those countries where they grow naturally. This isa very difficult plant to keep alive in gardens, for it is an inhabitant of bogs, growing among moss, where the ground is never dry. Mr. Lightfoot discovered it growing in great abundance in the north of Scotland between Loch Broom and Loch Mari. 5. ARBUTUS (ura ursz1) caulibus procumbentibus, foliis integerrimis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 566. Arbutus with trailing stalks and entire leaves. Uva Ursi. Clus. Hist. TratLine arautus, or BEARBERRY- This grows naturally upon the mountains in Spain, and in most of the northern parts of Europe. The branches trail on the ground, and are closely garnished with smooth, thick leaves of an oval form, placed alternately ; the flowers are produced in small bunches toward the extremity of the branches, which are shaped like those of the common sort, but smaller ; and are succeeded by berries, of the same size with those of the former sort, which are red when ripe. The leaves of this species of Arbutus haye been greatly celebrated in calculous and nephritic complaints, and other disorders of the urinary passages: the dose is half a drachm of the powder of the leaves, every morning, or two or three times a-day. De Haen relates, after great experience of this medicine in the hospital of Vienna, that suppurations, though obstinate and of long continuance, in the kidneys, ureters, bladder, urethra, scrotum, and perineum, where there was no venereal taint or evident marks of a calculus, were in general completely cured by it: that of those who had a manifest calculus, several found permanent relief, so that, long after the medicine had been left off, they continued free from pain, or inconvenience in making water, though the catheter shewed that the calculus still remained: that others, who seemed to be cured, relapsed on leaving off the medicine, but were again relieved on repeating its use, and this for several times successively ; while others obtained from it only temporary and precarious relief, the complaints being M 2 CHAP. V. BOOK II. eye 88 A DISCOURSE mends the coal for the goldsmiths’ work; and the poet celebrates it for country work : Arbutez crates, et mystica vannus Iacchi. GEORG. i. Arbutean harrows, and the mystic van. often as severe during the continuance of the medicine as when it was not used. The trials of the Uva Ursi, made in this country, have by no means answered expectation. Arsutus is of the class and order Decandria Monogyniq. The common Strawberry-tree is well known, being at present in most of the English gardens, and one of their greatest ornaments in the months of October and November, that being the season when the trees are in flower, and the fruit of the former year is ripe, for the fruit is a whole year in growing to perfection ; so that the fruit which is produced from the flowers of one year, does not ripen till the blossoms of the succeeding year are fully blown. When there is plenty of fruit and flowers upon the trees, they make a fine appearance, at a season when most other trees are past their beauty : ————— pomoque onerata rubenti Arbutus. OVID. Those trees which have large oval fruit make the greatest figure, their flowers being larger and oblong. The sort with double flowers is a curiosity ; but as the flowers have only two orders of leaves, they make no great appearance ; nor do the trees produce fruit in any plenty, therefore the other is preferable. The sort with red flowers makes a pretty variety, when intermixed with the other ; for the outsides of them are of a fine red colour at their first appearance, and afterwards they change to purple before they fall off. The fruit of this is the same with the common sort. All these varieties are preserved by inarching or grafting them upon the common Arbutus ; for the seeds of either do not pro- duce the same kind ; though from the seeds of the oval fruit, there are generally many more of the same produced, than from the seeds of the common sort. The best method to propagate the Arbutus is by seeds; therefore when the fruit is perfectly ripe, it should be gathered and mixed, with dry sand, to preserve it till the time for sowing: the surest method of raising the plants, is to sow the seeds in pots, which should be plunged into an old bed of tanners’ bark, which has lost its heat, covering the bed with glasses, &c. to keep out the frost; this should be done in December.— If the seeds are good, and, as the spring advances, the pots are refreshed with water, the plants will come up the beginning of April, when they should be frequently, but sparingly watered, and constantly kept clean from weeds. As the summer advances, if the plants are shaded in the heat of the day, it will greatly promote their growth; but in warm weather they must be exposed all night to receive the dew; so should only be covered in - the middle of the day : with this management, the plants will rise to the height of five or six inches the first summer. In October, they should be removed into the green-house, a OF FOREST-TREES. 89 LAUREL’. LAURO-CERASUS. The CHERRY-BAY. For the use we com- monly put this shrub to, it seems as if it had been only destined for hedges, and to cover bare walls: being planted upright, and kept to the or placed under shelter, to protect them from the severity of the approaching winter,— When planted out where they are to grow, little regard need be paid to soil or situation. The fruit of the Arbutus is said to have constituted part of the food of mankind in the early ages, “ Arbuteos foetus montanaque fragra legebant ;” though, of all the wild fruits, it must have been the most disgusting. The ancients themselves named it Unedo; and Pliny gives the reason, “cui nomen ex argumento sit unum tantum edendi.” However disagreeable the fruit may have been, its shade was thought inviting: Horace says of it, Nunc viridi membra sub Arbuta stratus. Virgil mentions the leaves of this tree as peculiarly agreeable to goats in the winter season : Post hine digressus jubeo frondentia capris Arbuta sufficere, GEORG. ili, i This tree was formerly called LAURO-CERASUS, but Linneus has now made it a species of the Prunus. In the Sp. Pl. it is titled PRUNUS (xauro-crrasus) floribus racemosis, foljis sempervirentibus dorso biglandulosis. In Hort. Cliff. 185, it is called Padus foliis sempervirentibus lanceolato-ovatis. THe comMoN LAUREL, OF CHERRY=BAY. It is of the elass and order Jcosandria Monogynia. The young leaves of the Laurel begin to open about the twelfth of March, and are generally out by the middle of April. The flowers are white; and though small, yet being clustered together, they make a tolerable appearance: but the berries afford the greatest beauty, being large, and when ripe, very black, This tree is a native of the East, and grows naturally about the Black Sea. It was first brought into Europe by Clusius, in the year 1576: and being easily propagated, is now spread over Italy and the greatest part of Europe. The Laurel is propagated both by seeds and cuttings. If the former method is practised,~the seeds must be gathered from the trees when they are full ripe: this will be known by their being quite black, which is generally about the beginning of October. These seeds should be sown directly in beds of light earth, half an inch deep, which must be afterwards hooped over, to be covered in very severe frosts. A hedge of furze bushes should be made around them, to break the force of the freezing black winds, and secure the seeds, together with the mats, from being destroyed. This is a much safer CHAP. V; BOOK Tf. ‘Ne 90 A DISCOURSE standard, by cutting away the collateral branches, and maintaining one stem, it will rise to a very considerable tree, resembling (for the first twenty years) the most beautiful-headed Orange in shape and verdure, and arriving in time to emulate even some of our lusty timber-trees; so as method than covering the beds with litter, which, if neglected to be taken off when the frost is over, will retain the rains which generally succeed such weather, sodden the beds, and make them so wet, as frequently to destroy the whole of the expected crop. The seeds being sown, and preserved with the above care, will appear in the spring. During the following summer they should be kept clear of weeds, as well as watered in dry weather ; and all the ensuing winter they must remain untouched in their beds, the furze hedge still standing till the frosty weather is past ; for if these young seedlings are planted out in the autumn, the major part of them will be in danger, before the winter is expired, of being thrown out of the ground by the frost ; and not only so, but of being really killed by it, as they are.not very hardy at one year old. Inthe spring, therefore, when the bad weather is over, let them be planted out in the nursery-ground, in rows two feet asunder, and the plants a foot and a half distant in the rows, where they may stand till they are planted out for good. Trees raised from seeds generally grow more upright, and seldom throw out so many lateral branches as those raised from cuttings; nevertheless, as the expectation of a crop from seeds has so often failed, notwithstanding great care has been used, and as the dif- ficulty of procuring the seeds, and preserving them from the birds, has been very great, the most certain and expeditious method of raising quantities of these trees is by cuttings, and is as follows : In the month of August, the cuttings should be gathered, about a foot and a half in length. They will thrive the better for having a bit of the last year’s wood at the end, though without this they will grow exceedingly well. The under-leaves should be cut off a foot from the thick end of the cutting, which must all be planted about a foot deep in the ground ; the other half foot, with its leaves, being above it. No distance need be observed in planting these cuttings, which may be set as thick as you please, though the ground for raising them should be sheltered, lest the winds, which are frequently high at this time of the year, or soon after, should loosen the plants just when they are going to strike root. When the cuttings are to be planted, the weather should be either rainy or cloudy ; and if no showers should fall in August, the work must be deferred till they do ; for if cuttings are planted in August when the weather is parching and dry, they will be burnt up, without great care and trouble in shading and watering. Neither is cloudy or rainy weather only to be recommended in planting these cuttings, but a shady situation also, either under a north-wall, or in beds which are covered the greatest part of the day with the shade of large trees. The shady situation is very necessary for them ; since, though the weather be rainy and cloudy when they are planted out, yet should it prove fair afterwards, the sun will soon dry up the moisture at that season, and endanger the plants, OF FOREST-TREES. 91 I dare pronounce it to be one of the most proper and ornamental trees for walks and avenues of any growing. Pity it is they are so abused in the hedges, where the lower branches if they are not constantly watered and protected with a shade; which at once shews the expediency of pitching on a spot where such a conveniency is natural. If these cuttings are planted in August, they will take root before winter, especially if they have shade, and water in dry weather ; but they should remain undisturbed till the spring twelvemonth following, in order to acquire strength to be planted in the nursery.— During the summer, they will require no other trouble than watering in dry weather, and keeping clean from weeds, and by the autumn, they will have made a shoot of perhaps a foot or more in length. In the beds, nevertheless, they should remain till the spring, when they should all be carefully taken out, and planted in the nursery, as was directed for the seedlings. When these trees are intended to form a large plantation, any time during the winter will be proper for the work, though 1 would recommend the month of October as the most favourable season. The ground ought to be prepared for their reception by ploughing ; and they should be planted in holes made all over it, at one yard asunder. When they begin to touch each other, do not immediately thin them, but suffer them to remain unthinned two or three years longer; by which means they will draw one another up to regular stems. When you begin to thin them, it must be done sparingly, and in small quantities, only casting out a weakly plant here and there, to make room for the more vigorous shooting of the others, lest the cold, entering the plantation too much at once, should retard its growth, if not wholly destroy it. The danger of losing these plants is only when they have been used to grow close, and the cold is suffered to rush in upon them all of a sudden ; when planted on bleak or exposed places singly, they seldom suffer from the cold. Let the plantations, therefore, be thinned with caution. The Laurel is now so naturalized to us, as to grow well in almost any of our soils or situations ; so that plantations of this tree may be made in any place where there isa conveniency. In Italy there are numerous woods consisting entirely of these trees ; and though England at present cannot hoast of many plantations of this kind, yet his Grace the Duke of Bedford has set a noble example to men of fortune, at Woburn, where he has planted one hill solely with Laurels, which thrive exceedingly; as do those also which are mixed in great quantities with the other evergreens, throughout his whole plantations, A water distilled from the leaves of this tree is oné of the most speedy and deadly poisons in nature, as appears from the experiments of the ingenious Abbé FonTana, inserted in the 70th vol, of the Phil. Trans. of London. Besides, the common Laurel, there is another kind entitled by Tournefort, Inst. 628, CHAP, V. 92 A DISCOURSE BOOK II. growing sticky and dry, by reason of their frequent and unseasonable cuttings, (the genius of the tree being to spend much in wood,) they never succeed after the first six or seven years; but are to be new planted again, or abated to the very roots for a fresh shoot, which is best, after which they soon furnish the places. In aword; as to the pruning of evergreen hedges, there is no small skill and address to be used, in forming and trimming them for beauty and stability ; leave the lower parts next the ground broader (two feet were sufficient for the thickness of the tallest hedge) than the tops, gradually, so as not much to exceed a foot breadth at the upmost verge, (as architects diminish walls of stone and brick from the foundation,) for they else will be apt to bend and swag, (especially when laden with winter snows or ice,) grow too thick, heat, wither, and foul within, dry and sticky especially ; when it were more than time they were cut close to the earth, for a fresh and verdant spring; and this method is to be practised in all hedges whatsoever. But would you yet improve the standard, which I celebrate, to greater and more speedy exaltation, bud your Laurel on the Black’ Cherry stock, to what height you please: this I had from an ocular LAURO-CERASUS LUSiTANICA MINOR. The Smaller Portugal Laurel; called in its native country, AZOUREIRO. The leaves of this shrub are shorter than those of the common Laurel, approaching nearer to an oval form; they are of the same consistence, and of a lucid green, which mixing with the red branches, make a beautiful appearance. The flowers are produced in long loose spikes from the sides of the branches ; they are white, and shaped like those of the common Laurel, appearing in June, and are succeeded by oval berries smaller than those of the common Laurel ; they are first green, afterward red, and when ripe, are black, in- closing a stone like the cherry. : This kind may be propagated in the same way as the common Laurel, either by cuttings, layers, or seeds. Ifthe cuttings are planted at the same season, and in the same way as has been directed for the common Laurel, they will take root very freely ; or if the young branches are laid in the autumn, they will take root in one year, and may then be removed into the nursery, where they may grow a year or two to get strength, and then be trans- planted where they are to remain. This tree is much hardier than the common Laurel ; for in the severe frost of the year 1740, when great numbers of Laurels were entirely killed, and most of them lost their leaves, this remained unhurt, and continued throughout the season in perfect verdure. OF FOREST-TREES. | 93 testimony, who was more than somewhat doubtful of such alliances; CHAP.-V. though something like it in Palladius speaks it not so impossible : ee ey Inseritur Lauro Cerasus, partuque coacto Tingit adoptivus virginis ora pudor. A Cherry graft on Laurel stock, does stain The virgin fruit in a deep double grain. They are raised of the seeds, or berries, with extraordinary facility, or propagated by layers, taleze, and cuttings, set about the latter end of August, or earlier at St. James’s tide, wherever there is shade and moisture. Besides that of the wood, the leaves of this Laurel, boiled in milk, impart a very grateful taste of the Almond ; and of the berries, or cherries rather, (which poultry generally feed on,) is made a wine, to some not unpleasant. I find little concerning the uses of this tree; of the wood are said to be made the best plough-handles. Note, that this rare tree was first brought from Civita Vecchia into England by the Countess of Arundel, wife to that illustrious patron of arts and antiquities, Thomas Karl of Arundel and Surry, great great grandfather to his Grace the pre- sent Duke of Norfolk, whom I left sick at Padua, where he died, highly displeased at his grandson Philip’s putting on the friar’s frock, though afterwards the purple, when cardinal of Norfolk. After all, I cannot easily assent to the tradition, though I had it from a noble hand: I rather think it might first be brought out of some more northerly clime, the nature of the tree so delighting and flourishing in the shady and colder - exposures, with an abhorrence of heat. BAY-TRE E. LAURUS VULGARIS*. The BAY-TREE. The learned Isaac Vossius and etymologists, are wonderfully curious in their conjectures © Of the LAURUS there are no less than eleven species enumerated by Linnzus, but it will be unnecessary in this place to take notice of more than one, viz. LAURUS (wopitrs) foliis venosis lanceolatis perennantibus, floribus quadrifidis dioecis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 529. Laurus Vulgaris. B. P. 460. Tue BAy-TREE. It is of the class and order Enneandria Monogynia. This shrub is propagated by seeds, cuttings, layers, and suckers, in a manner well known to every gardener. As this beautiful plant will grow under the dripping of trees, it is Volume LI. N BOOK II. 94 A DISCOURSE concerning its derivation; a Laude, says Isidore. And from the in- genious poet, we learn how it became sacred to Apollo, the patron of the wits, and ever since the meed of conquerors and heroic persons. But leaving fiction, we pass to the culture of this noble and fragrant tree, propagated both by seeds, cuttings, suckers, and layers. They (namely the berries) should be gathered dropping ripe: Pliny has a particular process for the ordering of them, not to be rejected, which is to gather them in January, and spreading them till their sweat be over, he then puts them in dung, and sows them: as for the steeping in wine, water does altogether as well: others wash the seeds from their mucilage, by breaking and bruising the glutinous berries, then sow them in rich ground in March, by scores in a heap; and indeed so they will come up in clusters, but nothing so well, nor fit for transplantation, as where they are interred with a competent scattering, so as you would furrow peas. qualified for adorning the borders of woods and pleasure-grounds, The leaves begin to open about the middle of March, and are quite out by the beginning of May. The flowers are of a light yellow colour, but make no show. It is a native of Italy. The Buay-tree, and not the Laurel, is undoubtedly the Laurus of the ancients. The Laurel was not known in Europe till the latter end of the sixteenth century, about which time it was brought from ‘Trebisond to Constantinople, and from thence it spread over most parts of Eyrope. Besides, our Laurel has not the properties ascribed by the ancients to ¢kejr Laurus. Virgil says it has a fine smell, which our Laurel has not: Et vos, O Lauri, carpam, et te, proxima Myrte, Sic posite, quoniam suaves miscetis odores, ECL. U, And in the sixth /Eneid, “ Oderatum Lauri nemus.” The Pythian priestess chewed the leaves of this tree before she placed herself upon the sacred tripod. These being used after an abstinence of three days, naturally produced that wild enthusiasm with which her oracles were always attended. From its being thus used, it obtained the name of the “ Prophetic Tree,” Whence Claudian, venturi prescia Layrus. Amongst the ancients, crowns of Laurel were worn by successful generals at their triumphal entries: Apollo, when he made this tree his own, says, Tu ducibus Latiis aderis, cum leta triumphum Vox canet ; et longe visent Capitolia pompz. OVID. The Bay-tree is said to haye a natural aversion to fire, which it shews by crackling in OF FOREST-TREES. 95 Both this way, and by setting them apart, which I most commend, I have raised multitudes, and that in the berries, kept in sand till the spring, without any farther preparation ; only for the first two years they should be defended from the piercing winds, which frequently destroy them ; and yet the scorching of their tender leaves ought not to make you de- spair, for many of them will recover beyond expectation ; nay, though quite cut down, they repullulate, and produce young suckers. Such as are raised of berries may at three years’ growth be transplanted ; which let alone too long, are difficult to take. This aromatic tree greatly loves the mother’s shade, (under which no- thing else will prosper,) yet thrives best in our hottest gravel, having once passed those first difficulties: age, and culture about the roots, wonderfully augment its growth; so as I have seen trees-of them near thirty feet high, and almost two feet diameter. They make walking- staves, straight, strong, and light, for old gentlemen; and are fit also both for arbour and palisade work, so the gardener understands when to prune and keep them from growing too woody. And here I cannot but take notice of those beautiful case-standards, which of late you have had out of Flanders, &c. with stems so even and upright, heads so round, full, and flourishing, as seem to exceed all the topiary ornaments of the garden, that one tree of them has been sold for more than twenty pounds; though now, the mystery revealed, the price be much abated; and, doubtless, as good might be raised here, (without sending beyond sea for them,) were 5) the flames: ‘‘ Laurus manifesto abdicat ignes crepitu et quadam detestatione ;” and this was esteemed a good omen: Laurus ubi bona signa dedit, gaudete coloni, Distendet spicis horrea plena Ceres. TIB. Chaucer, in his tale of the Flower and the Leaf, gives us a fine description of some of the most remarkable properties of this tree: The Laurel is the sign of labour crown’d, Which bears the bitter blast, nor shaken falls to ground: From winter winds it suffers no decay, For ever fresh and fair, and ev’ry month is May : Evy’n when the vital sap retreats below, Ev’n when the hoary head is hid in snow; The life is in the leaf, and still between The fits of falling snow, appears the streaky green: DRYDEN: N2 CHAP. V a aid BOOK II. Pn 96 A DISCOURSE our gardeners as indastrious to cultivate and shape them. Some there are, who imagine them of another species than our ordinary Bay, but erroneously. I wonder we plant not whole groves of them, and abroad ; they being hardy enough, grow upright, and would make a noble Daphneon. ‘The berries are emollient, sovereign in affections of the nerves, colics, &c.; they make good gargarisms, baths, salves, and per- fumes: of Bay-leaves, dried in a fire-pan, and reduced to a fine powder, as much as will cover half-a-crown, being drank in wine, seldom fails of curing an ague. And some have used the leaves instead of cloyes, im: parting its relish in sauce, especially of fish: and the very dry sticks of the tree, strewed over with a little powder or dust of sulphur, and vehemently rubbed against one another, will immediately take fire, as will likewise the wood of an old Ivy ; nay, without any intentive addi- tion, by friction only. Amongst other things, it has of old been observed that the Bay is omi- nous of some funest accident; if that be so accounted which Suetonius (in Galba) affirms to have happened before the death of the monster Nero, when these trees generally withered to the very roots in a very mild winter: and much later; for in the year 1629, when at Padua, preceding a great pestilence, almost all the Bay-trees about that famous University, grew sick and perished : Certo quast presagio, says my author, Apollinem Musasque, subsequenti anno urbe illa bonarum literarum domicilio ex- cessuras.——-But that this was extraordinary, we are told the emperor Claudius, upon occasion of a raging pestilence, was by his physicians advised to remove his court to Laurentium, the aromatic emissions of that tree being in such reputation for clearing the air, and resisting contagion ; upon which account, I question not but Pliny, the nephew, was so fre- quently at his beloved Laurentium, so near the city. Besides, those trees were extolled for their virtue against lightning, which Tiberius so exceed- ingly dreaded, that when it came with thunder, he would creep under his bed to avoid it, shading his head with the boughs. The branch let fall from the bill of the white hen into the lap of Livia Drusilla, being planted, prospered so floridly, as made it reputed so sacred, as to use it for impaling the heads of the triumphing emperors, and to adorn the limina of the temples and royal palace of the great pontiff; and thence called Janitrices Cesarum : OF FOREST-TREES. 97 Cur tamen apposita velatur janua lauro ; Cingit et Augustas arbor opaca fores ? Num quia perpetuos meruit domus ista triumphos ? An quia Leucadio semper amata Deo? OVID. As still at present in Rome, and other cities, they use to trim up their churches and monasteries on solemn festivals, when there is station and indulgences granted in honour of the saint or patron ; as also on occasion of signal victories, and other joyful tidings; and those garlands, made up with hobby-horse tinsel, make a glittering show, and rattling noise when the air moves them, With the leaves of Laurel were made up the despatches and letters, which were sent to the senate from the victorious general :' the spears, lances ®, and fasces, nay, tents and ships, &c. were all dressed up with Laurels ; and in a triumph, every common soldier carried a sprig in his hand, as we may see in the best basso-relievo of the ancients, as of virtue to purge them from blood and slaughter. And now, after all this, might one conjecture by a mere inspection of these several sculps, statues, and medals yet extant, representing the heads of emperors, poets, &c. the wreaths and coronets to be composed of a more flexible and compliant species than the common Bay, and more applicable to the brows, except where the ends and stalks of the tender branches were tied together with a Jemnisc or riband. And there be yet who contend for the Alexandrian Laurel, and the Tinus, as more ductile, but without any good evidence, Pliny, I find, says nothing of this question, naming only the Cyprian Delphic; besides, the figure, colour of the rind, and leaf crackling in the fire, which it impugns, (as it is said it does lightning.) gives plainly the honour of it to the common Bay. ! Publica victrices testantur gaudia charte. MART. ™ Martia laurigera cuspide pila virent. Ib, CHAP. V. 98 A DISCOURSE CELA YP. V1. Of FENCES, QUICKSETS, &. BOOK II. Orr inain plantation is now finished, and our forest adorned with a —y~ just variety: but what is yet all this labour, but loss of time and irre- parable expense, unless our young and (as yet) tender plants be suffi- ciently guarded with munitions from all external injuries? For, as old ‘Tusser, if cattle or concep map enter to crop, Poung Oak ts in Danger of losing his top. But with something a more polished style, though to the same pur- pose, the best of poets ; Texendz sepes etiam, et pecus omne tenendum est : Precipué dum frons tenera, imprudensque laborum : Cui, super indignas hyemes, solemque potentem, Sylvestres uri assiduc, capreseque sequaces Illudunt ; Pascuntur oves, avideeque juvence. Frigora nec tantum cana concreta pruina, Aut gravis incumbens scopulis arentibus estas ; Quantum illi nocuere greges, durique venenum Dentis, et admorso signata in stirpe cicatrix. GEORG. il. Guard, too, from cattle thy new-planted ground, And infant-vines that ill can bear a wound : For not alone by winter’s chilling frost, Or summer’s scorching beam the young are lost ; But the wild buffaloes and greedy cows, And goats and sportive kids the branches browse ; Not piercing colds, nor Sirius’ beams that beat On the parch’d hills, and split their tops with heat, So deeply injure, as the nibbling flocks, That wound with venom’d teeth, the tender, fearful stocks. The reason that so many complain of the improsperous condition of their woodlands and plantations of this kind, proceeds from this neglect ; though, sheep excepted, there 1s no employment whatsoever incident to the farmer, which requires less expense to gratify his expectations ; one diligent and skilful man will govern five hundred acres: but if through any accident a beast shall break into his master’s field, or the wicked hunter make a gap for his dogs and horses, what a clamour is there made Fgé 29: 7: ea ag0 dae) ~ " s) Baan WEN Wp A ee SE Oe Ss) ISN \ l= 7 ma ——— ————— ] 4 i | = 7 g A < \y} y 2» yy y = A ss WN EGF ) \ SSS ? j Z ES { Y \ SS i 4 \}y Sie >) G77 WZ \vin ) lp : \ \\ by LL Mle AlX® ug? OF FOREST-TREES. 99 for the disturbance of a year’s crop at most in a little corn! whilst aban- doning his young woods all this time, and perhaps many years, to the venomous bitings and treading of cattle, and other like injuries, for want of due care, the detriment is many times irreparable; young trees once cropped, hardly ever recovering. It is the bane of all our most hopeful timber. But shall I provoke you by an instance? A kinsman of mine has a wood of more than sixty years’ standing; it was, before he purchased it, exposed and abandoned to the cattle for divers years; some of the outward skirts were nothing, save shrubs and miserable starvelings ; yet still the place was disposed to grow woody; but by this neglect, con- tinually suppressed. The industrious gentleman fenced in some acres of this, and cut all close to the ground; and it is come in eight or nine years to be better worth than the wood of sixty ; and will, in time, prove most incomparable timber; whilst the other part, so many years ad- vaneed, shall never recover; and all this from no other cause than pre- serving it fenced, Judge then, by this, how our woods come to be so decried ; are five hundred sheep worthy the care of a shepherd ? And are not five thousand Oaks worth the fencing, and the inspection of an hayward ? ‘ i Et dubitant homines serere, atque impendere curam ? GEORG, li And shall men doubt to plant, and careful be ? Let us, therefore, shut up what we have thus laboriously planted, with some good Quickset-hedge, The HAWTHORN. The HAW THORN‘? is raised of seeds ; but then it must not be with despair, because sometimes you do not see them peep the first year; for the * CRATAHGUS (oxyacantu4) foliis obtusis subtrifidis serratis, Lin. Sp. Pl. 683. COMMON WHITE-THORN. It is of the class and order Icosandria Digynia. The HAWTHORN, of all other Thorns, is the best calculated for forming a good fence ; and in all new inclosures is solely applied to that purpose. The plants should, at least, be three years old, with good roots, and put down in single rows, allowing four CHAP. VI. yy BOOK If. en 100 A DISCOURSE Haw, and many other seeds, being invested with a very hard integument, will now and then suffer imprisonment two whole years under the earth ; and our impatience at this does often frustrate the resurrection of divers seeds of this nature, so that we frequently dig up, and disturb the beds where they have been sown, in despair, before they have gone their full time, which is also the reason of a very popular mistake in other seeds, especially that of the Holly, concerning which there goes 4 tradition, that they will not sprout till they be passed through the maw ofa thrush ; whence the saying, T'urdus exitium suum cacat ; (alluding to the viscus made thereof ;) but this is an error, as I am able to testify on experience. They come up very well of the berries, treated as I have shewed in book i. chap. xxi. and with patience: for as I affirmed, they will sleep sometimes two entire years in their graves; as will also the seeds of Yew, Sloe, Phillyrea Angustifolia, and sundry others, whose shells are very hard about the small kernels ; but which is wonderfully facilitated by being, as we directed, prepared in beds, and magazines of earth or sand, for a competent time, and then committed to the ground before the full in March ; by which season they will be chitting, and speedily take root.. Others bury them deep in the ground all winter, and sow them in February: and thus I have been told of a gentleman who has considerably improved his revenue, by sowing Haws only, and raising nurseries of Quicksets, which he sells by the hundred far and near: this is a commendable industry. But Columella has another expedient for the raismg of our Spinetum, by rubbing the now mature Hips and Haws, Ashen-keys, &c. into the crevices of bass-ropes, or wisps of straw, and then burying them in a trench. Whether way you attempt it, they must (so soon as they peep, inches between each plant. Such a hedge, if properly attended to, will in six years be proof against sheep and cattle ; but if neglected for the first two years, ea if the land be poor, much art will be required to form it afterwards into a good fence. Quickset hedges are of great antiquity. It appears from Homer, that, when Ulysses retarned to his father Laértes, the good old man had sent his servants into the woods to gather young thorns, and was occupied himself in preparing ground to receive them. Odyssey, lib. xxiv. Varro calls this sort of fence, Tutela naturalis et viva. And Columella prefers it before the structile one, or dead hedge, as being more lasting and less expensive. Velustissimi auctores vivam sepem structili pretulerunt, quia non solum minorem impensam dest= deraret, verum etiam diulurnior immensis temporibus permaneret. De R. R. lib. xi. _OF FOREST-TREES. 101 and as long as they require it) be sedulously cleansed of the weeds; which, if in beds for transplantation, had need be, at the least, three or four years; by which time even your seedlings will be of stature fit to remove: for I do by no means approve of the vulgar premature plant- ing of sets, as is generally used throughout England; which is to take such only, as are the very smallest, and so to crowd them into three or four files, which are both egregious mistakes. Whereas it is found by constant experience, that plants as big as one’s thumb, set in the posture, and at the distance which we spake of in the Hornbeam, that is, almost perpendicular, (not altogether, because the rain should not get in betwixt the rind and wood,) and single, or at most not exceeding a double row, do prosper infinitely, and much out-strip the densest and closest ranges of our trifling sets which make but weak shoots, and whose roots do but hinder each other, and for being couched in that posture, on the sides of banks and fences, (especially where the earth is not very tenacious,) are bared of the mould which should enter- tain them, by that time the rains and storms of one winter have passed over them. In Holland and Flanders (where they have the goodliest hedges of this kind about the counterscarps of their invincible fortifica- tions, to the great security of their musketeers upon occasion) they plant them according to my description, and raise fences so speedily, and so impenetrable, that our best are not to enter into the comparison. Yet that I may not be wanting to direct such as either affect the other way, or whose grounds may require some bank of earth, as ordinarily the verges of copses, and other enclosures do, you shall by line cast up your foss of about three feet broad, and about the same depth, provided your mould hold out: beginning first to turn the turf, upon which be careful to lay some of the best earth to bed your quick in, and there lay or set the plants, two in a foot space is sufficient ; being diligent to procure such as are fresh gathered, straight, smooth, and well-rooted ; adding now and then, at equal spaces of twenty or thirty feet, a young Oakling or Elm- sucker, Ash, or the like, which will come in time, especially in plain countries, to be ornamental standards, and good timber. If you will needs multiply your rows, a foot, or somewhat less, above that, upon more congested mould, plant another rank of sets, so as to point just in the middle of the vacuities of the first, which I conceive enough: this is but for the single foss; but if you would fortify it to the purpose, do Volume II. O CHAP. VI. a a ai BOOK II. aa 102 A DISCOURSE as much on the other side, of the same depth, height, and planting ; and - then, last of all, cap the top in pyramis with the worst, or bottom of the ditch. Some, if the mould be good, plant a row or two on the hedge, or very crest of the mound, which ought to be a little flattened. Here also many set their dry hedge ; for hedges must be hedged till they are able to defend and shade their under plantation, and I cannot reprove it: but great care is to be had in this work, that the main bank be well footed, and not made with too sudden a declivity, which is subject to fall in after frosts and wet weather, and this is good husbandry for moist grounds; but where the land lies high, and is hot and gravelly, I pre- fer the lower fencing ; which, though even with the area itself, may be protected with stakes and a dry hedge on the foss-side, the distance competent, and to very good PUNPOSES of educating more frequent tim- ber amongst the rows. Your hedge being yet young, should be constantly weeded two or three years, especially before Midsummer, of Brambles, the great Dock, Thistle, &c. though some admit not of this work till after Michaelmas, for reasons that I approve not. It has been the practice of Hereford- shire, in the plantation of quickset-hedges, to plant a Crab-stock at every twenty feet distance; and this they observe so religiously, as if they had been under some rigorous statute requiring it: and by this means they were provided in a short time with all advantages for the eraffing of fruit amongst them, which does highly recompense their in- dustry. Some cut their sets at three years’ growth, even to the very ground, and find that in a year or two they will have shot as much as in seven, had they been let alone. When your hedge is now of near six years’ stature, plash it about February or October; but this is the work of a very dexterous and skilful husbandman ; and for which our honest countryman, Mr. Markham, gives excellent directions; only I approve not so well of his deep cut- ting the stems, if it be possible to bend them, having suffered in some- thing of that kind. It is almost incredible to what perfection some have laid these hedges, by the rural way of plashing, better than by clipping ; yet may both be used for ornament, as where they are planted about our garden-fences, and fields near the mansion. In Scotland, by tying the young shoots with bands of hay, they make the stems grow so very close OF FOREST-TREES. 103 together, as that it encloseth rabbits in warrens instead of pales: and for this robust use we shall prefer the Black Thorn; the extravagant suckers, which are apt to rise at a distance from the hedge-line, being sedulously extirpated, that the rest may grow the stronger and thicker. And now since I did mention it, and that most I find do greatly affect the vulgar way of quicking, (that this our Discourse being in nothing deficient,) we will in brief give it you again after George Markham’s description, because it is the best and most accurate, although much re- sembling our former direction, of which it seems but a repetition, till he comes to the plashing. In ground which is more dry than wet, (for watery places it abhors,) plant your quick thus: let the first rows of sets be placed in a trench of about half a foot deep, even with the top of your ditch, in somewhat a sloping or inclining posture; then having raised your bank near a foot upon them, plant another row, so as their tops may just peep out over the middle of the spaces of your first row: these covered again to the height or thickness of the other, place a third rank opposite to the first, and then finish your bank to its intended height. The distances of the plants should not be above one foot; and the season to do the work in, may be from the entry of February till the end of March, or else in September to the beginning of December. When this is finished, you must guard both the top of your bank, and outmost verge of your ditch, with a sufficient dry hedge, interwoven from stake to stake into the earth, which commonly they do on the bank, to secure your quick from the spoil of cattle. And then being careful to repair such as decay, or do not spring, by supplying the dead and trimming the rest, you shall, after three years’ growth, sprinkle some trees amongst them, such as Oak, Beech, Ash, Maple, Fruit, and the like; which being drawn young out of your nurseries, may be very easily inserted. T am not in the mean time ignorant of what is said against the scat- tering these masts and keys among our fences; which grown, over-top the subnascent hedge, and prejudice it with their shade and drip. But this might be prevented by planting Hollies, proof against these impedi- ments, in the line or trench where you would raise standards, as far as they usually spread in many years, and which, if placed at good distances, how close soever to the stem, would, besides their stout defence, prove a wondrous decoration to large and ample enclosures. But to resume 02 - CHAP. VI. aa 7 BOOK II. P\y ee 104 A DISCOURSE our former work. That which we affirmed to require the greatest dexterity, is the artificial plashing of our hedge, when it is arrived to a six or seven years’ head; though some stay till the tenth, or longer. In February therefore, or October, with a very sharp hand-bill, cut away all superfluous sprays and stragglers, which may hinder your progress, and are useless. Then searching out the principal stems, with a keen and light hatchet cut them slantwise, close to the ground, hardly three quarters through, or rather so far only as till you can make them comply handsomely, which is your best direction, lest you rift the stem, and so lay it from your sloping as you go, folding in the lesser branches which spring from them; and ever within five or six feet distance, where you find an upright set, (cutting off only the top to the height of your intended hedge,) let it stand as a stake, to fortify your work, and to receive the twinings of those branches about it. Lastly, at the top (which should be about five feet above ground) take the longest, most slender, and flexible twigs which you reserved, and (being cut as the former, where need requires) bind in the extremities of all the rest; and thus your work is finished. 'This being done very close and thick, makes an impregnable hedge in a few years ; for it may be repeated as you see occasion ; and what you so cut away will help to make your dry hedges for your young plantations, or be profitable for the oven, and make good bavin. There are some yet who would have no stakes cut from the trees, save here and there one, so as to leave half the head naked, and the other standinv ; but the over-hanging boughs will kill what is under them, and ruin the tree; so pernicious is this half-topping ; let this be a total amputation for a new and lusty spring. There is nothing more prejudicial to subnascent young trees, than, when newly trimmed and pruned, to have their (as yet raw) wounds poisoned with continual dripping, as is well observed by Mr. Nourse; but this is meant of repairing decayed hedges. For stakes in the above work, Oak is to be preferred, though some will use Elder, but it is not good, or the Black Thorn and Crab-tree; in moorish ground, Withy, Ash, Maple, and Hasel, but not lasting, driven well in at every yard of interval both before and after they are bound, till they have taken the hard earth, and are very fast; and even your — plashed hedges need some small thorns to be laid over to protect the spring from cattle and sheep, till they are somewhat fortified, and the doubler the winding is lodged the better, which should be beaten, and forced down together with the stakes, as equally as may be. Note, that _ OF FOREST-TREES. 105 m sloping your windings, if it be too low done, as very usually, it frequently mortifies the tops; therefore it ought to be so bent as it may not impede the mounting of the sap. If the plash be of a great and extraordinary age, wind it at the nether boughs altogether, and cutting the sets, as directed, permit it rather to hang downwards a little, than rise too forwards ; and then twist the branches into the work, leaving a set free, and unconstrained at every yard space, besides such as will serve for stakes, abated to about five feet in length, (which is a compe- tent stature for an hedge,) and so let it stand. One shall often find in this work, especially in old neglected hedges, some great trees or stubs that commonly make gaps for cattle; such should be cut so near the earth as till you can lay them thwart, that the top of one may rest on the root or stub of the other, as far as they extend, stopping the cavities with its boughs and branches; and thus hedges, which seem to consist but only of scrubby trees and stumps, may be reduced to a tolerable fence: but in case it be superannuated and very old, it is advisable to stub all up, being quite renewed and well guarded. We have been the longer on these descriptions, because it is of main importance, and that so few husbandmen are so perfectly skilled in it: but he that would be more fully satisfied, I would have him consult Mr. Cook, chap. xxxii. or rather, Instar omnium, what I cannot without injury to the public, and ingratitude to the persons who do me the honour of imparting to me their experiences, but freely communicate. It is then from the Reverend Mr. Walker, of Great Billing, near Northampton, that (with several other particulars relating to our rural subject) I receive from that worthy gentleman, Thomas Franklin, of Kcton, Esq. the following method of planting and fencing with quick- sets, which we give you in his own words: «« About ten or twelve years since I made some essays to set some “little clumps of hedges and trees of about two poles in breadth, and “ three in length; the outfences ditched on the outside, but the quick- “ sets in the inside of the bank, that the dead hedges might stand on the “ outside thereof; so that a small hedge of eighteen or twenty inches “high, made of small wood, the stakes not much bigger than a man’s “ thumb, the banks being high, sufficiently defended them for four years’ “ time, and were hedged with less than one load of shreddings of Willow- CHAP. VI. easy ee BOOK IL. ‘ ——~ ——e,/ 106 A DISCOURSE “ sets, which, as my workmen told me, would have required six load “ of copse-wood: but the next year after their being planted, finding “ waste ground on the top of the bank of the outer fences, between the « dead hedge and the quick, I put a footset in the same space between “the quick and the dead hedge, which prospered better than those planted in the side of the bank, after the vulgar way, and hold it still. “ This put me upon thinking, that a cheaper and better sort of quick- “ fence might possibly be found out ; and accordingly I made some trials “ with good success, (at least better than the old way,) though not tomy “ full satisfaction, till I had perused Mr. Evelyn’s Silva. The method “ T used was this: first, I set out the ground for ditches and quick, in “ breadth ten feet ; then subdivided that, by marking out two feet and «a half on each side (more or less, at pleasure) for the ditches, leaving “ five in the middle between them: then digging up two feet in the midst “ of that five feet, plant the sets in; though it require more labour and “ charge, I found it soon repaid the cost. This done, I began to dig « the fosses, and to set up one row of turfs on the outside of the said five “ feet; namely, one row on each side thereof, the green side outmost “a little reclining, so as the grass might grow: after this, returning to « the place begun at, I ordered one of the men to dig a spit of the under “ turf-mould, and lay it between the turfs, placed edgewise, as before « described, upon the two feet which was purposely dug in the middle, “ and prepared for the sets, which the planter sets with two quicks upon “ the surface of the earth, almost upright, whilst another workman lays ‘“ the mould forward about twelve inches, and then sets two more, and “ s9 continues. Some there are who plant three rows of sets about “ eight inches interval; but I do not approve it, for they choke one “another. ‘This finished, I order another row of turfs to be placed on “each side upon the top of the former, and fill the vacuity between the “ sets and the turfs, as high as their tops, always leaving the middle, “ where the sets are planted, hollow, and somewhat lower than the sides « of the banks by eight or ten inches, that the rain may descend to their “ roots, which is of great advantage to their growth, and far better than “by the old way ; where the banks run too much sloping, the roots “of the sets are seldom wetted in an ordinary season, the summer “following; but which, if it prove dry, many of the sets perish, « especially the late planted: whereas those which I planted in the “ latter end of April, though the summer happened to be somewhat dry, OF FOREST-TREES. 107 « generally escaped, very few of them miscarrying. Now the planting cuap. VI. “ thus advanced, the next care is fencing, which is performed by setting “an hedge of about twenty inches high upon the top of the bank, on “ each side thereof, leaning a little outward from the sets, which will “ protect them as well, if not better, than an hedge of three feet, or four “ inches more, standing upon the surface of the ground, which being “ raised with the turfs and sods about twenty inches, and the hedge “‘ about twenty inches more, will make three feet four inches, so as no “ cattle can approach the dead hedge to prejudice it, unless they set their * feet in the ditch itself; which will be at least a foot deep, and from the “ bottom of the foss to the top of the hedge, about four feet and a half, “ which they can hardly reach over to crop the quick, as they might in “ the old way ; and besides, such an hedge will endure a year longer.— “ T have at this present time an hedge which has stood these five years ; « and though nine or ten feet be sufficient for both ditches and bank, yet “where the ground is but indifferent, it is better husbandry to take “ twelve feet, which will allow of a bank at least six feet broad, and “ gives more scope to place the dead hedges farther from the sets; and “ the ditches being shallow, will, in two years’ time, graze, though I con- “ fine myself for the most part to nine or ten, because I would take off “ the only objection of wasting ground by this way, should others follow “it. In reply to this, I affirm, That if you take twelve feet in breadth, “ for ditch and ‘bank, you waste more ground than by the common way : “for in that a quick is rarely set, but there is nine feet between the “ dead hedges, which is entirely lost all the time of fencing: when as “ with double ditches, there remains at least eighteen inches on each “ side where the turfs were set on edge, that bear more grass than when “it lay on the flat. But admitting it did totally lay waste three feet “ of ground, the damage were very inconsiderable, since forty perches, “in length two hundred and twenty yards, which make perches “7, 25’, 9’, or 74 poles, at thirteen shillings and fourpence the acre, “amounts not to 74d. per ann. Now that this is not only the best but “ cheapest way of quick-setting, will appear by comparing the charge “ of both. In the usual way, the charge of a three feet ditch is fourpence “per pole, the owner providing sets; if the workman finds them, he “ will have for making the said ditch, and setting them, eightpence the “ pole, and for hedging, twopence; that is, for both sides fourpence the “ pole, which renders the charge of hedging, ditching, and sets, twelve- a a ed B OOK II. ai od 108 A DISCOURSE “ nence the pole; that is, for forty rods in length, forty shillings: then “ one load of wood out of the copse costs us, with the carriage, (though “ but two or three miles distance,) ten shillings, which will seldom hedge “ above eight poles (single hedge.) But allowing it to do ten, to fence “ forty poles there must be at least eight load of wood, which costs four * pounds, making the whole expense of ditching, setting, and fencing, “ of forty poles to be six pounds, reckoning with the least; for I know not “ any that will undertake to do it under three shillings and sixpence per “pole, and then the forty poles cost seven pounds. Whereas with “ double ditches, both of them, setting and sets, will be done for eight- “pence per pole, and the husbandman get as good wages as with “a single ditch, (for though the labour about them is more, yet the “ making the table is saved,) which costs one pound six shillings and “eightpence. And the hedges being but low, they will make better “ wages at hedging for a penny the pole, than at twopence for common “ hedges ; which comes to six shillings and eightpence for hedging forty “poles on both sides: thus one load of wood will fence thirty poles “at least, and forty hedged with two-thirds of wood less than in the “ other way, and cost but one pound, six shillings and eightpence ; which “ makes the whole charge of sets, ditching, fencing, and wood, but three “ pounds.” £. 8s. d. LL O48 0 6 8 I 46.8 £3 00 Hitherto this obliging and industrious gentleman. To other uses :—The root of an old Thorn is excellent both for boxes and combs, and is curiously and naturally wrought: I have read that they made ribs to some small boats or vessels with the White Thorn ; and it is certain, that if they were planted single, and in standards, where they might be safe, they would rise into large bodied trees in time, and be of excellent use for the turner, not inferior to Box. It was accounted among the fortunate trees, and therefore used in Fusces OF FOREST-TREES. 109 Nuptiarum, since the jolly shepherds carried the White Thorn at the CHAP. VI. rape of the Sabines. a ia The distilled water, and stone or kernels of the Hawreduced to powder, is generally agreed to be sovereign against the stone. The Black Crab, rightly seasoned and treated, is famous for walking-staves, and if over- grown, is used in mill-work ; yea, and for rafters of great ships. Here we owe due eulogy to the industry of the late Lord Shaftesbury, who has taught us to make such enclosures of Crab-stocks only, planted close to one another, as there is nothing more impregnable or becoming, or you may sow cider-kernels in a rill, and fence it for a while with a double dry hedge, not only for a sudden and beautiful, but a very profitable enclosure ; because, amongst other benefits, they will yield you Cider- fruit in abundance, But in Devonshire they build two walls with their stones, setting them edgeways, two, and then one between; and so as it rises, fill the interval, or coffer, with earth, (the breadth and height as you please,) continuing the stone-work, and filling ; and, as you work, beating in the stones flat to the sides, they are made to stick everlast- ingly. This is absolutely the neatest, most saving, and profitable fencing imaginable, where slaty stones are in any abundance; and it becomes not only the most secure to the lands, but the best for cattle, to lie warm under the walls ; whilst other hedges, be they ever so thick, admit of some cold winds in winter-time when the leaves are off. Upon these banks they plant not only quicksets, but even Timber-trees, which exceedingly thrive, being out of all danger. The PYRACANTHA, and PALIURUS. The PYRACANTHA °, PALIURUS ?, and like preciouser sorts of Thorn and robust Evergreens adorned with Caralin Berries, might easily ° MESPILUS (PyracanTuHA ) spinosa, foliis lanceolato-ovatis crenatis, calycibus fructus obtusis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 685. PRIcKLY MEDLAR, called pyracaNTHA. It is of the class and order Icosandria Pentagynia. This plant being of a flexible nature, it is usually nailed to the wall, in which situation it shews its berries to great advantage. ’ P RHAMNUS (recrurvus) aculeis geminatis: inferiore reflexo, floribus trigynis.—Lin. Sp. Pl. 281. Curist’s THORN. It is of the class and order Pentandria Monogynia. The PALIURUS is supposed to be the plant that composed the crown that was placed Volume IT. P BOOK 108 a 110 A DISCOURSE be propagated by seeds, layers, or cuttings, into plenty sufficient to store even these vulgar uses, were men industrious; and then how beautiful and sweet would the environs of our fields be! for there are none of the spinous shrubs more hardy, none that make a more glorious show, nor fitter for our defence, competently armed, especially the Rhamnus, which I therefore join to the Oxycantha, for its terrible and almost irresistible spines, able almost to pierce a coat of mail; and for this made use of by the malicious Jews, to crown the sacred temples of our blessed Saviour, and is yet preserved among the most venerable relics in St. Chapel at Paris, as is pretended by the devotees, &c. and hence has the tree (for it sometimes exceeds a shrub) the name of Christ's Thorn.— upon the head of Christ at his crucifixion; but Dr. Haselquist, who had great oppor- tunities of examining the plants of the Holy Land, is of opinion that it was a species of Zizyphus, which grows in great plenty in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. It is a very thorny plant, and is called by Linneus, Rhamnus aculeis geminatis rectis, foliis ovatis. Sp. Pl. 282. The learned Dr. Pearce, late Lord Bishop of Rochester, sees the whole of this transaction in a very different light. And as his own words will best explain his opinion, I shall here transcribe them from his most excellent work, intitled, ‘ A Com-° mentary upon the Four Evangelists.’ “ The axavéwy may as well be the plural genitive “case of the word axavOws as of axavOy: if of the latter, it is rightly translated of Thorns, « but the former word signifies what we call Bear’s-foot, and the French Branche Ursine.— «‘ This is not of the thorny kind of plants, but is soft and smooth. Virgil calls it Mollis « Acanthus (Eccl. iii. 45, and Georg. iv. 137): so does Pliny, Sec. Epist. v. 6, and Pliny the «elder, in his Nat. Hist. xxii. 22, (p. 277, Edit. Hard. fol.) says that it is Jevis, smooth, and «that itis one of those plants which are cultivated in gardens. I have somewhere read, “ (but cannot at present recollect where,) that this soft and smooth herb was very common «jin and about Jerusalem. I find nothing in the New Testament said concerning this “ crown which Pilate’s soldiers put upon the head of Jesus, to incline one to think that ‘it was made of thorns, and intended (as is usually supposed) to put him to pain. The ‘reed put into his hand, and the scarlet robe on his back, were only meant as marks “‘ of mockery and contempt. One may also reasonably judge by the soldiers being said “to plait this crown, that it was not composed of such twigs and leaves as were of a “ thorny nature. I do not find that if is mentioned by any one of the primitive Christian “ writers, as an instance of the cruelty used towards our Saviour before he was led to his * crucifixion, till the time of Tertullian, who lived after Jesus’s death at the distance of «< above one hundred and sixty years. He indeed seems to have understood axay§wy in the “sense of thorns, and says, De coron. milit. Sect. xiv. (Edit. Pomel. Franck. 1597.) quale, “oro te, Jesus Christus serlum pro utraque sexu subiil? Ex spinis, opinor, et tribulis. The “total silence of Polycarp, Barnabas, Clem. Romanus, and all the other Christian writers, «« whose works are now extant, and who wrote before Tertullian, in this particular, will give “some weight to incline one to think that this crown was not plaited with thorns.”’— Vol. I. p. 196, Ed. 1777. OF FOREST-TREES. 111 Thus might Barberries now and then be also inserted among our hedges, CHAP. VI. which with the Hips, Haws, and Cornel-Berries, do well in light lands, “7 and should rather be planted to the south than north of west, as usually we observe them. Some, as we noted, mingle their very hedges with Oaklings, Ash, and Fruit-trees, sown or planted, and it is a laudable improvement ; though others do rather recommend to us sets of all one sort, and will not so much as admit of the Black Thorn to be mingled with the White, beeause of their unequal progress; and, indeed, timber-trees set in the hedge (though contemporaries with it) do frequently wear it out: _and therefore I should rather encourage such plantations to be at some yards distance, near the verges, than perpendicularly in them. Lastly, if in planting any of the most robust forest-trees (especially Oak, Elm, Chestnut,) at competent spaces, and in rows, you open a ring of ground -at about four feet distance from the stem, and prick in quickset plants, you may, after a while, keep them clipped, at what height you please :— they will appear exceedingly beautiful to the eye, prove a good fence, and yield useful bush, bavin, and (if you maintain them unshorn) Hips and Haws in abundance; this should, therefore, especially be practised, where one would invite the birds. In Cornwall they secure their lands and woods with high mounds, and on them they plant acorns, whose roots bind in the looser mould, and so form a double and most durable fence, encircling the fields with a coronet of trees. ‘They do likewise, and that with great commendation, make hedges of our Genista Spinosa, prickly Furze, of which they have a taller sort, such as the French employ for the same purpose in Bre- tagne, where they are incomparable husbands. FURZE. FURZE ° is to be sown (which is best) or planted of the roots in a furrow: if sown, weed till it be strong; both tonsile, and to be ee Sa @..w»8»aVWwoWwMNM—aRr’}n9ww0>0.0NMNMNDND0.0.— as 4 ULEX (£uRoPUS ) foliis villosis acutis, spinis sparsis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 1045. Commow FURZE. It is of the class and order Diadelphia Decandria. Mr. Evelyn very warmly recommends this shrub not only for hedges, but for fodder P 2 BOOK II. tye 112 A DISCOURSE diligently clipped, which will render it a very thick, excellent, and beau- tiful hedge ; otherwise permitted to grow at large, it will yield very good faggot: it is likewise admirable covert for wild fowl, and will be made to grow even in moist as well as dry places. The young and tender tops of Furze, being a little bruised, and given to a lean, sickly horse, will strangely recover and plump him. ‘Thus, in some places, when they lay down their barren grounds, they sow the last crop with this seed, and so let them remain till they break them up again, and during that interim, reap considerable advantage: would you believe (writes a worthy correspondent of mine) that in Herefordshire, famous for plenty of wood, their thickets of Furzes, viz. the Vulgar, should yield them more profit than a like quantity of the best wheat-land of England? for such is theirs. If this be questioned, the scene is within a mile of Hereford, and proved by anniversary experience, in the lands, as I take it, of a gentleman who is ‘now one of the burgesses for that city—And in Devonshire (the seat of the best husbands in the world) they sow on their worst land, well ploughed, the seeds of the rankest Furzes, which, in four or five years, become a rich wood; no provender, as we say, makes horses so hardy as the young tops of these Furzes ; no other wood so thick, nor more excellent fuel; and for some purposes also, yielding them a kind of timber to their more humble buildings, and a great refuge for fowl and other game. I am assured in Bretagne it is sometimes sown no less than twelve yards thick, for a speedy, profitable, and impenetrable mound : if we imitated this husbandry in the dry and hot barren places of Surry, and other parts of this nation, we might exceedingly spare our woods. I have bought the best sort of French to cattle in winter. In his days it seems to have been a favourite plant for those uses— Mons. Duhamel, in his Elements of Agriculture, speaks much in its favour as winter provender for cattle. “In Normandy and Bretagne, at the beginning of winter, when «the grass fails, they cut the young shoots of this plant to supply the place of fodder ; the «first cutting is in December; but in good soils it shoots again, and may be continued “cutting without permitting it to blossom, because the prickles are then tender, and a few «¢ strokes of the mallet are sufficient to prepare it as food for horses or other cattle, which «derive good nourishment from it. In countries where they have mills to grind apples, “or seeds from which oils are expressed, these serve to grind the furze with great expe- “dition.” Vol. II. p. 124. From a Memoir inserted in the fourth volume of the “ Present State of Husbandry in Scotland,” it appears that in the county of Aberdeen, they make use of bruised whins for winter fodder, and find them to answer well both for horses and oxen. OF FOREST-TREES. 113 seed at the shops in London. It seems that in the more eastern parts of Germany, and especially in Poland, this vulgar trifle, and even our common Broom is so rare, that they have desired the seeds of them out of England, and preserve them with extraordinary care in their best gardens. ‘This I learn out of our Johnson’s Herbal; by which we may consider, that what is reputed a curse, and a cumber in one place, is often esteemed an ornament and blessing in another: but we shall not need go so far for this, since both Beech and Birch are almost as great strangers in many parts of this nation, particularly Northampton and Oxfordshire. Mr. Cook says much in praise of Juniper for hedges, especially for the more elegant enclosures. BROOM. GENISTA SCOPARIA‘’. BROOM. This is another improvement for barren grounds, and saver of more substantial fuel: it may be sown English, or (what is more sweet and beautiful) Spanish, with equal success. In the western parts of France, and with us in Cornwall, it grows to an incredible height, (however our poet gives it the epithet of Humilis,) and so it seems they had it of old, as appears by Gratius’s Genistz Altinates, with which, as he affirms, they used to make staves for their spears and hunting-darts. The seeds of Broom vomit and purge, whilst the buds and flowers, being pickled, are very grateful. ELDE R. SAMBUCUS*. The ELDER. This makes a considerable fence, if set of reasonable lusty truncheons, much like the Willow, and (as I have seen them maintained) laid with great curiosity ; these far excel * SPARTIUM (scoparivm) foliis ternatis solitariisque, ramis inermibus angulatis.— Lin. Sp. Pl. 997. Common enctisu Broom, It is of the class and order Diadelphia Decandria. CHAP. VI. Saye s SAMBUCUS (nieRré) cymis quinquepartitis, caule arboreo, Lin. Sp. Pl. 385— Common Exper. It is of the class and order Pentandria Trigynia. BOOK II. ee * De Aeris Potestate. 114 A DISCOURSE those extravagant plantations of them about London, where the lops are permitted to grow without due and skilful laying. There is a sort of Elder which has hardly any pith ; this makes exceedingly stout fences, and the timber very useful for cogs of mills, butchers’ skewers, and such tough employments. Old trees do in time become firm, and close up the hollowness to an almost invisible pith. But if the medicinal properties of the leaves, bark, berries, &c. were thoroughly known, I cannot tell what our countrymen could ail, for which they might not fetch a remedy from every hedge, either for sickness or wound: the inner bark of Elder, applied to any burning, takes out the fire immediately : that, or in season, the buds, boiled in water-gruel for a breakfast, has effected wonders in a fever; and the decoction is admirable to assuage inflammations and tetterous humours, and especially the scorbut: but an extract, or theriaca, (so famous in the poem of Nicander,) may be composed of the berries, which is not only efficacious to eradicate this epidemical incon- venience, and greatly to assist longevity, but is a kind of catholicon against all infirmities whatever: and of the same berries is made an incomparable spirit, which drunk by itself, or mingled with wine, is not only an excellent drink, but admirable in the dropsy. In a word, the water of the leaves and berries is approved in the dropsy, every part of the tree being useful, as may be seen at large in Blocwitzius’s Anatomy thereof*, The ointment made with the young buds and leaves in May, with butter, is most sovereign for aches, shrunk sinews, hemorrhoids, &e. and the flowers macerated in vinegar, not only are of a grateful relish, but good to attenuate and cut raw and gross humours. Lastly, the fungus, (which we call Jews’-Ears,) decocted in milk, or macerated in vinegar, is of known effect in the angina and sores of the throat. And less than this I could not say (with the leave of the charitable physician) to gratify our poor woodman; and yet when I have said all this, I do by no means commend the scent of it, which is very noxious to the air ; and therefore though I do not undertake that all things which sweeten the air are salubrious, nor all ill savours pernicious, yet, as not for its beauty, so neither for its smell, would I plant Elder near my habitation ; since we learn from Biesius *, that a certain house in Spain, seated among many Elder-trees, diseased and killed almost all the inhabitants, which when t Anatomia Sambuci. Lipsiz, 1631. OF FOREST-TREES. 115 at last they were grubbed up, became a very wholesome and healthy CHAP. VI. place. The Elder does likewise produce a certain green fly, almost “~ Y ~*~ invisible, which is exceedingly troublesome, and gathers a fiery redness where it attacks. SPINDLE-TREE. EVONYMUS* SPINDLE-TREE. This is a shrub which com- monly grows in our hedges, and bears a very hard wood, of which they sometimes make bowls for viols, and the inlayer uses it for its colour, and instrument-makers for toothing of organs, and virginal keys *, tooth- pickers, &c. What we else do with it I know not, save that (according to its name abroad) they make spindles with it. I also learn, that three or four of the berries purge both by vomit and siege, and the powder, made of the berry, being baked, kills nits, and cures scurfy heads. Matthiolus says, the poor people about Trent press oil out of the berries, wherewith to feed their lamps: but why they were wont to scourge parricides with rods made of this shrub, before they put them into the sack, see Modestinus, L. penult. SS. ad Legem Pomp. de Parricid. cited by Mr. Ray. DOGWOOD. Here might come in, or be named at least, WILD CORNEL’, or DOGW OOD, good to make mill-cogs, pestles, bobbins for bone-lace, _ spokes for wheels, &c. also the best skewers for butchers, because it does not taint the flesh, and is of so very hard a substance, as to make wedges to cleave and rive other wood with instead of iron. -* EVONYMUS (svropzus ) floribus plerisque quadrifidis. Lin, Sp. Pl. 286. Common SPINDLE-TREE. It is of the class and order Pentandria Monogynia. There is also an evergreen Spindle-tree, which is a native of America. Linneus titles it Evonymus floribus omnibus quinquefidis. Sp. Pl. 286, x In a note upon p. 55, Vol. II. Mr. Evelyn mentions the wrginals as a musical instru- ment, played on by young ladies in his time. It was much like the harpsichord, and played upon by the fingers. Y CORNUS (savcuines) arborea, cymis nudis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 171. Brooprerwic, or common poGwoop. It is of the class and order Tetrandria Monogynia. BOOK II. a i 116 A DISCOURSE VIBURNUM. The VIBURNUM?’, or WAY-FARING TREE, growing plenti- fully in every corner, makes pins for the yokes of oxen: and supersti- tious people think that it protects their cattle from being bewitched, and place the shrub about their stalls: it certainly makes the most pliant and best bands to faggot with. 'The leaves and berries are astrin- gent, and make an excellent gargle for loose teeth, sore throats, and stop fluxes. ‘The leaves decocted to a lye, not only colour the hair black, but fasten the roots; and the bark of the root, macerated under ground, well beaten, and often boiled, serves for bird-lime. YUCCA. The AMERICAN YUCCA? is a hardier plant than we take it to be; for it will suffer our sharpest winter, as I have seen by experience, with- out that trouble and care of setting it in cases in our conservatories of hyemation; such as have beheld it in flower (which is not indeed till it be of some age) must needs admire the beauty of it ; and it being easily multiplied, why should it not make one of the best and most ornamental fences in the world for our gardens, with its natural palisadoes, as well as the more tender, and impatient of moisture, the Aloe, does for their vineyards in Languedoc? but we believe nothing improvable, save what our grandfathers taught us. Finally, let trial likewise be made of that Thorn, mentioned by captain Liggon in his History of Barbadoes, whe- ther it would not be made to grow amongst us, and prove as convenient z Of the VIBURNUM there are nine species; but what is here meant is the VIBUR- NUM (xanrana) foliis cordatis serratis venosis subtus tomentosis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 384. Wav-rarinG-TrEe. It is of the class and order Pentandria Trigynia. The Laurustinus is the only evergreen of this genus. 2 Of the YUCCA there are four species, and I imagine that the following is the kind re- commended by Mr. Evelyn: YUCCA (ezorvosa) foliis integerrimis. Lin. Sp. Pl. 456. Apam’s neepie. It is of the class and order Hexandria Monogynia. When carefully attended to, the Yucca may be made to grow in the open ground, but will not perfect its seed with us. It is a native of Canada. OF FOREST-TREES. 117 for fences as there, the seeds or sets being transported to us with due CHAP. VI. care.—Having thus accomplished what, by your commands, I had to offer Snr concerning the propagation of the more solid, material, and useful trees, as well the dry as aquatical, and, to the best of my talent, fenced our plantation in, I should here conclude, and set a bound likewise to my discourse, by making an apology for the many errors and impertinencies of it, did not the zeal and ambition of this illustrious Society, to promote and improve all attempts which may concern public utility or ornament, persuade me, that what I am adding for the farther encouragement to the planting of some other useful (though less vulgar) trees, will at least obtain your pardon, if it miss of your approbation °. FRUIT-TREES. To discourse in this style of all such Fruit-trees as would prove of greatest emolument to the whole nation, were to design a just volume ; and there are directions already so many, and so accurately delivered and published, (but which cannot be affirmed of any of the former classes of Forest-trees, and other remarks, at the least to my poor knowledge and research,) that it would be needless to repeat them. I do only wish (upon the prospect. and meditation of the universal benefit) that every person whatever, worth ten pounds per annum, within her Majesty’s dominions, were, by some indispensable statute, obliged to plant his hedge-rows with the best kinds of fruit-trees, especially in such places of the nation, as being the more inland counties, and remote from the seas and navigable rivers, might the better be excused from the planting of timber, to the proportion of those who are more happily and commodiously situated for the transportation of it. Undoubtedly, if this course were taken effectually, a very considerable part both of the meat and drink, which is spent to our prejudice, might be saved by the country people, even out of the hedges and mounds, which would afford them not only the pleasure and profit of their deli- cious fruit, but such abundance of cider and perry, as should suffice > This Discourse on Forest-trees was undertaken at the request of the Royal Society, in the year 1664, and greatly contributed to the reputation of that learned body. Volume II. Q BOOK fj. PR 118 A DISCOURSE them to drink of one of the most wholesome and excellent beverages in the world. Old Gerard did long since allege us an example worthy to be pur- sued: “I have seen,” saith he, (speaking of Apple-trees, lib. iii, cap. ci.) “in the pastures and hedge-rows about the grounds of a worshipful gen- “tleman, dwelling two miles from Hereford, called Mr. Roger Bodnome, “so many trees of all sorts, that the servants drink, for the most part, no “ other drink but that which is made of apples: the quantity is such, “that by the report of the gentleman himself, the parson hath for tithe “many hogsheads of cider; the hogs are fed with the fallings of them, “ which are so many, that they make choice of those apples they do eat, “and will not taste of any but of the best. An example, doubtless, to be * followed of gentlemen that have land and living: but Envy saith, the “poor will break down our hedges, and we shall have the least part of “the fruit. But forward; in the name of God, graff, set, plant, and “nourish up trees in every corner of your ground; the labour is small, “the cost is nothing, the commodity is great; yourselves shall have “plenty, the poor shall have somewhat in time of want, to relieve their “necessity, and God shall reward your good minds and diligence.” Thus far honest Gerard. And in truth, with how small a charge and in- finite pleasure this were to be effected, every one that is patron of a little nursery can easily calculate: for, by this expedient, many thousands of acres, sowed now yearly with barley, might be cultivated for wheat, or converted into pasture, to the increase of corn and cattle. Besides, the timber which the Pear-tree, Black Cherry, and many thorny Plums (which are best for grain, colour, and gloss) afford, is comparable, for divers curious uses, with any we have enumerated. The Black Cherry wood grows sometimes to that bulk as is fit to make stools with, cabinets, tables, especially the redder sort, which will polish well, also pipes and musical instruments; the very bark is employed for bee-hives. I would farther recommend the more frequent planting and propagation of Fir, Pine-trees, and some other beneficial materials, both for ornament and profit ; especially since we find by experience they thrive so well where they are cultivated for curiosity only. I have now finished my planting. A word or two concerning the pre- servation of the trees, and the cure of their infirmities, expect in the next chapter. 7 | OF FOREST-TREES. 119 CHAP. VII. Of the INFIRMITIES of TREES, &e. So many are the infirmities and sicknesses of trees‘, and indeed infirmities of the whole family of vegetables, that it were almost im- possible to enumerate and make a just catalogue of them, and as difficult to find such infallible cures and remedies as could be desired, the effects ¢ Vegetables cannot be supposed to be subject to infirmities, unless we allow them to be organized bodies, and endued with life. That they have life, may be proved from the following considerations: 1. Their Motion; 2. Anatomy; 3. Generation; 4. Age; 5. Diseases; 6. Death. 1. MOTION. It is evident that a dead body has no motion of its own; if therefore any body has spontaneous motion, it must also have life: for proper and internal motion in every body depends on the spontaneous propulsion of fluids, and where such a propul- sion of fluids is, there is life. That there is motion in plants, is apparent to every one; e. g. herbs in green-houses, or stoves, incline or turn towards the light. When shut up, if they find a hole in the wall, shutters, or frames, there they endeavour to penetrate. Several plants, especially those with compound yellow flowers, during the whole day turn their flowers toward the sun ; to wit, to the east in the morning, to the south at noon, and to the west toward evening; and this is observable in the sun-flower and other plants. I believe every body knows, that the greatest number of plants in a serene sky, expand their flowers, and as it were, with cheerful looks behold the light of the sun; but before rain they shut them up; e.g. the tulip. The flowers of the Draba Alpina, Alpine Whit- low Grass, the Parthenium foliis ovatis crenatis, Bastard Feverfew with egg-shaped, crenated leaves, and the T'rientalis, or Winter-green, hang down in the night, as if the plants were asleep, lest rain or the moist air should injure the fertilizing dust. The Trefoils, and one species of Wood-sorrel, shut up or double their leaves before storms and tempests, but in a serene sky expand or unfold them, so that from them the husbandman can pretty clearly foretel an approaching storm, And it is well known that the Bawhinia, or Mountain Ebony, sensitive plants, and Cassa, observe the same rule. The flowers of Goat’s Beard open in the morning at the approach of the sun, and shut about noon; hence it is called John-go-to-bed-at-noon. Parkinsonia, Tamarind-tree, A!schynomene, or Bastard Sensitive Plant, and several others of the Diadelphia class, in serene weather expand their leaves in the day-time, and contract them in the night. The Tamarind-tree is said, by Alpinus and Acosta, to enfold within its leaves the flowers or fruit every night, to guard them from cold or rain. This seemed like a paradox to Syenus and Ray: but the flower-stalk with the flower or fruit lies upon the winged leaves, from the bosom of which it springs ; hence it is, that while the leaves fold themselves up every night, they shut up or enclose the frue- tification within them. Some of the Mimosa, or sensitive plants, and the Oxalis, or Wood. sorrel with pinnated leaves, upon being touched, roll up their leaves, and turn downwards Q 2 CHAP. VIL. Sy BOOK II. a ad 120 A DISCOURSE arising from so many, and such different causes. Whenever, therefore, our trees and plants fail and come short of the fruit and productions we expect of them, (if the fault be not in our want of care,) it is certainly to be attributed to those infirmities to which all elementary things are ob- noxious, either from the nature of the things themselves, and in them- selves, or from some outward injury, not only through their being unskil- fully cultivated by men, and exposed to hurtful beasts, but subject to be or shrink, and after a little space extend them again, as if they had both life and sen- sation. As it cannot be denied, but that man, kept long from motion, grows pale and weak, so, on the other hand, it is a certain truth, that motion or exercise renders him florid, stout, and healthy: for exercise enlarges the limbs, as Avicenna rightly observes. Hence the rustic excels the courtier in strength of body and largeness of limbs, being used to much walking, and other exercise; and it is well known that the right hand of mechanics, and other people inured to labour, is, for the most part, bigger than the left. These obvious truths need no laboured demonstration. With plants it is the same. Those in stoves and green-houses, though they have sufficient heat and nourishment, are slender, weak, and lose the colour of their leaves, and seem to languish for want of motion: and trees, surrounded with high walls or buildings, and confined within narrow bounds, are slender, and grow tall, but not strong. Pines in very thick woods, where the high winds have not free access to shake them, grow tall and slender; while others planted in open fields, and frequently shaken by stormy winds, have not only.thick and ‘strong stems, but also strike deep root, and put out beautiful and spreading branches. 2. ANATOMY. Malpighi and Grew, unknown to each other, undertook the anatomy of plants nearly about the same time. Many things, however, have been found out since their days—and many things remain yet to be discovered. ‘ The general and obvious parts of a plant are five. The root; the stem; the branches ; the leaves ; the flower. The component parts of these divisions are simple in comparison to the animal body. The offices of a vegetable being only increase and fructification, there was no necessity for a complicated structure—A good microscrope discovers the con- stituent parts of a plant to be, 1. A very thin outer rind. 2. An inner rind much thicker than the former. 3. A blea, of a spongy texture. 4. A vascular series. 5. A fleshy substance, which answers to the wood of a tree, or shrub. 6. Pyramidal vessels contained within the fiesh. And 7. A pith—Whatever part of the plant we examine, we observe these, and no more. The root, its ascending stalk, and descending fibre, are one, and not three substances. This reduces the entire vegetable to one body; and what appears in the flower to be many parts, are only the extremities of the seven above-mentioned. The cup terminates the outer bark. The inner rind ends in the outer petals. The blea forms the inner petals. The vascular series ends in the nectaria. The flesh makes the filaments. The pyramidal vessels form the receptacle. The pith furnishes the seeds and their capsules. Words not being able to convey an adequate idea of these parts, I must beg leave to refer the reader to the engravings of Dr. Hill, as published in his Vegetable OF FOREST-TREES. 121 preyed upon and ruined by the most minute and despicable insects, besides other casualties and accidents innumerable, according to the rustic rhime : The calf, the wind-shock, and the knot, The canker, scab, scurf, sap, and rot. Whatsoever is exitial to men is so to trees ; for the aversion of which they System. His researches into the vegetable creation being very minute, I have followed him in the enumeration of the constituent parts of a plant. He justly recommends the Black Hellebore as the most proper subject for dissection. It is a perennial plant of a firm texture, and not too complex, consisting only of a root, radical leaves, and a flower-stem. A careful maceration of the parts, a good microscope, and a most delicate touch, are essentially necessary towards investigating the structure of vegetable bodies. Trees, shrubs, and herbs, are organized in the same manner; but the colour and thickness of their com- ponent parts are different, according to their respective natures, The outer bark is the first thing that presents itself to our view. It has the appearance of a fine film, full of irregular meshes, though in reality it consists of two membranes, with a series of vessels between them. These take their course upwards, and as they advance towards the cup of the flower, inosculate with the small vessels of the inner bark, into which they pour part of the juices they have received from the earth and the atmosphere. The fine meshes serve the purposes of inhalent or exhalent pores, according to the circum- stances of the weather. The inner bark is much thicker than the outer. It is made up of several flakes laid evenly upon one another, each of which consists of two membranes in- closing a series of vessels. These communicate freely through the whole substance of the yind, and as they inosculate with the vessels of the outer bark, so they also communicate with those of the blea. The blea lies immediately under the inner bark. It is one com- plete and single substance, uniform in its structure. It is of a considerable thickness, and is made up of beds of hexagonal cells. In the angles formed by these cells, we observe the vessels of the blea. They pour their contents into the cells, which appear to be reser- voirs for the water imbibed by the plant. Underneath the blea, lies the fourth substance, called the vascular series. Its structure is extremely simple, being a single course of greenish vessels lodged between two membranes. It terminates in the nectaria. Ata certain season of the year, the juices of the vascular series are very mucilaginous. They are particularly so in the Holly, and seem to be more elaborated than those of the blea. Its vessels have a free communication with the wood and blea. The favourers of a circula- tion assert that, through these vessels, the returning sap descends: but by the most accurate experiments of Dr. Hales, it appears that the vegetable juices do rise and fall in the same series of vessels, and consequently have no circulation. The wood, or fleshy part of a plant, comes next to be examined. In this the life of the vegetable seems to be placed. It is universal in the plant, and is made up of strong fibres. From it all the other parts are produced, It shoots a pith inward, and a rind, blea, and vas- CHAP. VII. i ad BOOK Ii. ee 122 A DISCOURSE had, of old, recourse to the Robigalia and other Gentile ceremonies: but no longer abused by charmers and superstitious fopperies, we have, in this chapter, endeavoured to set down and prescribe the best and most approved remedies hitherto found out, as well natural as artificial. And first, Weeds are to be diligently pulled up by hand after rain, cular series outward. The filaments in the flower, which are essential parts in the produc- tion of new plants, are continuations of it. And as the seed-vessels are portions of the pith, so are the petals and nectaria continuations of the rind, blea, and vascular series ; all which the plant shoots outward. Through every part of the wood, or flesh, there are vessels that carry a juice highly elaborated, the greatest part of which has undergone the concoction of the rinds, blea, and vascular series. The woody fibres constitute an order of vessels, which are named trachew. These are filled with elastic air, and may be dis- covered by the eye, in the wood of all trees. The trachee make up an arterial system, | and supply the place of the heart in animals. Being filled with air, they become subject to the alternacies of heat and cold. Their use shall be explained hereafter. The pyra- midal vessels are spread through all the substances of the flesh, and, as they advance upwards, their ramifications inosculate, so as to prevent any possible obstruction of the sap. Their juices, as I have observed, are highly elaborated, having passed through all the orders of sap-vessels. It will here be necessary to remark, that the sides of these vessels are con- stantly in contact with the trachez ; so that, from the nature of their situation, they must, at all times, be subject to the vicissitudes of the weather. The pyramidal vessels com- municate with the pith, which remains to be described. The pith is to be found in all trees, shrubs, and plants. It occupies the centre, but is not always regularly continued. When examined by a microscope, it has the appearance of a number of vesicles, and is of an uniform structure. It does not appear to be absolutely necessary to vegetation, as we often observe Elms, and other trees, to live and thrive without it. In trees, it is found in the branches, being obliterated in the trunk. The vessels of the flesh communicate with it. From them it receives a fluid; and probably it is the receptacle of some part of the sap. In extreme dry weather such a store may be necessary. Transverse sections of the ribs of leaves discover it. When minutely traced, it is found to run up to the ovarium, where it forms the seeds and their capsules. From this survey of the anatomy of a plant, it is evident that there is a correspondence between all its parts. By means of a variety of strainers, different juices are prepared from the same mass. Matter, considered as matter, has no share in the qualities of bodies. It is from the arrangement of it that we have so many different substances in nature. We may eat the earth, and we may drink the water that moistens it, and yet, from the modification of its parts, it is capable of producing both bread and poison. We reason improperly, when we say that every plant takes from the earth such particles as are natural to it. A lemon ingrafted upon an orange stock, is capable of changing the sap of the orange into its own nature, by a dif- ferent arrangement of the nutritive juices. A mass of innocent earth can give life and vigour to the bitter aloe, and to the sweet cane; to the cool house-leek, and to the fiery OF FOREST-TREES. 123 whilst your seedlings are very young, and till they come tobe able to kill CHAP. VII. them with shade and over-dripping ; and then are you, for the obstinate, to use the hoe, fork, and spade, to extirpate dog-grass, bear-bind, &c. And here, mentioning shade and dripping, though I cannot properly speak of them as infirmities of trees, they are certainly the causes of their —== mustard ; to the nourishing grains, and to the deadly night-shade. The fibres of a root are supposed to be simple capillary tubes; but, upon a minute inspection, we discover them to consist of the seven component parts of the plant. At their extremities we observe a spongy kind of excrescence pierced with innumerable small holes. Through these the nutritive juices of the earth are absorbed. When a plant has been pulled up, it will be retarded in its growth, until Nature has renewed that spongy nipple. The bark and leaves of a plant imbibe, at proper seasons, the moisture of the atmosphere. At other times they perspire the superfluous nourishment. This opens to our view an extensive prospect of the vegetable ceconomy. We have already seen that all the parts of a plant are the same. They only differ in shape. The roots are formed sharp and pointed, to make their passage easier through the earth. The leaves are made broad to catch the moisture of the air with more readiness. When the root of a tree happens to be elevated, instead of being retained within the earth, it assumes the appearance of a perfect plant, with leaves and branches. Experiments shew us that a young tree may have its branches placed in the earth, and its roots elevated in the air; and in that inverted state it will continue to live and grow. The air contains, especially during the summer months, all the principles of vegetation: oil for the perfect food, water to dilute it, and salts to assimilate it. These are greatly absorbed by the vessels cf the leaves and bark, and con- veyed to the innermost parts of the plant for its growth and fructification. When the air happens to be cold and moist, this absorption takes place. When it is hot and dry, the same vessels throw off the superfluous moisture by perspiration. In animals, the kidneys and pores of the skin carry off the superfluity. The vegetable not having kidneys, perspires more than the animal, Dr. Hales has demonstrated that this perspiration is considerable. I shall here transcribe his statical experiments upon the sun-flower, for the benefit of those who may not have an opportunity of examining the original. « July 3, 1724, in order to find out the quantity imbibed and perspired by the « sun-flower, I took a garden-pot, (Plate 1. Fig. 5,) with a large sun-flower, a, « 3 feet + 1 high, which was purposely planted’ in it when young: it was of the large “annual kind. I covered the pot with a plate of thin milled lead, and cemented all the «joints fast, so as no vapour could pass, but only air, through a small glass tube, 6, nine «inches long, which was fixed purposely near the stem of the plant, to make a free com- «munication with the outward air, and that under the leaden plate. I cemented also « another short glass tube, c, into the plate, two inches long, and one inch in diameter, « Through this tube I watered the plant, and then stopped up also the holes, d, e, at the « bottom of the pot with corks. I weighed this plant and pot morning and evening, for « fifteen several days, from July 3, to August 8, after which I cut off the plant close to SS a a BOOK II. a ai 124 A DISCOURSE unthriving till removed ; such as that of the Oak and Mast-holm, Wal- nut, Pine, Fir, &c. the thickness of the leaves intercepting the sun and rain; whilst that of other trees is good, as the Elm, and several others. Secondly, Suckers should be duly eradicated, and with a sharp spade ‘the leaden plate, and then covered the stump well with cement; and upon weighing, “found there perspired through the unglazed porous pot two ounces every twelve hours’ “day: which being allowed in the daily weighing of the plant and pot, I found the “ greatest perspiration of twelve hours in a very warm dry day, to be one pound fourteen “ ounces ; the middle rate of perspiration, one pound four ounces. The perspiration of a “dry warm night, without any sensible dew, was about three ounces ; but when any sen- “ sible, though small dew, then the perspiration was nothing ; and when a large dew, or “ some little rain in the night, the plant and pot was increased in weight two or three “ ounces. [I used avoirdupois weights.] I cut off all the leaves of this plant, and laid “them in five several parcels, according to their several sizes, and then measured the “surface of a leaf of each parcel, by laying over it a large lattice made with threads, in “‘ which the little squares were a quarter of an inch each ; by numbering of which I had “the surface of the leaves in square inches, which, multiplied by the number of the leaves “in the corresponding parcels, gave me the area of all the leaves ; by which means I found “the surface of the whole plant, above ground, to be equal to 5616 square inches, “ or 39 square feet. I dug up another sun-flower, nearly of the same size, which had “eight main roots, reaching fifteen inches deep and sideways from the stem: it had *« besides a very thick bush of lateral roots from the eight main roots, which extended “ every way in a hemisphere, about nine inches from the stem and main roots. In order “to get an estimate of the length of all the roots, I took one of the main roots with its “ laterals, and measured and weighed them; and then weighed the other seven roots, ‘* with their laterals ; by which means, I found the sum of the length of all the roots to be « no less than 1448 feet. And supposing the periphery of these roots, at a medium, to «be 0.131 of an inch, then their surface will be 2276 square inches, or 15.8 square feet ; « that is equal to 0.4 of surface of the plant above ground. If, as above, twenty ounces ‘of water, at a medium, perspired in twelve hours’ day, (i. e.) thirty-four enbic inches «of water, (a cubic inch of water weighing 254 grains,) then the thirty-four cubic inches « divided by the surface of all the roots, is = 2286 square inches (i. e.) 5345 is = g,; this << gives the depth of water imbibed by the whole surface of the roots, viz. ; part of an «‘ inch.—And the surface of the plant above ground being 5616 square inches, by which «« dividing the thirty-four cubic inches, viz. ;34, = z4;, this gives the depth perspired by «the whole surface of the plant above ground, viz. ;4; part of an inch. Hence the * velocity with which water enters the surface of the roots to supply the expense of per- «* spiration, is to the velocity with which their sap perspires, as 165 : 67, or as g 3 y};5, or “ nearly as 5; 2. The area of the transverse cut of the middle of the stem is a square “inch; therefore, the areas on the surface of the leaves, the roots, and stem, are OF FOREST-TREES. 125 a dexterously separated from the mother-roots, and transplanted in con- venient places for propagation, as the season requires. ’ Here note, That stocks raised from suckers, and employed in graffing fruit, are more disposed to produce suckers, than such as come from stones and pippins. << 5616, 2276.1. The velocities in the surface of the leaves, roots, and transverse cut of the « stem, are gained by a reciprocal proportion of the surfaces. leaves = 5616 = eno a= inch: « Area of , inch. stem = 1 34 inch. «Now, their perspiring 34 cubic inches in twelve hours’ day, there must so much «pass through the stem in that time; and the velocity would be at the rate of 34 inches ‘in twelve hours, if the stem were quite hollow. In order, therefore, to find out the quan- “tity of solid matter in the stem, July 27, at 7 a. m. I cut up even with the ground a Sun- “ flower ; it weighed 3 pounds; in thirty days it was very dry, and had wasted in all, “2 pounds 4 ounces ; that is, 3 of its whole weight ; so here is a fourth part left for solid * parts in the stem, (by throwing a piece of green sun-flower stem into water, I found it ‘very near of the same specific gravity with water,) which filling up so much of the stem, “the velocity of the sap must be increased proportionably, viz. 4 part more, (by reason of “the reciprocal proportion,) that 34 cubic inches may pass the stem in twelve hours; << whence its velocity in the stem will be 451 inches in 12 hours, supposing there be no “circulation nor return of the sap downwards. If there be ‘added to 34, (which is the “least velocity,) 4 of it = 114, this gives the greatest velocity, viz. 453. The spaces being “as 3: 4, the velocities will be 4 ; 3 :: 453 ; 34. But if we suppose the pores in the sur- << face of the leaves to bear the same proportion as the area of the sap-vessels in the stem « do to the area of the stem; then the velocity both in the leaves, root, and stem, will be ‘increased in the same proportion. A pretty exact account having been taken of the “ weight, size, and surface of this plant, and of the quantities it has imbibed and per- < spired, it may not be improper-here to enter into a comparison of what is taken in and flower ; but their offspring sometimes produce good seeds, provided they are not full flowers. ~~ 5 OF FOREST-TREES. 155 a more minute account of in the next impression of that excellent piece CHAP. VII. of his; nor had J anticipated it on this occasion, but to let the world ON know, in the mean time, how ingeniously ready he is to acknowledge the mistake, as he has been successful in discovering it. Deer, conies, and hares, by barking the trees in hard winters, spoil From this dissertation the reader may perceive how similar Nature is to herself, and how exact in following her own laws in all her works. Who would ever believe so many truths were discoverable concerning plants? though, without doubt, there are many more that remain still undiscovered. I shall conclude with the words of Pliny: “that there is in plants a natural instinct to generation ; and that the males, by a certain blast and subtle powder, do consummate the nuptials on the females.’”—Nat. Hist. And now we are open upon the subject of generation, let us take a view of the analogy between animal and vegetable parturition. The subject is curious, and, I believe, has hitherto passed unnoticed; I mean the parturition of an ear of corn. Pl. 36, Fig. 1. repre- sents an ear, or husk, of wheat, confined in what may be called the uterus, and within a few days of delivery. a. Theos uteri. 0. 6. The gravid uterus, the mouth of which is, at this time, sealed up to keep out the dews and rain. Fig. 2. The uterus cut open, to shew the ear in its natural situation. a. The os uteri. 6. b. The uterus cut open. c. The ear. Fig. 3. An ear of wheat after having passed through the os uteri. This may be called a natural birth. a. The ear. 6. The os uteri. As the fibres of the vegetable os uteri are incapable of distention, the ring is divided, to allow a passage for the ear without laceration. a.a. The uterus delivered of its burden. Fig. 4. An ear of wheat some days after a natural delivery. a. The ear, 6, The uterus contracted to its natural size. Fig. 5. An ear of wheat, after having forced its way through the side of the uterus, the neck being rendered impervious in consequence of being bent down by the action of the wind. This may be called the Caesarean operation; but which, from the peculiar structure of the vegetable uterus, is not attended with danger. a. The os uteri. 06. The neck of the uterus, bent down by the action of the wind. c.c. The uterus. d. The ear, delivered in a more easy way than in Fig, 6. Fig. 6. An ear of wheat in the act of forcing its way through the side of the uterus. a. The os uteri. 6. The neck of the uterus bent down by the action of the wind. c. The ear forcing its passage through the side of the uterus.— d. d. The uterus. Ona careful examination, we find the uterus made up of a broad leaf folded up into a tubular form, so that by a gentle lateral pressure of the ear, it is easily unfolded. Had it been a perfect tube, parturition could never have been performed without laceration, in cases where the neck of the uterus was bent down by natural violence. This is a wise provision of the Author of Nature, to obviate frequent and unavoidable accidents. And here it will be proper to remark, that the birth of the ear, or husk, is previous to conception, the anther and stigmata being at this time imperfectly formed ; so that the vegetable has another birth to undergo, when the grain has arrived at maturity, It is in this manner that Gad has thought proper to discover to aur senses 156 A DISCOURSE BOOK II. many tender plantations: next to the utter destroying them, there is YY" nothing better than to anoint that part which is within their reach, with stercus humanum, tempered with a little water or urine, and lightly brushed on; this renewed after every great rain: but a cleanlier than this, and yet which conies, and even cattle most abhor, is to water, or sprinkle them with tanners’ liquor, viz. that which they use for dressing their hides ; or to wash with slacked lime and water, altogether as ex- pedient ; also to tie thumb-bands of hay and straw round them as far as they can reach. Moss (which is an adnascent plant) is to be rubbed and scraped off with some fit instrument of wood, which may not excorticate the tree, or with a piece of hair-cloth after a sobbing rain; or by setting it on fire with a wisp of straw, about the end of December, if the season be dry, as they practise it in Staffordshire ; but the most infallible art of emusca- tion is taking away the cause (which is superfluous moisture in clayey and spewing grounds) by dressing with lime. Ivy is destroyed by digging up its roots, and loosening its hold ; and’ much of his Providence ; and to encourage our researches, he has endowed us with a most ardent desire to trace him along the path that he has made. 4. AGE. It is abundantly evident that every living thing has its beginning and end- ing, and undergoes innumerable changes. Thus we see that infancy is weak and feeble; but youth is comely, flourishing, and luxuriant. Manhood is plump, strong, and full of stature ; but old age droops, becomes weak, languid, and dry, the sad presages of ap- proaching dissolution. And are not plants subject to the same vicissitudes, and go through the same stages? In their infant, or very youthful state, they are small and weak, destitute of flowers and fruit; when more advanced, they wanton in beautiful and shining colours, being the most agreeable, and, as it were, in the joyous spring of life ; in summer, being then more plump, firm, and strong, but less splendid, they bear fruit : in autumn, or old age, they droop, grow dry, and wither, returning to dust, from whence they came. The Ivy in its first or tender state, has spear-shaped leaves, and bears neither flowers nor fruit. This is that variety which Bauhine calls Hedera humi repens, “ Ivy creeping on the ground.” The same plant, when more advanced, bears five-lobed leaves, climbs on trees and walls, and is barren. This variety Bauhine calls Hedera major sterilis, the << Greater barren Ivy.” In its next, or more mature state, it sends forth three-lobed leaves, and, leaving its props and supporters, it rises by its own strength, and puts on the appearance of a pretty tall tree, being Joaded with flowers and fruit. This is the Hedera‘Arborea of C. B “ Tree OF FOREST-TREES. 157 even the removal of Ivy itself, if very old, and when it has long invested CHAP. VII. its support, is attended with pernicious consequences, the tree frequently “~~” dying from the sudden exposure to unaccustomed cold. Of the roots of Ivy (which shrub may, with small industry, be made a beautiful standard) are made curiously polished and flecked cups and boxes, and even tables of great value. Mistletoe, and other excrescences, are to be cut and broken off. But the fungi (which prognosticate an internal fault) are remedied by abrasion, interlucation, and exposure to the sun. The bodies of trees are visited with canker, hollowness, hornets, ear- wigs, snails, &c. The wind-shock is a bruise and shiver throughout the tree, though not constantly visible, yet leading the warp from smooth renting, caused by over-powerful winds, when young, and perhaps by subtle lightnings, to which the strongest Oaks, and other the most robust trees, are fain to submit, and will be twisted like a rope of hemp; and therefore, of old, not used to kindle the sacrifice. Trees likewise often suffer the same injury by rigorous and piercing colds and frosts; such as in the year a “Ivy.” But when old, it puts forth egg-shaped leaves without lobes. This is the Hedera Poetica of C. B. “ Poets’ Ivy.” Daily experience abundantly shews that all plants undergo a variety of changes. From the seed spring up tender shoots, which at first resemble small shrubs; these, by degrees, acquire a firm trunk, and bear flowers and fruit; after this the branches flag, and are covered, as well as the trunk, with moss, first one branch de- caying, and then another, till the whole tree moulders away, and the place thereof knoweth it no more. Linn. 5. DISEASES. When life, in any manner of way, is hurt or injured, that state we call disease ; to which vegetables, as well as animals, are subject. By too great heat they are parched, become languid, and droop; by too much cold they are often killed, or made subject to cold tumours, analogous to kibes and chilblains in the human body. Sometimes they are liable to canker, sometimes to vermin ; from whence they are said to be lousy. Linn. 6. DEATH. Death is the privation of life. Every living thing is subject to death, as constant experience teaches. Since, then, we know that vegetables as well as animals die by diseases and external injuries, we may ask, How can vegetables exchange life for death, if they were not previously endowed with life? For if we break a stone, which has no life, into a thousand parts, it by no means undergoes such a change as we observe in vege- tables. Linn. Volume LI. xX BOOK II. —\—/ 158 A DISCOURSE 1683, split many stately timber-trees from head to foot; which, as the weather grew milder, closed again, so as hardly to be discerned, but were found at the felling, miserably shattered; and good for little. The best prevention is shelter, choice of place for the plantation, and frequent shredding, whilst they are yet in their youth. Wind-shaken is discovered by certain ribs, boils, and swellings on the bark, beginning at the foot of the stem, and ascending the body of the tree to the boughs. But against such frosts and fire from heaven there is no charm. Cankers, of all other diseases the most pernicious, corroding, and eating to the heart, and difficult to cure, (whether caused by some stroke, or galling, or by hot and burning land,) are to be cut out to the quick, the scars emplastered with tar mingled with oil, and over that a thin spread- ing of loam, or else with clay and horse-dung ; but best with hogs’-dung alone, bound to it in arag; or by laying wood-ashes, nettles, or fern to the roots. You will know if the cure be effected, by the colour of the wounds growing fresh and green, and not reddish: but if the gangrene be within, it must be cured by nitrous, sulphureous, and drying appli- cations, and by no means by any thing of an unctuous nature, which is exitial to trees, tar, as was said, only excepted, which I have experi- mentally known to preserve trees from the envenomed teeth of goats, and other injuries; the entire stem smeared over, without the least pre- judice, and to my no small admiration. But for over-hot and torrid land, you must sadden the mould about the root with pond-mud and neats’-dung ; and by graffing fruit-trees on stocks raised in the same mould, as being more homogeneous. j Hollowness is contracted, when, by reason of the ignorant or careless lopping of a tree, the wet is suffered to fall perpendicularly upon a part, especially the head, or any other part or arms, by which means the rain is conducted to the very heart of the stem and body of the tree, which it soon rots. In this case, if there be sufficient sound wood, cut it to the quick, and close to the body, and cap the hollow part with a tarpaulin, or fill it with good stiff loam, horse-dung, and fine hay mingled, or with well-tempered mortar, covering it with a piece of tarpaulin. This is one of the worst evils, and to which the Elm is most obnoxious. Old broken OF FOREST-TREES. 159 boughs, if very great, are to be cut off at some distance from the body, CHAP. VII. but the smaller close 4, i ied Hornets and wasps, by breeding in the hollowness of trees, not only infect them, but will peel them round to the very timber, as if cattle had 4 In the year 1791, Mr. William Forsyth, superintendent of his Majesty’s gardens at Kensington, published the following composition for curing injuries and defects of fruit and forest-trees, and for which he received a distinguished mark of his Majesty’s appro= bation. “ Take one bushel of fresh cow-dung, half a bushel of lime-rubbish of old buildings, ‘< (that from the ceilings of rooms is preferable,) half a bushel of wood-ashes, and a six- “teenth part of a bushel of pit or river. sand. The three last articles are to be sifted fine < before they are mixed ; then work them well together with a spade, and afterwards with a wooden beater, until the stuff is very smooth, like fine plaster, used for the ceilings of ** rooms. « The composition being thus made, care must be taken to prepare the tree properly ‘for its application, by cutting away all the dead, decayed, and injured part, till ‘you come “to the fresh sound wood ; leaving the surface of the wood very smooth, and rounding off “the edges of the bark with a draw-knife, or other instrument, perfectly smooth, which < must be particularly attended to: then lay on the plaster, about one-eighth of an inch «thick, all over the part where the wood or bark has been so cut away, finishing off the “edges as thin as possible. Then take a quantity of dry powder of wood-ashes, mixed «with a sixth part of the same quantity of the ashes of burnt bones; put it into a tin box, ‘with holes in the top, and shake the powder on the surface of the plaster, till the whole is “‘ covered over with it, letting it remain for half an hour, to absorb the moisture: then apply <¢ more powder, rubbing it gently with the hand, and repeating the application of the powder, “till the whole plaster becomes a dry, smooth surface. << All trees cut down near the ground, should have the surface made quite smooth, round- “ing it off in a small degree, as before-mentioned ; and the dry powder, directed to be “used afterwards, should have an equal quantity of powder of alabaster mixed with it, in “ order the better to resist the dripping of trees, and heavy rains. «If any of the composition be left for a future occasion, it should be kept in a tub, or «other vessel, and urine of any kind poured on it, so as to cover the surface, otherwise the < atmosphere will greatly hurt the efficacy of the application. ‘‘Where lime-rubbish of old buildings cannot be easily got, take powdered chalk, or “ eommon lime, after having been slaked a month at least. «As the growth of the tree will gradually affect the plaster, by raising up its edges ‘next the bark, care should be taken, where that happens, to rub it over with the finger “‘when occasion may require, (which is best done when moistened by rain,) that the “plaster may be kept whole, to prevent the air and wet from penetrating into the * wound.” X 2 BOOK II. a i 160 A DISCOURSE unbarked them, as I observed in some goodly Ashes at Cassiobury, (near the garden of that late noble Lord, and lover of planting, the Earl of Essex,) and are therefore to be destroyed by stopping up their entrances with tar and goose-dung, or by conveying the fumes of brimstone into their cells. Cantharides attack the Ash above all other botts of the beetle kind. Chafers, &c. are to be shaken down and crushed; and when they come in armies, (as sometimes in extraordinary droughts,) they are to be driven away or destroyed with smoke, which also kills gnats and flies of all sorts. Note, That the rose-bug never, or very seldom, attacks any other tree whilst that sweet bush is in flower. Whole fields have been freed from worms by the reek and smoke of ox-dung wrapt in mungy straw, well soaked with strong lye. Earwigs and snails do seldom infest forest-trees, but those which are fruit-bearers, and are destroyed by setting boards or tiles against the walls, or the placing of neat-hoofs, or any hol!ow thing upon small stakes ; also by enticing them into sweet waters, and by picking the snails off betimes in the morning, and rainy evenings. I advise you to visit your Cypress-trees on the first rains in April; you shall sometimes find them covered with young snails no bigger than small peas. Lastly, branches, buds, and leaves, suffer extremely from blasts, caterpillars, locusts, rooks, &c. Note, That you should visit the boards, tiles, and hoofs, which you set for the retreat of those insects, in the heat of the day, to shake them out, and kill them. . ‘The blasted parts of trees, and gum, should be cut away to the quick ; and to prevent it, smoke them in suspicious weather, by burning moist straw with the wind, or rather the dry and superfluous cuttings of aromatic plants, such as Rosemary, Lavender, Juniper, Bay, &c. I use to whip and chastise my Cypresses with a wand, after their winter burnings, till all the mortified and scorched parts fly off in dust, as long almost as any will fall, and observe that they recover and spring the better. Mice, moles, and pismires, cause the jaundice in trees, known by the discolour of the leaves and buds, The moles do much hurt, by making hollow passages, which grow musty; but they may be taken in traps, and killed, as every woodman OF FOREST-TREES. | 161 knows : it is certain that they are driven from their haunts, for a time, CHAP. VII. by garlic, and other heady smells, buried in their passages. Mice and rats are taken with traps, or by sinking some vessel almost level with the surface of the ground, the vessel half full of water, upon which let there be strewed some hulls or chaff of oats: also with bane, powder of orpiment in milk, and aconites mixed with butter: copperas or green glass broken with honey, morsels of sponge chopped small and fried in lard, &ec. are very fit baits to destroy these nimble creatures, which else soon will ruin a semination of nuts, acorns, and other kernels, and, in a night or two, rob the largest beds of a nursery, carrying the seeds away by thousands to their cavernous magazines, to serve them all the winter: I have been told that Hop-branches stuck about trees, preserve them from these thievish creatures. Pismires are destroyed with scalding water, and disturbing their hills, or rubbing the stem with cow-dung, or washing the infested parts with a decoction of tithymale ; and this will insinuate, and chase them quite out of the chinks and crevices, without prejudice to the tree, and it isa good prevention of other infirmities ; also by laying soot, sea-coal, saw- dust, or refuse tobacco, where they haunt, often renewed, especially after rain; for becoming moist, the dust and powder harden, and then they march over it. Caterpillars are destroyed by cutting off their webs from the twigs be- fore the end of February, and burning them; the sooner the better. If they be already hatched, wash them off with water, in which some of the caterpillars themselves and garlic have been bruised; the juice of rue, decoctions of coloquintida, hemp-seed, wormwood, tobacco, walnut- shells when green, with the leaves of sage, urine, and ashes, make good aspersions. ‘Take of two or three of the ingredients, of each a handful ; make them boil in two pails of water for half.an hour, then strain the liquor, and sprinkle it on the trees infected with caterpillars, the black flea, &e. In two or three times it will clear them, and should be used about the time of blossoming, Another method is to choke and dry them with smoke of galbanum, shoe-soles, and hair; and some affirm, that planting Piony near them is a certain remedy; but there is no BOOK II. et 162 A DISCOURSE remedy so facile as the burning them off with small wisps of dry straw, which in a moment rids you. Rooks do in time, by pinching off the buds and tops ofstrees for their nests, cause many trees and groves to decay. Their dung propagates nettles and weeds, and chokes young seedlings. They are to be shot, and their nests demolished. The bullfinch and titmouse also eat off and spoil the buds of fruit-trees; these are prevented by clappers, or caught in the wire mouse-trap with teeth, after being baited with a piece of rusty bacon ; also with lime-twigs. But if cattle break in before the time, conclamatum est, especially goats, whose mouths and breath is so poisonous to trees, that they never thrive well after ; and Varro affirms, if they but lick the Olive-trees, they become immediately barren*. And now we have mentioned barrenness, we do not reckon trees to be sterile, which do not yield a fruitful burden constantly every year (as Juniper and some Annotines do) no more than of pregnant women; whilst that is to be accounted a fruitful tree which yields its product every second or third year, as the Oak and most foresters do; no more may we con- clude that any tree or vegetable is destitute of seeds, because we see them not so perspicuously with our naked eyes, by reason of their exi- lity, as with the nicest examination of the microscope. Another touch at the winds; for though they cannot properly be said to be infirmities of trees, yet they are amongst the principal causes that render trees infirm. I know no surer protection against them, than, as we said, to shelter and stake the trees whilst they are young, till they have well-established roots; and with this caution, that in case any goodly tree (which you would desire especially to preserve and redress) chance to be prostrated by some impetuous and extraordinary storm, you be not over-hasty to carry him away, or despair of him. First, then, let me persuade you to poll him close, and so let him lie some time; for by this means many vast trees have raised themselves by the vigour only of © The ancients considered the teeth of goats as particularly injurious to Vines. For which reason that animal was sacrificed to Bacchus: Non aliam ob culpam Baccho caper omnibus aris Ceditur. VIRG. OF FOREST-TREES. 163 the remaining roots, without any other assistance ; so as people have pro- CHAP. VII. nounced it miraculous, as I could tell you by several instances, besides what Theophrastus relates, lib. v. cap. xix. of that huge Platanus which rose in one night in his observation. And this puts me in mind of what I remember the very learned critic Palmerius affirms of an Oak, sub- verted by a late tempest near Breda, (where this old soldier militated under Prince Maurice, when the town was besieged by the famous Mar- quis Spinola,) which tree, after it had lain prostrate about two months, (the side-branches pared off,) rose up of itself, and flourished as well as ever. Which event was thought so extraordinary, that the people reserved sprigs and boughs of it, as sacred reliques ; and this he affirms to have seen himself. I take the more notice of these accidents, that none who have trees blown down, where it may cause a deformed gap in some avenue near their seats, may altogether despair of their resurrec- tion, with patience and timely freeing them. And the like to this I find happened in more than one tree near Bononia in Italy, in 1657, when ‘a turbulent gust almost quite eradicated a very large tract of huge Poplars, belonging to the Marchioness Elephantucca Spada. These universally erected themselves again, after they were beheaded, though they lay even prostrate.—Pliny, the naturalist, says, Prostratas restitui plerumque, et quadam terre cicatrice vivescere, vulgare est. Et familiarissimum hoc Platanis; que plurimum ventorum concipiunt propter densitatem ramorum: guibus amputatis, levate onere in sua scrobe reponuntur. Factumque jam est hoc in Juglandibus, Oleisque, ac multis aliis. Est in exemplis, et sine tempestate, ullave causa alia quam prodigii, cecidisse multas ac sua sponte resurresisse. Factum hoe Populi Rom. Quiritibus ostentum Cimbricis bellis Nuceri@ in luco Junonis, Ulno, postquam etiam cacumen amputatum eral, quoniam in aram ipsam procumbebat, restituta sponte, ita ut protinus Jioreret: a quo deinde tempore Majestas Populi Romani resurrexit, que ante vastata cladibus fuerat. Memoratur hoc idem factum et in Philippis, Salice procidua atque detruncata: et Stagiris in Museo populo alba: omnia faust: ominis. Sed maxime mirum, Antandri Platanus etiam cir- cumdolatis lateribus restibilis sponte facta, viteque reddita longitudine quindecim cubitorum, crassitudine quatuor ulnarum. Lib. xvi. cap. xxxvii. But as we have farther instances than these, and so very lately as that dreadful storm happening November 26, 1703, when after so many thousand Oaks and other timber-trees were quite subverted, a most Pye’ BOOK II. ~~ ae/ * 1706. 164 A DISCOURSE famous and monstrous Oak, growing at Epping, in Essex, (blown down,) raised itself, and withstood that hurricane. These, amongst many others, are the infirmities to which forest-trees are subject whilst they are standing: and when they are felled, they are liable to the worm, especially if cut before the sap be perfectly at rest :—to prevent or cure it in the timber, I commend this secret as the most approved : Let common yellow sulphur be put into a glass cucurbit, upon which pour so much of the strongest aqua-fortis, as may cover it three fingers deep: distil this to dryness, which is done by two or three rectifications. Let the sulphur remaining in the bottom (being of a blackish or sad red colour) be laid on a marble, or put into’a glass, where it will easily dissolve into oil: with this anoint what is either infected, or to be pre- served of timber. It is a great and excellent arcanum for tinging the wood with no unpleasant colour, by no art to be washed out; and such a preservative of all manner of woods, nay, of many other things, as ropes, cables, fishing-nets, masts of ships, &c. that it defends them from putiefaction, either in waters under or above the earth, in the snow, ice, air, winter, or summer. It were superfluous to describe the process of the aqua-fortis ; it shall be sufficient to let you know, that our common copperas makes this aqua-fortis well enough for our purpose, being drawn over by a retort: and for sulphur, the island of St. Christopher’s yields enough (which hardly needs any refining) to furnish the whole world— This secret, for the curious, I thought fit not to omit; though three or four anointings with linseed-oil has proved very effectual, and is more compendious. It was experimented in a Walntt-table, where it de- stroyed millions of worms immediately, and is to be practised for tables, tubes, mathematical instruments, boxes, bedsteads, chairs, rarities, &c. Oil of walnuts will doubtless do the same, is sweeter, and a better, varnish ; but above all is commended oil of cedar‘, or that of Juniper ; whilst oil of spike does the cure as effectually as any. But after all these sweeping plagues and destructions inflicted on trees, braving all human remedies, such frosts, as not many years * since f Sic ex cedro oleum, quod cedreum dicitur, nascitur ; quo relique res cum sunt uncte, uti etiam libri, a tineis et a carie non leduntur.—VItTRUV. OF FOREST-TREES. 165 happened, left such marks of their deadly effects, not sparing the goodliest and most flourishing trees, timber, and other of the stoutest kind, as some ages will hardly repair: nay, it was observed, that the Oak in particular, counted the most valiant and sturdy of the whole forest, was more prejudiced with this excessive cold, and the drought of the year ensuing, than any of the most nice and tender constitution ; always here excepting, as to an universal strages, the hurricane of Sept. 1703, which begins the epocha of the calamities which have since followed, not only by the late tempest about August last*, but by that surprising blast accompanied, doubtless, by a fiery spirit, which smote the most flourishing foresters and fruit-trees, burning their buds and leaves to dust and powder, not sparing the very fruit. This being done in a moment, must be looked upon as a plague not to be prevented : in the mean-time, that the malignity proceed no farther, it may be advisable to cut and top the summits of such tender mural trees, rare shrubs, &c. as have most suffered, and are within reach, rubbing off the scorchings in order to a new spring. There were in my remembrance, certain prayers, litanies, and CHAP. VII. ay aid * 1705. collects, solemnly used by the parish minister in the field, at the limits of | their perambulations on the Rogation-days, from an ancient and laudable custom of above one thousand years, introduced by Avitus, the pious Bishop of Vienna, in a great dearth, unseasonable weather, and other calamities, (however in tract of time abused by many gross superstitions and insignificant rites, in imitation of the Pagan Robigalia,) upon which days, about the ascension and beginning of spring especially, prayers were made, as well deprecatory of epidemical evils, amongst which blasts and smut of corn were none of the least, as supplicatory for propitious seasons, and blessings on the fruits of the earth. Whether there was any peculiar office, besides those for Kmber-weeks, appointed, I do not know ; but the pious and learned Bishop of Winchester, (Andrews,) has, in his devotions, left us a prayer so apposite and comprehensive for these emergencies, that I cannot forbear the recital : REMEMBER, O Lord, to renew the year with thy goodness, and the season with a promising temper ; for the eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord ; thou givest them meat ; thou openest thy hand, and fillest ail Volume LI. 166 A DISCOURSE BOOK IL. things living with thy bounty. Vouchsafe, therefore, O Lord, the blessings of the heavens, and the dews from above : the blessings of the springs, and the deep from beneath: the returns of the sun, the conjunctions of the moon: the benefit of the rising mountains, and the lasting hills: the fulness of the earth, and all that breed therein : A fruitful season, Righteous judgments, Temperate air, Loyal obedience, Plenty of corn, Due execution of justice, Abundance of fruits, Sufficient store for life, Health of body, and Happy births, Peaceable times ; Good and fair plenty, Good and wise government, Breeding and institution of Prudent counsels, children. Just laws, That our sons may grow up as the young plants, and our daughters may. be as the polished corners of the temple: that our garners may be full and plenteous with all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth | thousands: that our oxen may be strong to labour: that there be no decay ; no leading into captivity ; no complaining in our streets: but that every man may sit under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree, in thankfulness to thee ; sobriety, and charity to his neighbour ; and in what- soever other estate thou wilt have him, therewith to be contented: and this for Jesus Christ his sake, to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Hitherto I have spoken of trees, their kinds, and propagation in par- ticular. I shall now say a word or two concerning their ordering in general, as it relates to coppices, lopping, felling, &c. After this, I shall add something concerning their uses as to fuel, &c. and cast such accidental lessons into a few aphorisms, as could not well be more regularly inserted. I shall next give some serious observations in reference to the main design and project of this Discourse, as it concerns the improvement of his Majesty’s forests for the honour and security of the whole kingdom. And, lastly, I shall put a conclusion to this work with an historical account of the sacredness and use of STANDING GROVES. ory. A DENDROLOGIA. BOOK THE THIRD. CHAPTER I. Of COPPICES. Syiva CADUA is (as Varro defines it) as well coppice to cut for CHAP. I. fuel, as for use of timber; and we have already shewed how it is to be haat raised, both by sowing and planting. I shall only here add, that if, in their first designation, they be so laid out as to grow for several falls, they will both prove more profitable and more delightful: more profitable because of their annual succession; and more pleasant, because there will always remain some of them standing ; and if they be so cast out, as that you leave straight and even intervals of eighteen or twenty feet for grass, between spring-wood and spring-wood, securely fenced and preserved, the pastures will lie both warm, and prove of exceeding delight to the owner. These spaces are likewise useful, and necessary for cart-way, to fetch out the wood at every fall. There is not a more noble and worthy husbandry than is this, which rejects no sort of ground nor situation, (though facing the east is esteemed best for both timber and. under-wood,) as we have abundantly shewed ; since even the most boggy places may be so drained and cast, as to yield their increase by planting the drier sorts upon the ridges and banks which you cast up, where they will thrive exceedingly: and then Willow, Sallow, Alder, Poplar, Sycamore, Black Cherry, &c. will shoot tolerably well on the lower and more uliginous; with this caution, that for the first two years We BOOK IIi. Sy oro 168 A DISCOURSE they be kept diligently weeded and cleansed, which is as necessary as fencing and guarding from cattle. Our ordinary coppices are chiefly upon Hasel, or the Birch; but if amongst the other kinds, store of Ash, (which I most prefer, for a speedy and erect growth,) Chestnut, Sallow, and Sycamore, (at least one in four,) were sprinkled in the planting, the profit would soon discover a difference, and well recompense the industry. Others advise us to plant shoots of Sallow, Willow, Alder, and all the swift-growing trees, being of seven years’ growth, sloping off both the ends towards the ground, to the length of a billet, and burying them a reasonable depth in the earth. This will cause them to put forth seven or eight branches, each of which will become a tree in a short time, especially if the soil be moist. The nearest distance for these plantations ought never to be less than five feet at first, since every felling renders them wider for the benefit of the timber, even to thirty or forty feet, in five or six fellings. Though it be almost impossible for us to prescribe at what age it were best husbandry to fell copses, (as we at least call best husbandry,) that is, for most and greatest gain, since the markets, and the kinds of wood, and emergent uses do so much govern; yet copses are sometimes of a competent stature after eight or nine years from the acorn ; and so every eight or ten years successively will rise better and better. But this had need be an extraordinary ground, otherwise you may do well to allow them twelve or fifteen to fit them for the axe; but those of twenty years standing are better, and far advance the price, especially if Oak, and Ash, and Chestnut be the chief furniture ; and be sure you shall lose nothing by this patience, since, all accidents considered, the profit arising from copses so managed (be the ground almost never so poor) shall equal, if not exceed, what is usually made by the plough or grazing. Some of our old clergy spring-woods heretofore have been let rest till twenty- five or thirty years, and have proved highly worth the attendance; for by that time, even a seminary of acorns will render a considerable advance, as I have already exemplified in the Northamptonshire lady. And if copses were so divided, as that every year there might be some felled, it were a continual and a present profit. Seventeen years’ growth affords a tolerable fell. Supposing the copse of seventeen acres, one acre might be yearly felled for ever, and so more, according to proportion : OF FOREST-TREES. 169 but though the seldgm fall yields the more timber, yet the frequent makes the under-wood the thicker; therefore at ten or twelve years’ growth, says Mr. Cook, make the fall in shallow ground, and fourteen in deeper.— If many timber-trees grow in your copses which are to be cut down, fell both them and the under-wood, as near the ground as may be; but this is to be understood where the wood is very thick; otherwise, it is advisable to stock up the thinner, especially in great timber, and to set in the holes, Elm, Cherry, Poplar, Sallow, Service; and so these trees, which are apt to grow from the running-root, thicken the wood exceedingly ; whilst the very roots will pay for the grubbing, and yield you some feet of the best timber; whereas being let stand, nothing would have grown. If the ground be a shallow soil, forbear filling the holes quite, but set some running-wood in the loosened earth, and the ends of the old roots being cut, will furnish the sides of the holes speedily. In thin copses, it is profitable to lay some boughs athwart, which will be rooted to advantage against next fall. All rotten stubs among our under-woods should be extirpated, to make way for seedlings, and young roots to spring and run: the cutting slanting, smooth, and close, is of great im- portance; and frequent felling gives way and air to the subnascent seedlings, and the rest will make lusty shoots. As to what numbers and scantlings you are to leave on every acre, the statutes are our general guides, at least the legal. It is a very ordinary copse which will not afford three or four firsts, that is, bests; fourteen seconds, twelve thirds, eight wavers, &c. according to which proportions, the sizes of young trees in copsing are to succeed one another. By the statute of 35 Henry VIII. in copses or under-woods, ielled at twenty- four years’ growth, there were to be left twelve standills, or stores of Oak, upon each acre ; in defect of so many Oaks, the same number of Elms, Ash, Asp, or Beech; and they to be such as are of likely trees for timber, and of such as have been spared at some former felling, unless there were none; in which case, they are to be hen left, and so to con- tinue without felling, till they are ten inches square within a yard of the ground. Copses above this growth felled, to leave twelve great Oaks ; or in defect of them, other timber-trees, as above, and so to be left for twenty years longer, and to be inclosed seven years. CHAP. I. LOOK III. et A 170 A DISCOURSE In sum, you are to spare as many likely trees fortimber as with dis- cretion you can. In the mean-time, there are some who find it not so profitable to permit so many timber-trees to stand in the heart of copses, but on the skirts, and near the edges, where their branches may freely spread and have air, without dripping and annoying the subnascent crop : nor should they be shred, which commonly makes them grow knotty.— This is a note of the ingenious Mr. Nourse. Now as to the felling, (beginning at one side, that the carts may enter without detriment to what you leave standing,) the under-wood may be cut from January at the latest, till Mid-March or April; or from Mid- September, till near the end of November; so as all to be avoided by Midsummer at the latest, and then fenced, (where the rows and brush lie longer unbound, or made up, you endanger the loss of a second spring,) and not to stay so long as usually they are a-clearing, that the young and the seedlings may not suffer the least interruption; and, if the winter, previous to your felling copses, you preserve them well from cattle, it will recompense your care. It is advised not to cut off the browse-wood of Oaks in copses, but to suffer it to fall off, as where trees stand very close, it usually does: I do not well comprehend why yet it should be spared so long. When you espy a cluster of plants growing, as it were, all in a bunch, it shall suffice that you preserve the fairest sapling, cutting all the rest away. And if it chance to be a Chestnut, Service, or like profitable tree, clear it from the droppings and incumbrances of these trees, that it may thrive the better: then, as you pass along, prune and trim up all the young wavers, covering such roots as lie bare and exposed, with fresh mould. 'There are some who direct the lopping of young Oaks at a competent distance from the stem, and that while the wounds are healing, this would advantage the under-wood; but I cannot say it would be without prejudice to timber. Cut*not above half a foot from the ground, nay the closer the better, and that to the south, slope-wise, stripping up such as you spare from their extravagant branches, water-boughs, &c. that hinder the growth OF FOREST-TREES. 171 of others. Always remember (before you so much as enter upon this work) to preserve sufficient plash-pole about the verge and bounds of the copse, for fence and security of what you leave; and for this, something less than a rod may suffice: then raking your wood clear of spray, claps, and all incumbrances, shut it up from the cattle; the longer the better. By the statute, men were bound to inclose copses after felling, of or under fourteen years’ growth, for four years : those above fourteen years’ growth, to be sixteen years inclosed; and for woods in common, a fourth part to shut up; and at felling, the like proportion of great trees to be left, and seven years inclosed; this was enlarged by 13 Eliz. Your elder under-woods may be grazed about July: but for a general rule, new-weaned calves are the least noxious to newly-cut spring-woods, where there is abundance of grass ; and some say, colts of a year old; but then the calves must be driven out in May at farthest, though the colts be permitted to stay a while longer; but of this, every man’s experience will direct him; and surely, the later you admit beasts to graze, the better. For the measure of fuel, these proportions were to be observed : Statutable billet should hold three feet in length, and seven inches and a half in compass ; ¢en or fowrtcen as they are counted for one, two, or three, &e. A stack of wood (which is the boughs and offal of the trees to be converted to charcoal) is four yards long, three feet and a half high, (in some places but a yard,) and as much over: in other places, the cord is four feet in height, and four feet over; or, to speak more geometri- cally, a solid made up of three dimensions, four feet high, four feet broad, and eight feet long; the content one hundred and twenty-eight cubic feet.—Faggots ought to be a full yard in length, and two feet in circumference, made round, and not flat; for so they contain less fuel, though appearing equal in the bulk. In the mean-time, it were to be wished that some approved experi- ments were sedulously tried, with the advice of skilful and ingenious physicians, for the making of beer without hops; as possibly with the white marrubium, a plant of singular virtue, or with dried heath-tops, viz. that sort which bears no berries, or the like, far more wholesome, CHAP. I. 172 A DISCOURSE BOOK III. and less bitter than either tamarisk, carduus, or broom, which divers Se have essayed; it might prove a means to save a world of fuel, and in divers places, young timber and copse-wood, which is yearly spent for poles, especially in countries where wood is very precious®. Note, That the woodland measure, by statute, is computed after eighteen feet the perch. & Hops were introduced, about two centuries and a half ago, from Flanders, and from that time, have been assiduously cultivated in this kingdom. ‘The duties arising from this article are so considerable, that all public brewers are enjoined under a severe penalty, to use no other bitters for their malt liquors. In a year of moderate fertility, an acre of hops is supposed to produce ten hundred weight, which may be estimated at three pounds per hundred. Of this sum, one moiety goes clear into the pocket of the cultivator, and the other moiety is employed in the discharge of rent, tithe, and all other expenses, except the duty by excise. It is computed that the duty, upon an average, amounts to 50,000/. per ann. a sum too considerable to be lost by permitting other bitter herbs to be substituted in the place of hops. OF FOREST-TREES. 173 CHAP. I. Of PRUNING. Tuere can nothing certainly be more necessary, in order to pruning, than the knowledge of the course and nature of the sap, which not being as yet so universally agreed on, after innumerable trials and experiments, leads our arborators into many errors and mistakes. I have in this forest- work occasionally recited the various opinions of several, leaving them to the determination of the learned and judicious, as a considerable part of natural philosophy ; Dr. Grew, Malpighius, De la Quinteny, and what is found dispersed in the philosophical transactions by our plant anatomists; without charging this chapter with repetitions. And the same I have done likewise as to astrological observations, positions of the stars, and planetary configurations, exhalations, and dominant power; though, in compliance to custom, I now and then forbear to abdicate our country planter’s goddess ; contenting myself with the wholesomeness of the air we breathe in, and the goodness of the soil. I shall, there- fore, in the first place, speak of the manual operation of pruning, and other instructions as they afterwards occur. PUTATIO, or Pruning, is the purgation of trees in general from what is superfluous. The ancients found such benefit in pruning, that they feigned a goddess presided over it, as Arnobius tells us: and, in truth, it is in the discreet performance of this work, that the improvement of our timber and woods does as much consist, as in any thing whatso- ever. A skilful planter should, therefore, be early at this work. It is a misery to see how our fairest trees are defaced and mangled by unskilful woodmen and mischievous borderers, who go always armed with short hand-bills, hacking and chopping off all that comes in their way; by which our trees are made full of knots, stubs, boils, cankers, and deformed bunches, to their utter destruction. Good husbands should be ashamed of it ; though I would have no woodman pretend to be without all his necessary furniture, when he goes about this work ; which, I, once for all, reckon to be the hand-bill, hatchet, hook, hand- Volume II. Z CHAP. II. Py BOOK III. aa 174 A DISCOURSE saw, an excellent pruning-knife, broad chisel, and mallet, all made of the best steel, and kept sharp; and thus he is provided for greater, or more gentle executions, purgations, recisions, and coercions ; and it is of main concern, that the proper and effectual tool be applied to every work ; since heavy and rude instruments do but mangle and bruise tender plants ; and if they be too small, they cannot make clear and even work upon great arms and branches. ‘The knife is for twigs and spray ; the chisel for larger arms, and such amputations as the axe and bill cannot well operate upon. As much to be reprehended are those who either begin this work at unseasonable times, or so maim the poor branches, that either out of laziness, or want of skill, they leave most of them stubs, and instead of cutting the arms and branches close to the bole, hack them off a foot or two from the body of the tree, by which means they become hollow and rotten, and are so many conduits to receive the rain and the weather, which convey the wet to the very matrix and heart, deforming the whole ‘tree with many ugly botches, which shortens its life, and utterly mars the timber. I know Sir H. Platt tells us, the Elm should be so lopped, but he says it not of his own experience, as I do. And here it is that I am, once for all, to warn our disorderly husbandmen from coveting to let their lops grow to an extraordinary size before they take them off, as conceiving it furnishes them with the more wood for the fire; not considering how such ghastly wounds mortally affect the whole body of the tree, or at least do so decay their vigour, that they hereby lose more in one year than’the lop amounts to, should they pare them off sooner, and when the scars might be covered: in the mean- while, that young Oaks prosper much in growth, by timely pruning, the industrious Mr. Cook observes; whereas some other trees, as the Hornbeam, &c. though they will bear considerable lops, when there is only the shell of the tree standing, yet it is much to its detriment ; especially to the Ash, which if once it comes to take wet by this means, rarely produces more lop to any purpose; above all, if it decay in the middle, it is then fitter for the chimney, than to stand and cumber the ground: the same may be pronounced of most trees, which would not perhaps become dotards in many ages, but for this covetous barbarity and unskilful handling. By this animadversion alone, it were easy for an ingenious man to understand how trees are to be governed; which is, in a word, by OF FOREST-TREES. ? 175 sparing great lops, cutting clean, smooth, and close, making the stroke upward, and with a sharp bill, so as the weight of an untractable bough do not splice and carry the bark with it, which is both dangerous and unsightly. ‘The Oak will suffer itself to be made a pollard ; that is, to have its head quite cut off, and it may be good for mast, if not too much pruned, but not for timber: but the Elm so treated, will perish to the foot; and certainly become hollow at last, if it escape with life. The proper season for this work is, for old trees earlier, for young later, as a little after the change in January or February ; some say in December, the wind in a gentle quarter: Tum stringe comas, tum brachia tonde: — Tum denique dura Exerce imperia, et ramos compesce fluentes. GEORG. li. But this ought not to be too much in young fruit-trees, after they once come to form a handsome head ; in which period you should but once pare them over about March, to cover the stock the sooner, if the tree be very choice. ‘To the aged, this is plainly a renewing of their youth, and an extraordinary refreshment, if taken in time, and that their arms be not suffered to grow too great and large; in which case, the member must not be amputated too near the body, but at some distance ne pars sincera trahatur : and remember to cut smooth, and sloping upwards, if upright boughs, otherwise downwards ; and be sure to emplaster great wounds to keep out the wet, and hasten the covering of the bark: besides, for interlucation, remove exuberant branches, ef spisse nemorum come, where the boughs grow too thick and are cumbersome, to let in the sun and air. This is of great importance; and so is the sedulous taking away of suckers, water-boughs, fretters, &c. and for the benefit of tall timber, the due stripping up the branches, and rubbing off the buds to the heights you require. Yet some do totally forbear the Oak, especially if aged, observing that they much exceed in growth such as are pruned; and in truth, such trees as we would leave for shade and ornament, should be seldom cut, but the browse-wood cherished and preserved as low towards the ground as may be, for a more venerable and solemn shade ; and, therefore, I did much prefer the walk of Elms in St. James’s Park, asit lately grew branchy, intermingling their reverend Z 2 CHAP. II. PY BOOK III. ea in 176 A DISCOURSE tresses, before the present trimming them up so high; especially, since I fear the remedy comes too late to save their decay, (could it have been avoided,) if the amputations of such overgrown parts as have been cut off, should not rather accelerate it, by exposing their large and many wounds to the injuries of the weather, which will endanger the rotting of them, beyond all that can be applied by tar, or otherwise, to protect them. I do rather conceive their infirmities to proceed from what has not long since been abated of their large spreading branches, to accom- modate with the mall ; as any one may conjecture by the great impression which the wet has already made in those incurable scars, that being now multiplied, must needs the sooner impair them; the roots having like- wise infinitely suffered by many disturbances about them. In all events, this walk might have enjoyed its goodly canopy, with all their branchy furniture, for so many ages to come, for it is hardly one since first they were planted: but this defect is providently and nobly supplied by their successors the Lime-trees, which will sooner accomplish their perfection, by taking away the Chestnut-trees, which will else do them prejudice. But it is now, and never till now, that those walks and ranks of trees, and. other royal amenities, are sure to prosper, whilst they are entirely under the care and culture of the most industrious and knowing Mr. Wise, to whom, and to his partner Mr. Loudon, I not only acknowledge myself particularly obliged, but the whole nation, for what they have contributed to the sweetest, most useful, and most innocent diversions of life, gardens, and plantations. One should be cautious. in heading timber-trees, especially the pithy, unless where they grow very crooked ; in which case, abate the head with an upward slope, and cherish a leading shoot. The Beech is very tender of its head. It is by the discreet leaving the side-boughs in convenient places, sparing the smaller, and taking away the bigger, that you may advance a tree to what determined height you desire: thus, bring up the leader, and when you would have that spread and break out, cut off all the side-boughs, and especially at Midsummer, if you espy them breaking out. Young trees may every year be pruned, and as they grow older at OF FOREST TREES. 177 longer intervals, as at three, five, seven, or sooner, that the wounds may recover, and nothing be deformed. Evergreens do not well support to be decapitated ; side-boughs they freely spare in April, and during the spring; andif you cut at first two or three inches from the body, and the next spring after, close to the stem, covering the wounds with wax, or well-tempered clay, the most tender may suffer such amputations without prejudice. That the side and collateral branches of the Fir cut, or broken off, spring no more; and though the tops sometimes do, yet they never prosper to beautiful and erect heads, in which consists the grace of that beautiful tree. Another caution is, that you be sure to cut off such tender branches to the quick, which you find have been cropt by goats, or any other cattle, who leave a drivel where they bite; which not only infects the branches, but sometimes endangers the whole; the reason is, that the natural sap’s recourse to the stem, communicates the venom to all the rest, as the whole mass and habit of animal blood is by a gangrene or venereal taint. Divers other precepts of this nature I could here enumerate, had not the great experience, and faithful and accurate description how this ne- cessary work is to be performed, set down by our countryman, honest Lawson, prevented all that the most inquisitive can suggest: the par- ticulars are so ingenious and highly material, that you will not be dis- pleased to read them in his own style and character °. Ail ages, saith he, bp rules and experience Do congent to a pruning and lopping of trees ; pet have not anp that 3 know described unto us (ercept in Dark and general words) what or which are those superfluous boughs twhich te must take atwap; and that is the h Lawson’s Book is entitled, A New Orchard and Garden. It was published in 1597.— Another edition appeared in 1623. CHAP. II. a id BOOK III. Pre 178 A DISCOURSE most chicf end and neeoful point to be known in lopping: And we map tuell assure ourselves (ag in all other arts, go in this) there is a vantage and derteritp bp skill; an habit by practice out of experience, in the performance hereof, for the profit of mankind: pet Do 4 not know (let me speak it with patience of our cunning arborists,) any thing wwitbin the compass of human affairs so necessatp, and go little regarded ; not only in orchards, but algo in all other timber-trees {where or tohatsoever. Now to our purpose : Dow manp forests and woods, wherein pou shall have for one livelp thriving tree, four (nap sometimes twentp-four) evil-thriving, rotten, and Dping trees, even tohiles thep liee ; and instead of trees, thousands of bushes and shrubs! ‘what rottenness! tobat pollot- ness! that dead arms! withered tops! curtatled trunks! what {oads of moss! drooping boughs and Dping branches shall pou see everp where! and those that in this sort ave in a manner all unpro- fitable boughs, cankered arms, crooked, little, and sport boles. Chat an infinite number of bushes, shrubs, and scrags of Hasels, Thorns, and otber unprofitable wood, which might be brought bp dressing, to become great and goodly trees! Consider now the cause. Che lesser wood hath been spoiled with careless, unsgkilful, and untimely stowing ; and much algo of the qreat wood. he greater trees at the first rising, bave filled and overladen them- selves with a number of wasteful boughs, and suckers, tohich have not only dratwn the sap from the bole, but algo have made it knotty, and themselves and the bole mossy, for want of Diessing ; whereas, if in the prime of growth, thep had been taken away close, all but one top, and clean bp the bulk, the strength of all the sap should have gone to the bulk, and go he would habe recovered and covered his knots, and have put OF FOREST-TREES. 179 forth a fair, long, and straight body, for timber profitable, buge, great of bulk, and of infinite last, Mf all timber-trees were such, (twill some say,) bow should twe have crooked wood for wheels, coorbs, &c. ? Ans. Dregg all pou can, and there twill be enough crooked for those uses, More than this, in most places thep grow go thick, that neither themselves, nor earth, nor anp thing under or near them can thrive ; not sun, Nor rain, nor air, can Do them, nor anp thing near or under them, anp profit or comfort, 4] gee a number of hags, where out of one root pou shall see three or four (nap more, such ig men’s unskilful greediness, who, Desirimy manp, have none good) pretty Oaks, or Ashes, straight anv tall; because the root at the first shoot gives sap amain : But if one only of them might be suffered to grow, and that tell and cleanly pruncd, all to bis berp top, that a tree ghould wwe have in time; And tee see bp those roots continuallp and plentifully spring: ing, notwithstanding so Deadlp wounded, what a commuoditp should arise to the owner, and the commonwealth, if wood twere cherished and orderlp dressed. Che waste boughs clogelp and ghilfullp taken atwap, would give is store of fences and fuel ; and the bulk of the tree in time would grotu of huge length and bigness: But here, methinks, J bear an ungkilful arborist gap, that trees have theix several forms, even bp nature; the Pear, the Holly, the Asp, &c. grow tong in bulk, toith fetv and little arms: Che Oak by nature hooad, and such like: All this J grant; Wut grant me algo, that there ig a profitable end and use of everp tree, from which if it Decline, though by nature, pet man bp art map, nap must, correct it, Ao other end of trees ¥F never could learn, than CHAP. IT. a aie 180 A DISCOURSE BOOK II. good timber, fruit much and good, and pleasure: Cigeg physical hinder nothing a ood form ; either let anp man ever go much as think that it is unpro- fitable, much Iess unpogsible, to reform anp tree of what kind socever: jror, belicve me, J have tried it; Scan bring anp tree (beginning betime) to any form. @be Pear and Holly map be made to spread, and the Oak to close. Thus far the good man out of his eight and forty years’ experience concerning timber-trees: he descends, then, to the orchards, which, because it may likewise be acceptable to our industrious planter, I thus contract. “ Such as stand for fruits should be parted from within two feet, or thereabouts, of the earth ; so high, as to give liberty to dress the root, and no higher; because of exhausting the sap that should feed his fruit ; for the bole will be first, and best served and fed, being next to the root, and of greatest substance. These should be parted in two, three, or four arms, as your graffs yield twigs; and every arm into two or more branches, every branch into his several cions; still spreading by equal degrees, so as his lowest spray be hardly without the reach of a man’s hand, and his highest not past two yards higher: that no twig, (especially in the midst,) touch his fellow ; let him spread as far as his list, without any master-bough, or top, equally ; and when any fall lower than his fellows, (as they will with weight of fruit,) ease him the next spring of his superfluous twigs, and he will rise: when any mount above the rest, top him with a nip between your fingers, or with a knife : thus reform any cion; and as your tree grows in stature and strength, so let him rise with his tops but slowly and easily, especially in the midst, and equally in breadth also, following him upward, with lop- ping his under-growth, and water-boughs, keeping the same distance of two yards, not above three in any wise, betwixt the lowest and highest twigs. “Thus shall you have handsome, clear, healthful, great, and lasting trees: OF FOREST-TREES. 181 “Thus will they grow safe from winds, yet the top spreading. “ Thus shall they bear much fruit; I dare say, one as much as five of our common trees, all his branches loaden. 3 Thus shall your bole, being low, defraud the branches but little of their sap. “Thus shall your trees be easy to dress, and as easy to ears the fruit from, without bruising the cions, &c.” The fittest time of the moon for pruning is (as of graffing) when the sap is ready to stir, not proudly stirring, and so to cover the wound ; and here, for the time of day, we may take Columella, frondem medio die arborator ne cedito. Lib. xi. Old trees should be pruned before young plants; and note, that wheresoever you take any thing away, the sap the next summer will be putting; be sure, therefore, when he puts to bud in any unfit place, you rub it off with your finger; and if this be done for three or four years at Midsummer, it will at last wholly clear the side- boughs, and exalt the growth of the stem exceedingly ; and this is of good use for Elms, and such trees as are continually putting forth where they have been pruned. Thus begin timely with your trees, and you may bring them to what form you please. Ifyou desire any tree should be taller, let him break or divide higher: this for young trees. The old are reformed by curing of their diseases, of which we have already discoursed. There is this only to be considered, in reference to foresters, out of what he has spoken concerning fruit-trees; that (as has been touched) where trees are planted for shadow and mere ornament, as in walks and avenues, the browse-wood, as they call it, should most of it be cherished; whereas in fruit and timber-trees, Oak excepted, it is best to free them of it. As for Pollards, (to which I am no great friend, because it makes so many scrags and dwarfs of many trees, which would else be good timber, endangering them with drips, and the like injuries,) they should not be headed above once in ten or twelve years, at the beginning of the spring, or end of the fall: and note, that all coppicing and cutting close, invigorates the roots and the stem of whatsoever grows weak and unkindly ; but you must then take care it be not overgrown with weeds or grass. Nothing, says my Lord Bacon, (Exper. 586,) causes Volume IT. Aa CHAP. IT. iin ai od BOOK IIT. —— ee 182 A DISCOURSE trees to last so long, as the frequent cutting; every such diminution is a re-invigoration of the plant’s juice, so that it neither goes too far, nor rises too faintly, when it is timely refreshed with this remedy ; and, there- fore, we see that the most ancient trees in‘church-yards, and about old buildings, are either Pollards or Dotards, seldom arising to their full altitude. It is true, as Mr. Nourse observes, that Elm and Oak fre- quently pollarded and cut, hindering their mounting, increases the bulk and circumference, and makes a shew of substance, when all the while it is but a hollow trunk, filled with its own corruption, spending the genuine moisture which should grow to the growth of the arms and head, and interior substance of useful timber. For the improvement of the speedy growth of trees, there is not a more excellent thing than the frequent rubbing of the bole or stem with some piece of hair-cloth, or ruder stuff, at the beginning of spring: some I have known done with seal’s skin; the more rugged bark with a piece of coat of mail, which is made of small’wire: this done when the body of the tree is wet, as after a soaking rain, yet so as not to excorticate, or gall the tree, has exceedingly accelerated its growth (as I am assured to a wonderful and incredible improvement) by opening the pores, freeing them of moss, and killing the worm '. Lastly, Frondation, or the taking off some of the luxuriant branches and sprays of such trees, especially whose leaves are profitable for cattle, is a kind of pruning; and so is the scarifying and cross hatching of some i Jt is abundantly evident that all trees inspire and expire from pores in their bark as well as their leaves, so that whatever interrupts either of these processes, must occasion disease. Moss not only stops up the pores of the bark, but, by being a parasitical plant, supports its own growth, by drawing nourishment from the tree on which it is placed. Plants are never healthy but when their stems are clean, so that we should bestow every attention towards keeping them so. Mr. Evelyn very judiciously recommends rubbing the stems, in order to keep the trees in a growing and healthy state: but notwithstanding the justness of this idea, it of necessity becomes limited and confined. In the 67th Vol. of the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1777, there is inserted a curious letter upon this subject, from Mr. Marsham, to the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, from which it appears that the growth of trees may be considerably increased by washing and rubbing their bark. A continuation of Mr. Marsham’s experiment is inserted in the 71st Volume of the same Transactions. OF FOREST-TREES. 183 fruit-bearers, and others, to abate that nab which wales all the juice in the leaves, to the prejudice of the rest of the parts. But after all this, let us hear what the learned and experienced squire Brotherton has observed upon this article of pruning, and particularly of the taking off the top: that those trees which were so used, some years before the severe frost of 1684, died ; those not so pruned, escaped: and of other trees (having but a small head left) the rest of the boughs cleared, the tops flourished, and the loose branches shred perished, and the unpruned escaped : moreover, when the like pruning was tried on trees twenty feet high, the difference of the increase was visible the following summer ; but within seven or eight years’ time, the difference was ex- ceedingly great, and even prodigious, both in bark and branch, beyond those trees that had been pruned. This, and the like, belonging to the care of the wood-ward, will mind him of his continual duty ; which is to walk about, and survey his young plantations daily ; and to see that all gaps be immediately stopped ; trespassing cattle impounded ; and (where they are infested) the deer chased out, &c. It is most certain that trees, preserved and governed by this discipline, and according to the rules mentioned, would increase the beauty of forests, and value of timber, more in ten or twelve years, than all other imaginable plantations (accompanied with our usual neg- lect) can do in forty or fifty. To conclude: in the time of this work, our ingenious arborator should frequently incorporate, mingle, and unite the arms and branches of some young and flexible trees, which grow in consort, and near to one another, by entering them into their mutual barks with a convenient incision: this, especially about fields and hedge-rows, for fence and ornament. Dr. Plot mentions some that do naturally, or rather indeed accidentally, mingle thus; nay, and so embrace and coalesce, as if they issued out of the bowels of one another: such are two Beeches in the way from Oxford to Reading, at Cain-end; the bodies of which trees springing from different roots, after they have ascended parallel to the top, strangely unite together a great height from the ground, a transverse piece of timber entering at each end of the bodies of the trees, and growing jointly with them: the same is seen in Sycamores at New AaQ CHAP. II. a ai BOOK III. ad 184 A DISCOURSE College Gardens. I myself have woven young Ash-poles into twists of three and four braids, like women’s hair, when they make it up to fillet it under their coifs, which have strangely incorporated and grown together without separation; but these are rather for curiosity, than of advantage for timber. Trees will likewise grow frequently out of the bole of the other; and some roots will penetrate through the whole length of the trunk, till, fastening in the very earth, they burst the including tree, as it has happened in Willows, where an Ash-tree has sprung likely from some key or seed dropped upon the rotten head of it; but this accident not so properly pertaining to this chapter, I conclude with recommending the bowing and bending of young timber-trees, especially Oak and Ash, into various flexures, curbs, and postures, which may be done by hum- bling and binding them down with tough bands and withs, or hooks rather, cut screw-wise, or slightly haggled and indented with a knife, and so screwed into the ground, or by hanging of weighty stones to the tops or branches, till the tenour of the sap, and custom of being so constrained, do render them apt to grow so of themselves, without power of redressing. This course would wonderfully accommodate the ship-builder with materials for knee-timber, and prove useful to the wheel-wright, as it would conform the wood to their moulds, save in- finite labour, and abbreviate the work of hewing and waste: adeo in teneris consuescere multum est. Virgil, it seems, knew it well, and for what purpose: Continud in silvis magna vi flexa domatur In burim, et curvi formam accipit Ulmus aratri. GEORG. ii. When in the woods with mighty force they bow The Elm, and shape it to the crooked plow. OF FOREST-TREES. 185 CHAP. III. Of the AGE, STATURE, and FELLING of TREES. Tue age of trees, except of the coniferous, (for the most part known by the degrees of their tapering branches,) is vulgarly reckoned by the number of solar revolutions, or circles; the former bark being digested and compacted into a ligneous and woody substance, is annually invested by a succeeding bark, which yet in some trees is not finished so soon as in others, as we find in the Oak, Elm, Pine, Plum-tree, &c. which exceed one another in growth, however co-equal in years: but of this hereafter. In the mean time, it is not till a tree is arrived to his perfect age and full vigoar, that the lord of the forest should consult or deter- mine concerning a felling; for there is certainly in trees, as in all things CHAP. III. FV rw AGE. else, a time of increment or growth ; a status or season when they are at - best, (which is also that of felling,) and a decrement or period when they decay. To the first of these they proceed with more or less velocity, as they consist of more strict and compacted particles, or are of a slighter and more lax contexture, by which they receive a speedier or slower de- fluxion of aliment.. This is apparent in Box and Willow; the one of a harder, the other of a more tender substance; but as they proceed, so they likewise continue. By the state of trees, I would signify their utmost effort, growth, and maturity, which are all of them different as to time and kind; yet do not I intend by this, any period or instant in which they do not continually either improve or decay, (the end of one being still the beginning of the other,) but farther than which their natures do not extend; but immediately (though to our senses imperceptible) through some infirmity (to which all sublunary things are obnoxious) dwindle and impair, either through age, defect of nourishment, by sick- ness, and decay of principal parts; but especially, and more inevitably, when violently invaded by mortal and incurable infirmities, or by what other extinction of their vegetative heat, subtraction, or obstruction of air and moisture, which making all motions whatsoever to cease and determine, is the cause of their final destruction. Our honest countryman, to whose experience we have been obliged for something I have lately animadverted concerning the pruning of trees, BOOK III. PY / 186 A DISCOURSE does, in another chapter of the same treatise, speak of the age of trees. The discourse is both learned, rational, and full of encouragement ; for he does not scruple to affirm, that even some fruit-trees may possibly ar- rive to a thousand years of age; and if so, fruit-trees, (whose continual bearing does so much impair and shorten their lives, as we see it does their form and beauty,) how much longer might we reasonably imagine some hardy and slow-growing forest-trees may probably last ? I remember Pliny tells us of some Oaks growing in his time in the Hercynian forest *, which were thought coevous with the world itself; their roots had even raised mountains, and where they encountered, swelled into goodly arches like the gates of a city: but our modern author’s calculation for fruit-trees, (I suppose he means pears, apples, &c.) is three hundred years for growth, as much for their stand, as he terms it, and three hundred for their decay, which does in the total, amount to no less than nine hundred years. This conjecture is deduced from Apple-trees grow- ing in his orchard, which having known for forty years, and upon diligent inquiry of sundry aged persons, of eighty years and more, who remem- bered them trees all their time, he finds by comparing their growth with others of that kind, to be far short in bigness and perfection, viz. by more than two parts of three, yea, albeit those other trees have been much hin- dered in their stature through ill government and misordering: and this to me seems not at all extravagant, since I find mention of a Pear-tree, near Ross, in Herefordshire, which being of no less than eighteen feet cireum- ference,and yielding seven hogsheads of cider yearly, mustneeds have been of very long standing and age, though perhaps not so near Methuselah’s. ‘To establish this, he assembles many arguments from the age of animals, whose state and decay double the time of their increase by the same proportion. “If then (saith he) those frail creatures, whose bodies are nothing in a manner but a tender rottenness, may live to that age, I see not but a tree of a solid substance, not damnified by heat or cold, capable of, and subject to, any kind of ordering or dressing, feeding k In eadem septentrionali plaga, Hercynie silve roborum vastitas intacta evis, et congenita mundo, prope immortali sorte miracula excedit. Constat attolli colles occursan- tium inter se radicum repercussu: aut ubi secuta tellus non sit, arcus ad ramos usque, et ipsos inter se rixantes, curvari portarum patentium modo, ut turmas equitum transmittant. Plin. J. xvi. c. ii. OF FOREST-TREES. 187 naturally, and from the beginning, disburthened of all superfluities, eased CHAP. IIT. of, and of his own accord, avoiding the causes that may annoy him, “~~” should exceed the life of other creatures by very many years. What else are trees in comparison with the earth, but as hairs to the body of man ? And it is certain, that (without some distemper, or forcible cause) the hairs dure with the body, and are esteemed excrements. but from their super- fluous growth.” So as he resolves, upon good reason, that fruit-trees, well ordered, may live a thousand years, and bear fruit: and the longer the more, the greater, and the better, (for which an instance also in Dr. Beal’s Herefordshire Orchards, p. 21, 22,) because his vigour is proud and stronger when his years are many. Thus you shall see old trees put forth their buds and blossoms both sooner and more plentifully than young trees by much; and I sensibly perceive my young trees to enlarge their fruit as they grow greater. And if fruit-trees continue to this age, how many ages is it to be supposed strong and huge timber-trees will last; whose massy bodies require the years of divers Methuselahs, before they determine their days; whose sap is strong and bitter; whose bark is hard and thick, and their substance solid and stiff; all which are defences of health and long life? Their strength withstands all forcible winds; their sap of that quality is not subject to worms and tainting ; their bark receives seldom or never by casualty any wound; and not only so, but they are free from removals, which occasion the death of millions of trees; whereas the fruit-tree, in comparison, is little, and frequently blown down; his sap sweet, easily and soon tainted ; his bark tender, and soon wounded; and himself used by man as man uses himself; that is, either unskilfully or carelessly.” Thus he. But Vossius de Theolog. Gent. lib. v. cap. v. gives too little age to Ashes when he speaks but of one hundred years, (in which, as in the rest, he seems to agree with my Lord Bacon, Hist. Vite et Mort. Art. i.) and to the Medica, Pyrus, Prunus, Cornus, but sixty. He had as good have held his peace ; even Rosemary has lasted amongst us a hundred years. I might to this add much more, and truly with sufficient probability, that timber-trees (especially such as be of a compact, resinous, or balsamical nature, of which kind are the Yew, Box, Hornbeam, White Thorn, Oak, Walnut, Cedar, Juniper, &c.) are capable of very long duration and continuance. Those of largest root, (a sign of age,) are BOOK IIL. yee 188 A DISCOURSE longer lived than the shorter; the dry than the wet; and the gummy than the watery ; the sterile than the fruitful: I do not conclude from Pliny’s Hereynian Oaks, or the Turpentine-tree of Idumza, which Josephus ranks also with the creation. I mentioned a Cypress, yet remaining somewhere in Persia near an old sepulchre, whose stem is as large as five men can encompass, the boughs extending fifteen paces every way; this must needs be a very old tree, believed by my author little less than two thousand five hundred years of age. Of such another, Dr. Spon, in his voyage into Greece, speaks, which, by its spreading, seems to be of the Savine kind ; and, in truth, as to the age and duration, Cypress, Cedar, Box, Ebony, Brasil, and other exceedingly hard and com- pact (with some resinous) woods, growing chiefly in both East and West Indies, must needs be of wonderful age. ‘The particulars were too long to recount of the old Platanus set by Agamemnon, mentioned by Theophrastus, the Herculean Oaks, the Laurel near Hippocrene, the Vatican Ilex, and the Vine which was grown to that bulk and woodiness as to make a statue of Jupiter, and columns in Juno’s temple: at present it is found that the great doors of the Cathedral at Ravenna are made of such Vine-tree planks, some of which are twelve feet long, and fifteen inches broad, the whole soil of that country producing Vines of prodigious growth. Such another, in Margiana, is spoken of by Strabo, that was twelve feet in circumference. Pliny mentions one of six hundred years old in his time; and at Ecoan, the late Duke of Montmorency’s house, is a table of a very large dimension, made of the like plant ; and that which renders it the more strange, is, that a tree growing in such a wreathed and twisted manner, rather like a rope than timber, and needing the support of others, should arrive to such a bulk and firm con- sistence; but so it is, and Olearius affirms, that he found many Vines near the Caspian Sea, whose trunks were as big about asa man. And the old Lotus-trees, recorded by Valerius Maximus, and the Quercus Mariana, celebrated by the prince of orators, Pliny’s huge Larix, and what grew in the Fortunate Islands, with that enormous tree Scaliger reports was growing in the Troglodytic India, were famous for their age. St. Hierom affirms he saw the Sycamore that Zaccheus climbed up, to behold our Lorp ride in triumph to Jerusalem: but that’s nothing for age to the Olive under which our blessed Saviour agonized, still remain- ing, as they say, in the garden to which he used to resort. At the same rate, Surius tells of other Olive-trees at Nazareth, and of the cursed Fig- OF FOREST-TREES. 189 tree, whose stump was remaining above 1500 years. Not to omit that CHAP. III. other Fig-tree, yet standing near Cairo, which is said to have opened in a od two to receive and protect the blessed Virgin and holy Babe, as she was flying into Egypt; but is now shewed whole again, as Monconys, who saw it, but believed nothing of it, tells the story. ‘There is yet there a tree of the same kind, which measures seventeen paces in circum- ference. And now in the Aventine mount, they shew us the Malus Medica, planted by the hand of St. Dominic, and another in the monastery at Fundi, where Thomas Aquinas lived, planted by that saint, 1278. In Congo, they speak of trees capable of being excavated into vessels that would contain two hundred men a-piece. To which, add those superannuated Tilias now at Basil, and that of Ausburgh, under whose prodigious shade they so often feast, and celebrate their weddin gs; because they are all of them noted for their reverend antiquity, that of Basil branching out one hundred paces diameter, from a stem of about twenty feet in circle, under which the German emperors have sometimes eaten ; and to such trees it seems they paid divine honours, as the nearest emblems of eternity, et tanquam sacras ex vetustate, as Quinctilian speaks. And like to these might that Cypress be, which ‘is celebrated by Virgil, near to anothér monument. But we will spare our reader, and refer him that has a desire to mul- tiply examples of this kind, to those undoubted records our naturalist mentions in lib. xvi. chap. xliv. where he shall read of Scipio Africanus’s Olive-trees; Diana’s Lotus; the ruminal Fig-tree, under which the bitch wolf suckled the founder of Rome and his brother, lasting (as Tacitus calculated) eight hundred and forty years, putting out new shoots, and presaging the translation of that empire from the Cesarian line, happen- ing in Nero’s reign: the Hex, of prodigious antiquity, as the Hetruscan inscription remaining on it imported. But Pausanias, in his Arcadics, thinks the Samian Vitex, of which already, to be one of the oldest trees growing, and the Platan set by Menelaus: to these he adds the Delian Palm, coevous with Apollo himself, and the Olive planted by Minerva, 1 juxtaque antiqua cupressus, Religione patrum multos servata per annos. EN. 2. Volume LI. Bb BOOK III. — ye STATURE. * Journey to Jerusalem, p. 140. 190 _ A DISCOURSE according to their tradition ; the over-grown Myrtle; the Vatican and Tiburtine Holm, and especially that near to Tusculum, whose body was thirty-five feet about ; besides divers others which he there enumerates in a large chapter. And what shall we conjecture of the age of Xerxes’ Platanus, in admiration whereof he staid the march of so many hundred thousand men for so many days; by which the wise Socrates was used to swear. And certainly a goodly tree was a powerful attractive, when that prudent consul Passienus Crispus, fell in love with a prodigious Beech of a wonderful age and stature, (which he used to sleep under, and would sometimes refresh it with pouring wine at the roots,) and that wise prince Francis I. with an huge Oak, which he caused to be so curiously immured at Bourges. We have already made mention of Tiberius’s Larch, intended to be employed about the Naumachia, which being one hundred and twenty feet in length, bare two feet diameter nearly all that space, (not counting the top,) and was looked upon as such a wonder, that though it was brought to Rome to be used in that vast fabric, the emperor would have it kept propter miraculum ; and so it lay unemployed till Nero built his amphitheatre. To this might be added the mast of Demetrius’s galeasse, which consisted of but one Cedar; and that of the float which wafted Caligula’s obelisks out of Egypt, four fathoms in circumference. We read of a Cedar growing in the Island of Cyprus, which was one hundred and thirty feet long, and eighteen in diameter; and such it seems there are some yet growing on Mount Libanus, (though very few in number,) one of which our late traveller, Mr. Maundrel, * affirms himself to have measured of twelve yards six inches in girt, sound, and at six yards from the ground divided into five limbs, each of which was equal toa great tree. We read also of the Plane in Athens, whose roots extended thirty-six cubits farther than the boughs, which were yet exceedingly large; and such another was that most famous tree at Velitrze, whose arms stretched out eighty feet from the stem; but these trees were solid. Let us calculate from the hollow. Besides those mentioned by Pliny, in the Hercynian forest, the Germans had castles in Oaks, and (as now the Indians) some punti or canoes of excavated Oak, which would well contain thirty, some forty persons. Such were the ancient povofv)a, in use yet about Cephalonia, as Sir George Wheeler observed ; and such the Adpua Mora used by those of Cyprus. But what OF FOREST-TREES. 191 were these to a canoe in Congo, which was made to hold two hundred men ? The Lician Platanus recorded by Pliny, and remaining long after his days, had a room in it of eighty-one feet in compass, adorned with stately seats and tables of stone; and it seems it was so glorious a tree both in body and head, that Licinius Mucianus (three times consul and governor of that province) used to feast his whole retinue in it, choosing rather to lodge in it, than in his golden-roofed palace *. And of later date, that vast Cerrus in which an eremite built his cell and chapel, so celebrated by the noble Fracastorius in his poem Malteide. Cant. viii. But for these capacious hollow trees we need go no farther than our own country; there being, besides that which I mention in Gloucester- shire, an Oak at Kidlington-Green, in Oxfordshire, which has been fre- quently used (before the death of the late judge Morton, near whose house it stood) for the immediate imprisonment of vagabonds and malefactors, till they could conveniently be removed to the county gaol: and such another prison Dr. Plott does, in his excellent history of Oxfordshire, mention out of Ferdinand Hertado, in Moravia, to be made out of the trunk of a Willow, twenty-seven feet in compass. But not to go out of our promised bounds, the learned doctor speaks of an Elm growing on Blechington-Green, which gave reception and harbour to a poor great- bellied woman, whom the inhospitable people would not receive into their houses, who was brought to-bed in it of a son, now a lusty young fellow. This puts me in mind of that (I know not what to call it) privilege belonging to a venerable Oak, lately growing in Knoll Wood, near ‘Trely-Castle, in Staffordshire, of which, I dhink, Sir Charles Skrymsher is owner; that upon oath made of a bastard’s being begotten within the reach of the shade of its bough, (which I assure you at the rising and declining of the sun is very ample,) the offence was not obnoxious to the censure of either ecclesiastical or civil magistrate — These, with our historian, I rather mention for their extravagant use, and to refresh the reader with some variety, than for their extraordinary capacity: because such instances were innumerable, should we pretend to illustrate this particular with more than needs. And now I have spoken of Elms, and other extravagancies of trees, there stands one (as this curious observer notes) in Binsey common, Bb 2 CHAP. ITI. FF ae) * Lib. xii. BOOK IIL. |e 192 A DISCOURSE six yards in diameter near the ground, which it is conjectured has been so improved by raising an earthen bank, or seat, about it, which has caused it to put forth into spurs, it not being so considerable in the higher trunk. Compare me, then, with these that nine-fathom deep tree spoken of by Josephus Acosta ; the Mastick-tree, seen and measured by Sir Francis Drake, which was four and thirty yards in circuit; those of Nicaragua and Gambra, which seventeen persons could hardly embrace: among these may come in the Cotton-tree described by Dampier. In India, says Pliny, Arbores tante proceritatis traduntur, ut sagittis superjaci nequeant ; and adds, (which I think material, and therefore, add also,) Hee facit ubertas soli, temperies ceeli, et aquarum abundantia. Such were those trees in Corsica, and near Memphis, recorded by Theophrastus, &c. and for prodigious height, the two and three hundred feet unparalleled Palms Royal described by capt. Ligon, growing in our plantations of the Barbadoes; or those goodly masts of Fir, which I have seen and mea- sured, brought from New England; and what Bembus relates of those twenty-fathomed antarctic trees; or those of which Cardan writes, called Ceiba, which rising in their several stems each of twenty feet in compass, and. as far distant each from other, unite in the bole at fifteen feet height from the ground, composing three stately arches, and thence ascending in a shaft of prodigious bulk and altitude. Such trees of thirty-seven feet diameter, an incredible thing, Scaliger (his antagonist) speaks of, ad Gambre fluvium. Matthiolus mentions a tree growing in the Island of Cyprus, which contained one hundred and thirty feet high sound timber: and upon Mount A‘tna, in Sicily, is a place called by them Gili tre Castagne, from three Chestnut-trees there standing, where in the cavity of one, yet remaining, a considerable flock of sheep is com- monly folded. Kircher’s words are these, as seen by himself: Ht quod for- san Tapadofov vidert possit, ostendit mihi vie dux, unius Castanee corticem tante amplitudinus, ut intra eam integer pecorum grex a pastoribus, tan- quam incaula commodissima, noctu includeretur. China Illust. p. 185. But this, as I remember, was lately ruined by the direful conflagration about Catanea™. And what may we conceive of those trees in the Indies, one m The eruption of Mount tna that, in the year 1669, overwhelmed the city of Catanea, did not destroy any of these memorable Chestnut-trees, as Mr. Evelyn supposes. They are OF FOREST-TREES. 193 of whose nuts hardly one man is able to carry ; and which are so vast, as they depend not, like other fruit, by a stalk from the boughs, but are produced out of the very body and stem of the tree, and are sufficient to feed twenty persons at a meal? There were trees found in Brazil, that sixteen men could scarcely fathom about: and the Jesuits caused one of these to be felled, for being superstitiously worshipped by the savages, which was one hundred and twenty feet in circumference. The Mexican emperor is said to have had a tree in his garden, under whose shade a thousand men might sit at a competent distance. We read of a certain Fig in the Caribbee Islands, which emits such large buttresses, that great planks for tables and flooring are cleft out of them, without the least prejudice to the tree ; and that one of these does easily shelter two hundred men under them: and in Nieuhoff’s voyage SSS still in being, and frequently visited by the curious and enterprising traveller. In the year 1770, Mr. Brydone made an accurate examination of them, and in an elegant history of his travels, entitled, A Your through Sicily and Malta, has favoured us with the following account : <¢ From this place it is not less than five or six miles to the great Chestnut-trees, through « forests growing out of the lava, in several places almost impassable. Of these trees there ‘are many of an enormous size; but the Castagno de Cento Cavalli is by much the most “celebrated. I have even found it marked in an old map of Sicily, published near an “hundred years ago; and in all the maps of /Etna, and its environs, it makes a very « conspicuous figure. I own I was by no means struck with its appearance, as it does not « seem to be one tree, but a bush of five large trees growing together. We complained «to our guides of the imposition ; when they unanimously assured us, that by the universal “ tradition and even testimony of the country, all these were once united in one stem; “ that their grandfathers once remembered this, when it was looked upon as the glory of “the forest, and visited from all quarters ; that for many years past, it had been reduced to “the venerable ruin we beheld. We began to examine it with more attention, and “found that there is an appearance that these five trees were really once united in one— «« The opening in the middle is at present prodigious ; and it does, indeed, require faith to “believe, that so vast a space was once occupied by solid timber. But there is no ap- “ pearance of bark on the inside of any of the stumps, nor on the sides that are opposite to “one another. Mr. Glover and I measured it separately, and brought it exactly to the same “< size, viz. two hundred and four feet round. If this was once united in one solid stem, “it must with justice, indeed, have been looked upon as a very wonderful phznomenon ‘in the vegetable world, and deservedly styled the glory of the forest. “IT have since been told by the Canonica Recupero, an ingenious ecclesiastic of this «place, that he was at the expense of carrying up peasants with tools to dig round the “* Castagno de Cento Cavalli, and he assures me, upon his honour, that he found all these CHAP. II. Sa 194 A DISCOURSE BOOK 11, to the Kast Indies, there is mention of the Kynti, a kind of Oak, which “~~ yield planks of four feet breadth, and forty in length. Strabo, I re- member, Georg. lib. xv. talks of fifty horsemen under a tree in India: his words are, cS de evt dévdpep peanpbol Cay oxtaCopnevss (oreréas TEVTXOVIAS and of another that shaded five stadia at once; and in another place, of a Pine about Ida, which measured twenty-four feet diameter, and of a mon- strous height: to these may be added the Arbor de Rayz, a certain tree growing in the East Indies, which propagates itself into a vast forest (if not hindered) by shooting up, and then letting a kind of gummy string to fall and drivel from its branches, which takes root in the ground again, aid in this process spreads a vast circuit ; the stems of some of which are reported to be upwards of six feet diameter". To this may be added the Balete, described by Mr. Ray, (Append. Vol. III.) and what he cites of Melchior Barros, who found trees proof against weapons, resisting the “stems united below ground in one root. I alleged that so extraordinary an object must “have been celebrated by many of their writers. He told me that it had, and produced “several examples; Philoteo, Carrera, and some others. Carrera begs to be excused “from telling its dimensions, but he says, he is sure there was wood enough in that “one tree to build a large palace. Their poet Bagolini, too, has celebrated a tree of the “same kind, perhaps the same tree*; and Massa, one of their most esteemed authors, «says he has seen solid Oaks upwards of forty feet round; but adds, that the size of the «« Chestnut-trees was beyond belief, the hollow of one of which, he says, contained three «hundred sheep, and thirty people had often been in it on horseback. I shall not pretend “to say, that this is the same tree he means; or whether it was ever one tree or not. There “‘ are many others that are well deserving the curiosity of travellers. One of these, about ‘a mile and a half higher on the mountain, is called I/ Castagno del Galea ; it rises from one < solid stem to a considerable height, after which it branches out, and is a much finer object «than the other. I measured it about two feet from the ground; it was seventy-six feet «round. There is a third called I/ Castagno del Nave, that is pretty nearly of the same size. « All these grow on a thick, rich soil, formed originally, I believe, of ashes thrown out by «the mountain.” * Supremos inter montes monstrosior omni Monstrosi fcetum stipitis Etna dedit. Castaneam genuit, cujus modo concava cortex Turmam equitum haud parvam continet, atque greges. . Mr. Marsden, in his History of Sumatra, gives the dimensions of one of these trees growing near Mangee, twenty miles west of Patna, in Bengal. Diameter 370 feet. Cir- cumference of the shadow at noon, 1116 feet. Circumference of the several stems, in number fifty or sixty, 921 feet. Under this tree sat a naked fakir, who had occupied that OF FOREST-TREES. 195 force of any edged tool, being of a consisture so hard: but even this, and all we have hitherto produced, is nothing to what I find mentioned in the late Chinese History, (as it is set forth upon occasion of the Dutch embassy,) where they tell us of a certain tree called Ciennich, (or the tree of a thousand years,) in the province of Suchu, near the city of Kien, which is so prodigiously large, as to shroud two hundred sheep under one only branch of it, without being so much as perceived by those who approach it. And to conclude with yet a greater wonder, of another in the province of Chehiang,, whose amplitude is so stupendously vast, as fourscore persons can hardly embrace. These gigantic trees the Chinese timber-merchants transport on floats, upon which they build huts and little cottages, where they live with their families, floating many thousand miles till all be sold, as Le Compte tells us. In the mean time, we must not omit the strange and incredible bulk of some Oaks standing lately in Westphalia, whereof one served both for a castle and fort ; and another there, which contained in height one hundred and thirty feet, and, as some report, thirty feet diameter; also another which yielded one hundred wain load. I have read of a table of Walnut-tree, to be seen at St. Nicholas’s, in Lorrain, which held twenty-five feet broad, all of a piece, and of competent length and thickness, rarely flecked and watered : Scamozzi, the architect, reports he saw it. Such a monster that might be, under which the emperor Frederick III. held his magnificent feast in 1472. We will now endeavour to give a taste of more fresh observa- tions, and to compare our modern timber with the ancient, and that not situation for twenty years ; but he did not continue there the whole year, for his vow obliged him to lie, during the four cold months, up to his neck in the waters of the river Ganges, p. 131. Milton represents our first parents as making use of the leaves of this tree, as soon as they became conscious of shame : The Fig-tree ; not that kind for fruit renown’d ; But such as at this day to Indians known In Malabar, or Decan, spreads her arms, Branching so broad and long, that in the ground The bending twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree, a pillar’d shade High over-arch’d, and echoing walks between. PARADISE LOST. CHAP. Ill. Se a 196 A DISCOURSE BOOK III. only abroad, but without travelling into foreign countries, for these wonders. What goodly trees were of old adored, and consecrated by the Druids, I leave to conjecture from the stories of our ancient Britons, who, had they left records of their prodigies in this kind, would doubtless have furnished us with examples as remarkable for the growth and stature of trees, as any which we have deduced from the writers of foreign countries ; since the remains of what are yet in being (notwithstanding the havoc which has universally been made, and the little care to im- prove our woods) may stand in fair competition with any thing that antiquity can produce. There is somewhere in Wales an inscription extant, cut into the wood of an old beam, thus: SEXAGINTA PEDES FUERANT IN STIPITE NOSTRO, EXCEPTA COMA QUA SPECIOSA FUIT. This must needs have been a noble tree, but not without later parallels ; for to mstance in the several species, and speak first of the bulks of some immense trees, there was standing an old decayed Chest- nut at Fraiting in Essex, whose very stump did yield thirty sizable load of logs. I could produce you another of the same kind in Glouces- tershire, which contains within the bowels of it a pretty wainscotted room, enlightened with windows, and furnished with seats, &c. to an- swer the Lycian Platanus lately mentioned. But whilst [I am on this period, see what a Tilia that most learned and obliged person Sir Thomas Brown, of Norwich, describes to me in a letter just now received. “ An extraordinary large and stately Tilia, Linden, or Lime-tree, there groweth at Depeham, in Norfolk, ten miles from Norwich, whose mea- sure is this: the compass, in the least part of the trunk or body, about two yards from the ground, is at least eight yards and a half; about the root near the earth, sixteen yards; about half a yard above that, near twelve yards in circuit ; the height to the uppermost boughs about thirty OF FOREST-TREES. 197 yards. This surmounts the famous Tilia of Zurich, in Switzerland; and CHAP. II. uncertain it is whether in any Tilicetum or Lime-walk abroad, it be cons “~ _ siderably exceeded: yet was the first motive I had to view it, not so much the largeness of the tree, as the general opinion that no man could even name it; but 1 found it to bea Tilia Foemina; and (if the distinc- tion of Bauhinus be admitted from the greater and lesser leaf) a Tilia Platyphyllos, or Latifolia; some leaves being three inches broad; but to distinguish it from others in the country, I called it Tilia Colosszea Depehamensis.” ay, A Poplar-tree, not much inferior to this, he likewise informs me, grew lately at Harling, by Thetford, at Si William Gaudy’s gate, blown down by that terrible hurricane about four years since *. aa Thus that learned person. From these instances, I am not apt so much to admire what is pretended so mightily to exceed the refreshing shades of some of our Oaks, Beeches, Elms, and other ample umbrages, if dili- gently compared, as I am to impute it to what the younger Pliny attributes to men’s affecting novelties, that tanta suarum rerum satietas, -aliarumque aviditas. But here does properly intervene the Linden of Schalouse, in Swisse, under which is a bower composed. of its branches, capable of containing three hundred persons sitting at ease ; it has a fountain set about with many tables, formed only of the boughs, to which they ascend by steps, _all kept so accurately, and so very thick, that the sun never looks into it. But this is nothing to that prodigious Tilia of Neustadt, in the Duchy of Wirtemberg, so famous for its monstrosity, that even the city itself receives a denomination from it, being called by the Germans Neustadt ander grossen Landen, or Neustadt by the great Lime-tree. The cireum- ference of the trunk is twenty-seven feet four fingers; the ambitus, or extent of the boughs, four hundred and three, feré ; the diameter, from south to north, one hundred and forty-five; from east to west, one hundred and nineteen feet ; set about with divers columns and monu- ments of stone, (eighty-two in number at present, and formerly above an hundred more,) which several princes and noble persons have adorned, and celebrated with inscriptions, arms, and devices, and which, as so many pillars, serve likewise to support the umbrageous and venerable Volume II, Ce BOOK III. i ai “ 1679. 198 A DISCOURSE boughs ; and that even the tree had been much ampler, the ruins and distances of the columns declare, which the rude soldiers have greatly impaired. By the date of the ancientest columns, yet entire*, may be conjec- tured how goodly a tree it was above one hundred and twenty years ago. The inscriptions on the several arms and supporters are as follow : D. V. H. Z. W. CLL.——Graff zu Leuehtenberg. 1591. 1583. 1575. Albert von Rosenberg Ritter. 1591. Wolff Keidel alter Furleutium. 1555. (Some report he planted it.) ans Heinrie vonder Tana. 1583. Conrad von Flbeg. 1575. Friz Nerter von Hertenek. 1575. Wirich von Gemmingen. 1575. Bartol Mot. 1555. V. Hans Funk der seit Burgermeister Det erst. 1555. Hans Ulrich Stigilheimer xu Dura- thenig Fuctlicher. hr. Hoffmeister. 1591. Przsul de Langheim rediens Cisterliz ab urbe _Pyramidem hane posuit flammis ccelestibus auctam. Sentiat hee etiam numen spirabile toto Pectore, et illius semper sit munere felix. Johann. Aht zu Langh. 1601. Joh. Aht zu Schoenthal. 1584. Eber- hard von Gimmingen, 1555. David von Helmstad Amtman. Graf Fridrich 2a Mompelyard. Hans Henrich von Lammestein. Sigismund Signiger. L. H. Z. W. A. 353. G. L. Mary Graff au Brandenb. 1562. Georg. Ernest Graff za Henneb. Herr 2u Aschaff b. 1575. Michel Helmling Statt-schreiber. 1555. ans Ulrick von Steine. 1575. Daniel von Helmstatt. zu Kappenaw. 1556. Stamel von Reischach. 1575. Willhelm von Crombach. 1588. Bernolph von Gammingen. 1588. Schweiker Wumbold von. Umstatt. 1591. Heinrich Link Pfarrer zu Uden. Andreas von Oberbach Vorstmeist. zu Neu-statt. Neubrecht Bart Keller. 21 Neu-statt. 1557. Ernberg. Thomas Busch von Schorndorff. Wolffang von Gemmingen. 1588. Feit Kumeter Forst- meister. 1551 and 1530. After this, we might forbear the naming that at Tillburgh, near Buda in Hungary, growing in the middle of the street, extending to sixty-two paces from the stem, sustained by twenty-eight columns: nor that nearer us, at Cleves in the Low Countries, a little without the entrance into the town, cut in eight faces supported with pillars, and containing a room in OF FOREST-TREES. 199 the middle, the head of the tree curiously shaped. I say, I need not CHAP. III. have charged this paragraph with half these, but to shew how much “~~ more the Lime-tree seems to be disposed to be brought into these ~ arborious wonders, than other trees of slower growth ; and yet Iam told of a White Thorn, at Worms in Germany, planted in the centre of the quadrangle of the great church, whose branches, held up with stone, are in circle fifty paces: several more occur, too tedious to recite. But what is all this, take the most spreading of them, to what we shall shew, whilst that of Neustadt comes not yet by forty feet near to the dimen- sions of an Oak standing lately in Worksop Park, belonging to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, spreading almost three thousand yards square, and under the shade whereof, near a thousand horse might commodiously stand at once. But, besides the gigantic Lime-tree, there is likewise a White Thorn, brought (as the tradition goes) a small twig out of Palestine, anno 1470, by Eberhard, first Duke of Wirtemberg, (and planted near Tubing, where he founded St. Peter’s Monastery,) the branches whereof being sustained by forty columns of stone, is yet * a flourishing tree. It is probable, that of Glastonbury is — * 1679. of this kind, and above a thousand years ancienter, if the report be true. At Forti grows a Filbert whose trunk is as big as three men’s middles : Near Essling is a Juniper-tree of almost two feet diameter in the lower trunk, and very tall. These prodigies, with several more, we have from Dr. Faber, physician to Frederic, Duke of Wirtemberg, and collected by the late industrious Jesuit Schotti, in his Appendix ad lib. ii. De Mi- rabilibus Miscellaneis. Nor may here that goodly Birch-tree be forgotten, which growing in one of the courts of the palace of Augsburgh, is so spreading, as that the branches will cover with its shade three hundred and sixty-five tables, even as many as there are days in the year, as Tavernier tells us in his Travels. Mr. Cook, in his ingenious and useful Treatise, mentions a Witch Elm growing within these three or four years in Sir Walter Baggot’s park in the county of Stafford, which, after two men had been five days’ felling, lay forty yards in length, and was at the stool seventeen feet diameter: it broke in the fall fourteen load of wood ; forty-eight in the top: yielded eight pair of naves, eight thousand six hundred and sixty feet of boards and planks : it cost ten pounds seven- teen shillings the sawing; the whole esteemed ninety-seven tons. ‘This was certainly a goodly stick ! Cc2 BOOK III. we 200 A DISCOURSE What other prodigious trees do at present, and did formerly, abound in that country, may be seen in Dr. Plot’s Natural History. Such was an Oak at Narbury, of fifteen yards in girth, which being felled, two men at either side on horseback could not see one another: also an Ash of eight feet diameter, the timber of which was valued at thirty pounds. I am told even of a Withy-tree, to be seen somewhere in Berkshire, which is increased to.a most stupendous bulk; and of two Witch Hasel- trees of prodigious size, growing in Oaksey-Park, belonging to Sir Edward Pooles, near Malmsbury, in Wiltshire, not inferior to the largest. Oaks: but these, for arriving hastily to their acmé and period, and gene- rally not so considerable for their use, I pass to the Ash, Elm, Oak, &c. There were of the first of these divers, which measured in length one hundred and thirty-two feet, sold lately in Essex® ; and in the manor of Horton (to go no farther than the parish of Ebsham in Surrey, belonging to my brother Richard Evelyn, Esq.) there are Elms standing in good numbers, which would bear almost three feet square for more than forty feet in height, which is, in my judgment, a very extraordinary matter.— They grow in a moist gravel, and in the hedge-rows. Not to insist upon Beech, which are frequently very large, there are Oaks of forty feet high and five feet diameter, yet flourishing in divers old parks of our nobility and gentry ; and Firs of one hundred and fifty feet in height, which are exceeded by one growing in a wood about Bern, by almost one hundred feet, as Chabrous tells us. A large and goodly Oak there is at Reedham, in Sir Richard Berney’s park of Norfolk, which I am informed was valued at forty pounds the timber, and twelve pounds the lopping wood. Nor are we to overpass those memorable trees which so lately flourished in Dennington park, near Newbury ; amongst which three were most ° My very excellent friend Mr. Marsham, of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me that in the year 1767, he measured an Ash-tree in Benel church-yard, North Britain, which, at five feet from the ground, was sixteen feet nine inches in girt. The tree was then in a flourishing and growing state. OF FOREST-TREES. 201 remarkable from the dedication of the ingenious planter (if tradition hold) the famous English bard, Geoffrey Chaucer; of which one was called the king’s, another the queen’s, and a third Chaucer’s Oak. The first of these was fifty feet in height before any bough or knot appeared, and cut five feet square at the butt end, all clear timber. ‘The queen’s was felled since the wars, and held forty feet of excellent timber, straight as an arrow in growth and grain, and cutting four feet at the stub, and near a yard at the top ;. besides a fork of almost ten feet clear timber above the shaft, which was crowned with a shady tuft of boughs, amongst which, some were on each side curved like rams’ horns, as if they had been so industriously bent by hand. ‘This Oak was of a kind so excellent, cutting a grain clear as any clap-board, (as appeared in the wainscot which was made thereof,) that it is a thousand pities some seminary of the acorns had not been propagated, to preserve the species. Chaucer's Oak, though it were not of these dimensions, yet was it a very goodly tree: and this account I received from my most honoured friend Phil. Packer, Esq. whose father (as lately the gentleman his brother) was proprietor of this park : but that which I would further remark, upon this occasion, is the bulk and stature to which an Oak may possibly arrive within less than three hundred years, since it is not so long that our poet flourished, (being in the reign of king Edward III.) if at least he were indeed the planter of those trees, as it is confidently affirmed. I will not labour much in this inquiry, because an implicit faith is here of great encouragement ; and it is not to be conceived what trees of a good kind, and in apt soil, will perform in a few years; and this, 1 am informed, is a sort of gravelly clay, moistened with small and frequent springs. In the meanwhile, I have often wished that gentlemen were more curious of transmitting to posterity such records, by noting the years when they begin any considerable plantation, that the ages to come may have both the satisfaction and encouragement by more accurate and certain calculations. Henry Ranjovius planted a grove in Ditmarsh, anno 1580, of Oak, Fir, Beech, Birch, &e. and erected a stone with this inscription, (which I mention not for its elegancy, but example) An. Dom, 1580. Quercus, Abietes, Betulas, &c. plantavit : annum et initium sationis adscribi. jussit, ut earum etatem exploraret posteritas ; quod in omnia orbis secula eterne Divinitati commendat, as 1 find recorded by that industrious genealogist, Scipio Amiratus of Florence. But the only instance I know of the like in our own country is in the park of Althorp CHAP. ITI. aye BOOK III. aA 202 A DISCOURSE in Northamptonshire, the magnificent seat of the Right Hon. the Earl of Sunderland. I find a Jewish tradition, cited by the learned Bochart, that Noah planted the trees (he supposes Cedars) of which he afterwards built the ark that preserved him: nor was it esteemed any diminution for princes themselves to plant trees with that hand which held the sceptre and reins of empire: so asin the Voorhout of the Hague, stands a tree placed there by the hands of the emperor Charles, which is yet in its prime growth, and no small boast of the good people. But before we go farther with the history of the stature and magnitude of trees, we are not to conclude as if all those trees and plants, which arrive to that enormous stature and bulk we have mentioned, were not to be found in other countries, both of the same and other species; but that even those exotics, and divers of our own, which seem pigmies and dwarfs, compared to those giants in their native climate, are so much greater than in ours; since we find that we account but shrubs, are divers of them well-grown trees, and prosper into useful timber; such as Juniper, (emulating the tall Cedar,) Sabine, Tamarisk, Cornel, Phillyrea, Granade, Lentiscus, Thuya, Laurel, Bays, and even Rosemary, (and other fruitexes and ligneous plants,) superior in growth and stature (than with us) where they spontaneously emerge. Thus not only the White Mulberry wonderfully outstrips ours, but those of much smaller stature. The Arbutus, growing on Mount Athos, becomes a spreading tree. The Cypress in Candy comes to timber, fit for vast beams and planks of four feet breadth. The Larch over-tops the Fir. Even the Myrtle, with us but a bush, makes staves for spears. The Oleander, e¢ humilis Genista, nay, the Rhododendron, make posts and rafters. Even herbaceous Suffrutages, and amongst the culinary furniture, a grain of Mustard has sprung up to a tree, whose branches afforded harbour to the birds of the air; and the very Hyssop made the stalk that carried a sponge to the mouth of our blessed Lord on the cross.’ We are told by ——— P Some critics upon this passage of St. John (*), taking the Hyssop of Judea to be the same plant, and of the same growth with ours, have conceived, either that the Hyssop was not used as the means of lifting up the sponge, or, that the word Hyssop is not the true reading of the text. These two opinions have given rise to many ingenious observations eee 2 John xix. 29, OF FOREST-TREES. 203 Josephus, that in the palace of Macherus, there was growing a plant of Rue, equal for height and thickness to any Fig-tree ; it was still remain- ing in the time of Herod, and would have stood. longer, had not the Jews cut it down. Jos. Antiq. Bell. Jub. lib. vii. cap. vi. How these, and indeed all other vegetables, differ in the north from those of the south, growing on the same mountain, Monsieur Brenier has shewn us ; and conjectures, which it is no part of our business to retail. The following remarks, perhaps, may incline the reader to think that the Hyssop of Judzea, that is, azouwb, was not the same with our Hyssop, or, however, of a much superior growth, and therefore that the caramos of St. Matthew (°), and the tecwrss of St. John, may be the same, The Jews reckon four, Kimchi says seven, species of Hyssop. It appears from the Talmud, that Hyssop was gathered not only for the use of the table, but also for wood ; i. e. | suppose, they used it for fuel, as the Egyptians did the reed and the papyrus (‘): it is mentioned also among the reeds and boughs, with which the Jews covered their booths at the feast of Tabernacles.—In the 1 Kings, iv. 33, Hyssop of one species, though it stands opposed to the Cedar of Lebanon, appears to have been classed by Solomon among trees. It is no objection to this remark, that it is called the Hyssop that springeth out of the wall ; for the original might, with equal justice, have been rendered, that groweth AGAINST or BY the wall; and, perhaps, that groweth upon ruins, viz. out of the rubbish ; or, that groweth upon or by the ramparts, viz. of Jerusalem, or any other city, that is, of which there is abundance without the walls of the city, or which is known to grow in such situations. It is true that the word, which is here translated trees, appears, from a passage in the book of Joshua (4), to comprehend under it the stalks of flax: in this, however, there is nothing inconsistent with the opinion that the Hyssop of the wall was an arborescent plant, holding, according to Solomon’s arrangement, the lowest place in that class, of which the Cedar of Lebanon held the highest: for why may not the flax of Palestine have been as much a tree, as the mustard of it was? However, if any thing that was called Hyssop in the East, was of a growth as great only as that of owr flax, St. John’s icownos may be the same with the xadapoc of St. Matthew ; for it might afford a stalk of length and strength sufficient to raise the sponge to the mouth of a person hanging on the cross. But there is reason to believe more than this concerning the Hyssop of the wall; for if it had not been a tree properly so called, the seventy (*), and Josephus (f), who could not but be acquainted with the ordinary productions of their own country, in translating this passage, could never have rendered by the terms fvAcy and 8evd;av, that Hebrew word Olz, that comprehends both the Cedar and the Hyssop. To this we may add, that Isaac Ben Omram (8), according to Bochart’s b Matt. xxvi. 48.—e Ulpian in Digest. lib. xxxii. leg. 55. sect. 5. Ed. Amst. Corporis juris civilis 1700, p- 573. vol. 1.——4 Joshua ii. 6. f Joseph. Antiq. Jub. lib. viii. cap. 2. sect. 5. p. 419. 1 vol. Ed. Haverc.——& Bochart. Hierozoicon, ] P, lib. ii. cap. 50. p. 590. € Greek version of 1 Kings iy. xxxiii. CHAP. III. ory ea BOOK III. i Aid 204 A DISCOURSE some are nipt and starved with that penetrabile frigus, and others ruined by the scorching heat, quite changing almost their very nature and con- stitution; some of them are dry, yielding nothing but leaves; others of the same species, are gummy, juicy, and succulent. The Lentiscus yields mastich in Cio; in Italy, the Oak bears galls ; and the Fraxinus exudes manna in Calabria: thus do Coelum and Solum govern the vegetable 4 Latin version of his Arabic says, “ That the dry Hyssop grows upon the mountains of Jerusalem, and extends its branches over the ground to the length of a cubit, or near it.” Ben Omram was upon the spot ; he speaks from his own knowledge, and I apprehend that his cubit wanted but two or three inches of two English feet. Christ was crucified upon the mountains where this Hyssop grew; and there can be no doubt, that if the branch was not sufficient for the purpose of which St. John speaks, the stem, however, could not but be so. Suppose the Hyssop of the East to be the same plant with ours, that it might, nevertheless, be of much larger growth, seems probable, from this circumstance, that the Mustard was. “Lightfoot and Tremellius have quoted two passages from the Talmud, in one of which we are told of a Mustard-tree, one of the boughs of which covered the tent of a potter: and in the other, of another tree of the same kind, the owner of which was wont to climb it, as men climb up a fig-tree. Now, though these stories may deserve no farther credit, yet certainly so much is due to them, as to induce us to believe that the Mustard was a large, tall, strong plant. To have feigned such exaggerations concerning a plant which never had these characters, could only have discredited and disgraced both the authors and the propagators of the story. Pliny, in the ninth chapter of the nineteenth book of his Natural History, says; that at Rosea, in the country of the Sabines, the hemp plant grows to the height of a tree. And Maldonat, a Spanish commentator, says, that in Spain he has often seen the Mustard used instead of wood for heating large ovens to bake bread ; that he has seen large woods of Mustard, (magnas sylvas,) and birds sitting upon the trees, though he never observed that they built their nests in them. To this we may add what is said of the Milium, and the Sesamum by Herodolus (*), whose credulity, as to what he heard, is indeed. blamable enough ; but whose veracity, as to what he saw, is not to be called in question. Speaking of the country about Babylon, he says, “ How great a tree proceeds from the Milium, and from the Sesamum, though I know certainly, I will not say, being well persuaded that with those who have never been in this country, what I have said of its wheat and barley, will meet with little credit.” Innumerable instances may be produced to shew that soil and climate are capable of making ‘hat a large tree in one country, which is only a shrub in another; and why may not the same law operate with the same force upon the herbaceous vegetable? Nay, soil alone, in the same climate, produces a wonderful diversity of dimension, The Marygold, which, in a moist and fat earth, rises two feet high, scarce exceeds the same number of inches in a dry and gravelly soil. h Herod. Clio. Ed. fol. Gronovii, p. 78. OF FOREST-TREES. 205 kingdom, for the mutual supply of the most useful productions, espe- CHAP. III. cially those of the forest, without which there could be no commerce “” Y ~~ in the world; for so has Providence ordained. Therewere in Cunsborough (sometime belonging to my Lord of Dover) several trees bought by a cooper, of which he made ten pounds per yard for three or four yards, as I have been credibly assured. But where shall we parallel that mighty tree which furnished the main-mast to the sovereign of our seas, which being one hundred feet long save one, bare thirty-five inches diameter ; yet was this exceeded in proportion and use by that Oak which afforded those prodigious beams that lie thwart her. The diameter of this tree was four feet nine inches, which yielded four square beams of four and forty feet long each of them. The Oak grew about Framlingham, in Suffolk; and, indeed, it would be thought fabulous to recount only the extraordinary dimensions of some timber- trees growing in that country, and the excessive sizes of these materials, had not mine own hands measured a plank, more than once, of above five feet in breadth, nine and a half in length, and six inches thick, all entire and clear, not reckoning the slab. This plank, cut out of a tree felled by my grandfather’s order, was made a pastry-board, and lay on a frame of solid brick-work at Wotton, in Surry, where it was so placed before the room was finished about it, or wall built, and yet abated by one foot shorter, to confine it to the intended dimensions of the place; for at first it held this breadth, full ten feet and a half in length: by an inscription cut in one of the sides, it had lain there above a hundred years. ‘To this may be added that table of one plank, of above seventy-five feet long, and a yard broad through the whole length, now to be seen in Dudley Castle-hall, which grew in the park described by Dr. Plot in his Natural History of Staffordshire. To these I might add a Yew-tree s in the church-yard of Crowhurst, in the county of Surry, which I am told is ten yards in compass; but especially that superannuated Y ew-tree growing now in Braburne church- yard, not far from Scot’s-Hall, im Kent; which being fifty-eight feet 4 The ingenious Mr. Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, mentions a Yew-tree in Fotheringal church-yard, whose ruins measured fifty-six feet and a half in circumference. Volume II. Dd BOOK IIL yee The names of the persons who gave in- telligence of the particulars. Ed. Rawson. 206 A DISCOURSE eleven inches in the circumference, will bear near twenty feet diameter, as it was measured first by myself imperfectly, and then more exactly for me, by order of the late right hon. Sir George Carteret, vice- chamberlain to his Majesty, and late treasurer of the navy : not to men- tion the goodly planks, and other considerable pieces of squared and clear timber, which I observed to lie about it, that had been hewed and sawn out of some of the arms, only torn from it by impetuous winds.— Such another monster, I am informed is also to be seen in Sutton church- yard, near Winchester. To these we add what we find taken notice of by the learned and industriously curious Dr. Plot, in his Natural History of Oxfordshire; particularly an Oak between Newnham Courtney and Clifton, spreading from bough-end to bough-end, eighty-one feet, shading in circumference five hundred and sixty square yards of ground, under which two thousand four hundred and twenty men may com- modiously stand in shelter. And a bigger than this may be seen near the gate of the water-walk at Magdalen College, whose branches shoot sixteen yards from the stem*; likewise another at Rycote, in Lord Norris’s park, extending its arms fifty-four feet, under which three hundred and four horses, or four thousand three hundred and seventy- four men may sufficiently stand. This is that Robur ~Britannicum so much celebrated by the late author of Dodona’s Grove, and under which he leans contemplating in the frontispiece. But these (with infinite others which I am ready to produce) might fairly suffice to vindicate and assert our proposition, as it relates to modern examples, and sizes of timber-trees, comparable to any of the ancients, remaining upon laudable and unsuspected records, were it not great ingratitude to conceal a most industrious and no less accurate account, which comes to my hands from Mr. Halton, auditor to the right hon. the most illustrious and noble Henry Duke of Norfolk, earl marshal of England. IN SHEFFIELD LORDSHIP. In the Hall-park, near unto Rivelin, stood an Oak which had eighteen yards without bough or knot, and carried a yard and six inches square at the said height or length, and not much bigger near the root ; it sold ' This celebrated tree was blown down on the 29th day of June, 1789, after having continued on classic ground near 500 years. It was generally known by the title of «« Addison’s Oak,” he having shewn an affection for it, by placing a bench under its shade, on which he frequently reposed himself after walking. OF FOREST-TREES. 207 twelve years ago for eleven pounds, Consider the distance of the place CHAP. ILL. and country, and what so prodigious a tree would have been worth near London. In Firth’s farm, within Sheffield lordship, about twenty years since, a tree blown down by the wind made, or would have made, two forge- hammer beams; and of those, and the other wood of that tree, there was worth, or made, fifty pounds; and Godfrey Frogat, who is now living, did oft say he lost thirty pounds by the not buying of it. A hammer-beam is not less than seven yards and a half long, and _four feet square at the barrel. In Sheffield-park, below the manor, a tree was standing which was sold by one Gifford, (servant to the then Countess of Kent,) for two pounds ten shillings, to one Nicholas Hicks, which yielded of sawn wair fourteen hundred, and, by estimation, twenty cords of wood. A wair is two yards long and one foot broad, six score to the hundred : so that in the said tree were ten thousand and eighty feet of boards, which, if any of the said boards were more than half an inch thick, renders the thing yet more admirable. ‘In the upper end of Rivelin stood a tree, called the Lord’s Oak, of twelve yards about, and the top yielded twenty-one cord; cut down about thirteen years since. In Sheffield park, ann. 1646, stood above one hundred trees, worth a thousand pounds ; and there are yet two worth above twenty pounds.— Still note the place and market. In the same park, about eight years ago, Ralph Archdall cut a tree that was thirteen feet diameter at the kerf, or cutting-place near the root. In the same park two years since, Mr. Sittwell, with Jo. Magson, did choose a tree, which, after it was cut, and laid aside flat upon level ground, Samuel Staniforth, a keeper, and Edward Morphy, both on horseback, could not see over the tree one another’s hat crowns. (And Dd2 Capt. Bullock. Ed. Morphy, woodward. 208 A DISCOURSE BOOK III. such another was the Narbury Oak, mentioned in a former part of this —Y" chapter.) This tree was afterwards sold for twenty pounds. — In the same park, near the old Ford, is an Oak-tree, yet standing, of ten yards circumference *. John Halton. In the same park, below the conduit plain, is an Oak-tree which bears a top, whose boughs shoot from the bole some fifteen, and some sixteen yards. Then admitting fifteen yards and a half for the common, or mean extent of the boughs from the bole, which being doubled, is thirty-one yards; and if it be imagined for a diameter, because the ratio of the diameter to the circumference is 333, it follows ’ My ingenious friend Mr. Marsham informs me, that there is now growing in Holt forest, near Bentley, a vigorous and healthy Oak, which, at five feet from the ground, measures thirty-three feet eight inches in girt ; however, neither this, nor any of the Oaks mentioned by Mr. Evelyn, bear any proportion to one growing at Cowthorpe, near Wetherby, upon an estate belonging to the right hon. Lady Stourton. The dimensions are almost in- credible. Within three feet of the surface (1776) it measured sixteen yards in circumference, and close by the ground, twenty-six yards. Its height is about eighty feet, and its principal limb extends sixteen yards from the bole. Throughout the whole tree, the foliage is ex- tremely thin, so that the anatomy of the ancient branches may be distinctly seen in the height of summer. Trunco, non frondibus, efficitt umbram—tucan. This venerable tree _must once have been the pride of the forest, but now the gray moss mars his rine, His bare boughs are beaten with stormes, His top is bald, and wasted with wormes, His honour decay’d, his branches sere. SPENSER. The following is an account of six large Oaks in Kedleston-park, in 1784: ids Main Timber | 4 Feet | 8 Feet | 12 Feet * | Height. | Height. | Girth. | Girth. | Girth, Ft. In Ft. In Ft. In Ft. In.| Ft. In No. 1. 118 I 81 9 Of B 19 6 16 3 No. 2. TL.) 85 1 20. A Wye 83 15 0 No. 3. 100 4 85 0 Qh ot 19 9 16 5 No. 4. 98 5 70 O 18 1 Lia. WO wi No. 5. 98 4 89 O 23 YO 18 8 15 6 No. 6. 93 O wo. 0 Pys5 ) le 19 11 16 2 ee ee eee eee ee > A, . < a bad a ~~ =. et A? Lirae 208. ing = ae as ait. ee ine Se REE KC | | 1 | oo (27 ( Lar. Cis ‘i 7 a > + iy | ' i \ My a \ Ay OF FOREST-TREES. 209 113.355 :: 31.9714 yards, which is the circumference belonging CHAP. III. this diameter. Then further it is demonstrable in geometry, that half the diameter See multiplied into half the circumference, produces the area or quan- - tity of the circle, and that will be found to be 754343, which is 755 square yards fere. Then lastly, if a horse can be limited to three square yards of ground to stand on, (which may seem a competent proportion of three yards long, and one yard broad,) then may two hundred and fifty-one horses be well said to stand under the shade of this tree. But of the more northern cattle, certainly above twice that number. WORKSOP PARK. In this park, at the corner of Bradshaw-rail, lieth the bole of an Oak- tree, which is twenty-nine feet about, and would be found thirty if it could be justly measured, because it lieth upon the ground; and the length of the bole is ten feet, and no arm or branch upon it. In the same park, at the White Gate, a tree did stand, that was from bough-end to bough-end (that is, from the extreme ends of two opposite boughs) one hundred and eighty feet; which is witnessed by Jo. Magson and George Hall, and measured by them both. Then because 180 feet, or 60 yards, is the diameter, 30 yards will be the semi-diameter : and by the former analogies 113.355 :: 60.1884 and 1.30 °° 944.28274 That is, the content of ground upon which this tree perpendicularly drops, is above 2827 square yards, which is above half an acre of ground: and the assigning three square yards (as above) for a horse, there may 942 be well said to stand in this compass. In the same park (after many hundreds sold and carried away), there is Hen. Homer. Jo. Hall. Geo. Magson. a tree which did yield quarter-cliff bottoms that were a yard square ; and jo. Magson. 210 _ A DISCOURSE BOOK Ul. there is of them to be seen at Worksop at this day, and some tables * A statutable ton of timber is, by some, reckoned forty- three feet of solid; and toa load, fifty. made of the same quarter-cliff likewise. In the same park, in the place there called the Hawk’s Nest, are trees 40 feet long of timber, which will bear two feet square at the top end or height of forty feet. i If then a square, whose side is two feet, he inscribed i in a cide the proportions at that circle are, Feet. Diametersig..oke, |. Soh BaB4 Circumference . .. . 8: 8858 Area ogee ee OST And because a ton of timber is said to contain forty solid feet, one of these columns of Oak will contain above six tons of timber, and a quarter *; in this computation they are taken to he cylinders, and not tapering like the pec eeale of a cone. : WELBECK LANE. The Oak which stands in this lane, called Gr eendale Oak, hath, at these several distances from the ground, these circumferences : a Feet.” > gieet. Inches: av Lee at 2) ae 28 fey | at 0) Sa A ‘ The breadth is, from bough-end to bough-end, diametrically 81 eas the height ‘from the ground to the topmost bough, 88 feet. [This dimen- sion taken from the proportion that a gnomon bears to the shadow. |] There are three arms broken off and gone, and eight very large ones yet remaining, which are very fresh and good timber. Fighty-eight feet is 291 yards, which being in this case admitted for _ the diameter of a circle, the square yards in that circumference will t 0. Lage 2 (eee iAdcisiys3p7) SNS AG ne i aN ») Rt } My i ony GAS TEARS NS C 7 Un, Dy, PL770770 Y Zz) ? 4. 2 one € t ¢ Le Ji / Up” VCOK ¢ // (yy: oo / TIC ? ) COW) 0 / » ay he LU om // lb 4 ( ie VY e wa ¢ Zs A ig Roos Mees im Yh SN ge RS S 4, @ HEE [es tid Ku <2 ee We Ye, ne” “ otras ina, MCU My) by CATT %yve hy U; OY ye ) (7 tla CC (7; PS OR Ui We? © oy, Mf Ul Xa 1) ff \ / ) Cd hee ih er L Li ¢ ) GF, YPC ee 4 y OS H. id y Tt F477, se reall Wi, tt ea cota TE Ee WOE IO a oe 2,0 Dial ee Vie. Die sal ey, = MAE NE 7 oe, GME LS RY Fa Leght of the Tice gd... 5B AO Lhiglhel Of thee lire iP hiya 1O52 WHC LA 0,2 My be to NE Re Ue eat ' rae Bia ie MT a a ee ee f WY 91 weil oes arte. Luge 210. ; . Vol’. 2. yn PRE en “1 i Duygneter ut a. MLLER EN, ae OE Girth upecse SORCUHO HO CX BEY, Se Guth atlhenune place lo } i A cs ; follow the fwotlors of thee Lives a ; Leight of the Tree CE CREME EN OTS) O eGhCMe By Ne ei pay oA height of the VGH Gfee 70 , 2 WAGE GEE a I Ses Guth of thie AYO 77,0 gear Oi 2 78 0 je meps) Bag y 3 IDNs Wa, 3 — P ' es ; \ 4 _ { S ; i ii B iis } ‘ i ' é {Ch iO reales ieee Mae eo ain OO TS ERS { n° 7), x , ¥ ls j + it OF FOREST-TREES. 211 be 676 jferé ; and then allowing three yards (as before) for a beast, CHAP. III. leaves 225 beasts, which may possibly stand under this tree‘. 3 Ga But the Lord’s Oak, that stood in Rivelin, was in diameter three yards and 28 inches, and exceeded this in circumference three feet, at one foot from the ground. SHIRE-OAK. Shire-Oak is a tree standing in the ground late Sir Thomas Hewet’s, about a mile from Worksop park, which drops into three shires, viz. Hen. Homer. York, Nottingham, and Derby, and the distance from bough-end to bough-end is 90 feet, or 30 yards. This circumference will contain near '707 square yards, sufficient to shade 235 horses. Thus far the accurate Mr. Halton. Now such venerable trees (especially conspicuously placed as this last) should be spared for the most noble and natural boundaries to great parishes and gentlemen’s estates ; famous for which is the Chestnut-tree at Tamworth, in Gloucestershire, which continued a signal boundary to that manor in king Stephen’s time, as it stands upon record. And now, before I shut up these encouraging instances, I am informed by a person of credit, that an Oak in Sheffield park, called the Lady’s Oak, when felled, contained forty-two tons of timber, which had arms that held at least four feet square for ten yards in length ; the body six feet of clear timber: that in the same park one might have chosen above one thousand trees worth above six thousand pounds; another thousand worth four thousand pounds, ef sie de ceteris. To this Mr. Halton replies, That it might possibly be meant of the Lord’s Oak already men- tioned to have grown in Rivelin; for now Rivelin itself is totally de- stitute of that issue she once might have gloried in of Oaks, there being only the Hall-park adjoining, which keeps up with its number of Oaks. And as to the computation of one thousand trees formerly in Sheffield t His Grace the Duke of Portland has presented this work with two fine views of this celebrated tree, so that by comparing its present state with its ancient one, we may dis- cover the ravages that time has made upon it during a period of 120 years. BOOK IIL. Sr\y 212 A DISCOURSE park, worth six thousand pounds, it is believed there were a thousand much above that value, since, in what is now inclosed, it is evident touching one hundred worth a thousand pounds. I am informed that an Oak, (I think in Shropshire,) growing lately in a copse of my Lord Craven’s, yielded nineteen tons and a half of timber, twenty-three cord of fire-wood, two load of brush, and two load of bark: and my worthy friend, Leonard Pinckney, Esq. late first clerk of his majesty’s kitchen, did assure me, that one John Garland built a very handsome barn, containing five bays, with pan, posts, beams, spars, &c. of one. sole tree, growing in Worksop park. _ I will close this with an instance which I greatly value, because it is transmitted to me from that honourable and noble person, Sir Edward Harley. “JI am” says he “assured by an inquisition taken about three hundred years since, that a park of mine, and some adjacent woods, had not then a tree capable to bear acorus ; yet that very park I have seen full of great Oaks, and most of them in the extremest wane of decay. The trunk of one of these Oaks afforded so much timber, as upon the place would have yielded fifteen pounds, and did completely seat with wainscot-pews a whole church. You may please,” says he, writing to Sir Robert Murray, “ to remember when you were here, you took notice of a large tree, newly fallen; when it was wrought up, it proved very hollow and unsound: one of its cavities con- tained two hogsheads of water: another was filled with better stuff; wax and honey : notwithstanding all defects, it yielded, besides three tons of timber, twenty-three cords of wood. But my own trees are but chips in comparison of a tree in the neighbourhood, in which every foot for- ward, one with another, was half a ton of timber ; it bore five feet square, forty feet long, and contained twenty ton of timber ; most of it sold for one pound per ton; besides that, the boughs afforded twenty-five cords of fuel wood: this was called the Lady-Oak. Is it not pity such goodly creatures should be devoted to Vulcan?” So far this noble gentleman, to which I would add Dire, a deep execration of iron mills, and I had almost said iron-masters too, Quos ego—sed motos preestat componere for I should never finish, to pursue these instances through our once goodly magazines of timber for all uses, growing in this our native country, comparable, as I said, to any we can produce of elder times, OF FOREST-TREES. 213 and that not only (though chiefly) for the encouragement of planters, and preservers of one of the most excellent and necessary materials in the world for the benefit of man, but to evince the continued vigour of na- ture, and to reproach the want of industry in this age of ours; and (that we may return to the argument of this large chapter) to assert the pro- cerity and stature of trees from their very great antiquity : for certainly, if that be true, which is by divers affirmed concerning the Quercetum of Mamre, (where the patriarch entertained his angelic guests,) recorded by Eusebius to have continued till the time of Constantine the Great, we are not too prejudicately to censure what has been produced for the proofs of their antiquity ; nor for my part do I much question the au- thorities. But let this suffice ; what has been produced, being not only an historical speculation of encouragement and use, but such as was per- tinent to the subject under consideration, as well as what I am about to add concerning the texture and similar parts of the body of trees, which may also hold in shrubs, and other ligneous plants, because it is both a curious and rational account of their anatomization, and worthy of the sagacious inquiry of that learned person, the late Dr. Goddard, as I find it entered amongst other of those precious collections of this illustrious society. The trunk or bough of a tree being cut transversely plain and smooth, sheweth several circles or rings more or less obicular, according to the external figure, in some parallel proportion, one without the other, from the centre of the wood to the inside of the bark, dividing the whole into so many circular spaces. ‘These rings are more large, gross, and distinct in colour and substance in some kind of trees, generally in such as grow to a great bulk in a short time, as Fir, Ash, &c. smaller or less distinct in those that either not at all, or in a longer time grow great; as Quince, Holly, Box, Lignum Vitz, Ebony, and the like sad-coloured and hard-woods; so that by the largeness or smallness of the rings, the quickness or slowness of the growth of any tree may, perhaps, at certainty be estimated. The spaces are manifestly broader on the one side than on the other, especially the more outer, to a double proportion, or more; the inner being near an equality. Volume II. Ee CHAP. IIE. a od BOOK III. Oa, 214 A DISCOURSE It is asserted, that the larger parts of these rings are on the south and sunny side of the tree, (which is very rational and probable,) insomuch, that by cutting a tree transverse, and drawing a diameter through the broadest and narrowest parts of the rings, a meridian line may be de- scribed. The outer spaces are generally narrower than the inner, not only in their narrower sides, but also on their broader, compared with the same sides of the inner; notwithstanding which, they are for the most part, if not altogether, bigger upon the whole account. Of these spaces, the outer extremities in Fir, and the like woods, that have them larger and grosser, are more dense, hard, and compact; the inner more soft and spongy ; by which difference of substance it is, that the rings themselves come to be distinguished. According as the bodies and boughs of trees, or several parts of the same, are bigger or lesser, so is the number, as well as the breadth of the circular spaces, greater or less; and the like according to the age, especially the number. It is commonly and very probably asserted, that a tree gains a new ring every year. In the body of a great Oak in the New-Forest, cut transversely even, (where many of the trees are accounted to be some hundreds of years old,) three and four hundred have been distinguished. In a Fir-tree, which is said to have just so many rows of boughs about it as it is of years growth, there has been observed just one less im- mediately above one row than immediately below. Hence some pro- bable account may be given of the difference between the outer and the inner parts of the rings, that the outermost being newly produced in the summer, the exterior superficies is condensed in the winter. In the young branches and twigs of trees there is a pith in the middle, which in some, as Ash, and especially Elder, equals or exceeds in dimen- sions the rest of the substance, but waxes less as they grow bigger, and in the great boughs and trunk scarce is to be found: this gives way for the growth of the inward rings, which at first were less than the outer, OF FOREST-TREES. 915 (as may be seen in any shoot of the first year,) and after grow thicker, CHAP. III. being itself absumed, or converted into wood; as it is certain cartilages or gristles are into bones, (in the bodies of animals,) from which, to sense, they differ even as much as pith from wood. These rings or spaces appearing upon transverse section, (as they ap- pear elliptical upon oblique, and straight lines upon direct section,) are no other than the extremities of so many integuments, investing the whole tree, and, perhaps, all the boughs that are of the same age with any of them, or older. The growth and augmentation of trees, in all dimensions, is acquired not only by accession of a new integument yearly, but also by the recep- tion of nourishment into the pores and substance of the rest, upon which they also become thicker ; not only those towards the middle, but also the rest, ina thriving tree: yet the principal growth is between the bark and body, by accession of a new integument yearly, as hath been men- tioned ; whence the cutting of the bark of any tree, or bough, round about, will certainly kill it. The bark of a tree is distinguished into rings or integuments, no less than the wood, though much smaller or thinner, and therefore not dis- tinguishable, except in the thick barks of great old trees, and toward the inside next the wood ; the outer parts drying and breaking with innu- merable fissures, growing wider and deeper, as the body of the tree grows bigger, and mouldering away on the outside. Though it cannot appear, by reason of the continual decay of it, upon the account aforesaid, yet it is probable the bark of a tree hath had suc- cessively as many integuments as the wood; and that it doth grow by acquisition of a new one yearly on the inside, as the wood doth on the outside ; so that the chief way, and conveyance of nourishment to both the wood and the bark, is between them both. The least bud appearing on the body of a tree, doth, as it were, make perforation through the several integuments to the middle, or very near ; which part is, as it were, a root of the bough in the body of the tree, and after becomes a knot, more hard than the other wood: when grown Ee 2 - 216 A DISCOURSE OOK III. —F\ larger, it manifestly shews itself also to consist of several integuments, by the circles appearing in it, as in the body ; more hard, probably, be- cause straitened in room for growth; as appears by its distending and buckling, as it were, the integuments of the wood about it, so implica- ting them the more; whence a knotty piece of wood is so much harder to cleave. It is probable that a cion or bud, upon graffing or inoculating, doth, as it were, root itself into the stock in the same manner as the branches, producing a kind of knot.—Thus far the accurate doctor. To which permit me to add only (in reference to the circles we have been speaking of) what another curious inquirer suggests to us ; namely, that they are caused by the pores of the wood, through which the sap ascends in the same manner as between the wood and the bark; and that in some trees the bark adheres to the wood, as the integuments of wood cleave to one another, and may be separated from each other as the bark from the outwardmost ; and being thus parted, will be found on their outsides to represent the colour of the outermost, contiguous to the bark; and on the inner sides, to hold the colour of the inner side of the bark, and all to have a deeper or lighter hue on their inner side, as the bark is on that part more or less tinged ; which tincture is supposed to proceed from the ascendant sap. Moreover, by cutting the branch, the ascending sap may be examined as well as the circles. It is pro- bable, the more frequent the circles, the larger and more copiously the liquor will ascend into it; the fewer, the sooner descend from it. That a branch of three circles, cut off at spring, the sap ascending, will be found at Michaelmas ensuing, when cut again in the same branch, or another of equal bigness, to have one more than it had at spring; and either at spring or fall to carry a circle of pricks next the bark; at other seasons a circle of wood only next it. But here the comparison must be made with distinction; for some trees do probably shoot new tops yearly till a certain period, and not after; and some have perhaps their circles in their branches decreased from their bodies to the extremity of the branch, in such economy and order, that, for instance, an Apple-tree shoot of this year has one circle of pricks or wood less than the graft of two years’ growth ; and that of two years’ growth may, the next year, . have one circle more than it had the last year; but this only till that branch shoot no more grafts, and then it is doubtful whether the outmost OF FOREST-TREES. 217 twig obtains any more circles, or remains at a stay, only nourished, not augmented, in the circles. It would also be required, whether the circles of pricks increase not till Midsummer and after, and the circles of wood from thence to the following spring. I might here subjoin the vegetative motion of plants, with the diagrams of the Jesuit Kircher, where he discourses of their stupendous mag- netisms, &c. could there any thing material be added to what has already been so ingeniously inquired into by the learned Dr. Grew, in his Anatomy of Vegetables, and that of Trunks; where, experimentally, and with extraordinary sagacity, he discusses this subject, (with entire satis- faction of the inquisitive reader,) beginning at the seeds, and proceeding to the formation of the root, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, fruit, &c. where you have the most accurate descriptions of the several vessels, for sap, air, juices, with the stupendous contexture of all the organical parts, than which there can be nothing more fully entertaining: so that what Dr. Goddard, and other ingenious men have but conjecturally hinted, is by this inquisitive person (and that of the excellent Malpighius) -evinced by autoptical experience, and profound research into their anatomy. ‘To all which we may, by no means, forget the most Lyncean inspector Mr. Ant. Van Leuwenhoek, concerning the barks of trees, which he affirms, and experimentally convinces, that that integument, namely the bark, was produced from the wood, and not the wood from the bark. But this discourse, together with the microscopical figure, (being too long to be here inserted,) refers to that most industrious per- son’s letter, Transact. Numb. 296, p. 1843. Let us, therefore, proceed to the felling. - It should be in the vigour and perfection of trees that a felling should be celebrated ; since, whilst our woods are growing, it is pity, and indeed too soon; and when they are decaying, too late. 1 donot pretend that a man who has occasion for timber, is obliged to attend so many ages ere he fell his trees; but I do by this infer, how highly necessary it were that men should perpetually be planting, that so posterity might have trees fit for their service, of competent, that is, of a middle growth and age, which it is impossible they should have, if we thus continue to de- stroy our woods, without this providential planting in their stead, and felling what we do cut down with great discretion, and regard of the future. : CHAP. IIT. a i FELLING. 300K Ill. aa A 218 A DISCOURSE I know it is an objection, or rather an unreasonable excuse of the slothful neglect of successive and continual planting, that the expec- tation is tedious of what is not likely to be timber in our time: but this is quite otherwise, provided men would be earlier at the work, for they might have sufficient of their own planting (nay from the very ru- diment and seeds) abundantly to recompense their patience and attend- ance, living to the age men usually attain by the common course of na- ture; and with how much improvement to their children and posterity. This minds me of what is reported of the emperor Maximilian II. who by chance finding an ancient husbandman setting Date-stones, he asked him what his meaning was to plant a tree that required an hundred years before it bore fruit ? “ Sir,” replies the good man, “ I have children, and they may have more come after them.” At which the emperor was so well pleased, that he gave him an hundred florins. Was not this like that of Laértes to Ulysses ?—But to return to felling. Such as we shall perceive to decay, should first be picked out for the axe, and then those which are in their state, or approaching to it; but the very thriving, and manifestly improving, should be indulged as much as possible. ‘To explore the goodness and sincerity of a standing tree, is not the easiest thing in the world: we shall anon have occasion to mention my Lord Bacon’s experiment to detect the hollowness of timber: but there is, doubtless, none more infallible than the boring it with a middling piercer made auger-fashion, and by frequent pulling out, and examining what substance comes along with it, as those who bore the earth to explore what minerals the place is impregnated with, and as sound cheeses are tasted: some again, there are, who, by digging a little about the roots, will pronounce shrewdly concerning the state of a tree; and if they find him perished at the top, (for trees die upwards, as men do from the feet,) be sure the cause lies deep, for it is ever a mark of great decay in the roots. There is also a swelling vein, which disco- vers itself eminently above the rest of the stem, though, like the rest, invested with bark, and which frequently circles about and embraces the tree, like a branch of Ivy; this is an infallible indication of hollow- ness and hypocrisy within. The time of the year for this destructive work is not usually till about the end of April, (at which season the sap does commonly rise freely,) — though the opinions and practice of men have been very different. OF FOREST-TREES. 219 Vitruvius is for an autumnal fall; others advise December and January. CHAP. III. Cato was of opinion trees should have first borne their fruit, or at least, Seer’ not till full ripe; which agrees with that of the architect, who begins his fall from the commencement of autumn to the spring, when Favonius begins to breathe ; and his reason is, that from thence, during all the summer, trees are, as it were, going with child, and diverting all their nourishment to the embryo, leaves, and fruit, which renders them weak and infirm. This he illustrates from teeming women, who during their pregnancy, are never so healthful as after they are delivered of their burden, and. abroad again; and for this reason (says he) those merchants who expose slaves to sale, will never warrant one that is with child: the buyer was (it seems) to stand to the hazard*. Thus he: but I re- — * Vitwv. member Monsieur Perrault in his pompous edition of our author, and Phe learned notes upon this chapter, reproves the instance, affirming that women are never more sound and healthy than when they are pregnant ; the nutrition derived to the infant being (according to him) no diminution or prejudice to the mother, as being but the consumption of that humidity which enfeebles the bearmg woman ; and thence infers, that the comparison cannot hold in trees, which become so much stronger by it. But to insist no longer on this; there is no doubt, that whilst trees abound in over-much, crude, and superfluous moisture, (though it may, and do contribute to their production and fertility,) they are not so fit for the axe as when being discharged of it, and that it rises not in that quantity as to keep on the leaves and fruit, those laxed parts and vessels by which the humour did ascend, grow dry and close, and are not so ob- noxious to putrefaction and the worm. Hence it is, that he cautions us to take notice of the moon’s decline, because of her dominion over liquids, and directs our woodman (some days before he fells downright) to make the gash or opening usque ad mediam medullam, to the end the whole moisture may extil; for that not only by the bark, (which those who re- semble trees to animals will have to be analogous to arteries) does the juice drain out, but by that more fatty and whiter substance of the wood itself, immediately under the bark, (and which our carpenters call the sap, and therefore, hew away as subject to rot,) which they will have to be the veins: it is (say they) the office of these arteries of bark, receiving nou- rishment from the roots, to derive it to every part of the tree, and to remand what is crude and superfluous by the veins to the roots again ; whence, after it has been better digested, it is made to ascend a second time by the other vessels in perpetual circulation ; and, therefore, neces- BOOK III. —s—e/ 220 A DISCOURSE sary so deep an incision should be made as may serve to exhaust both the venal and arterial moisture: but for this nice speculation, I refer the curious to the already-mentioned Dr. Grew, and to the learned Malpighius, who have made other, and far more accurate observations upon this subject". In the mean-time, as to that of the worm in timber- trees, and their rotting, sometimes within, and sometimes without ; ob- serve, that such as gape and rift outwardly, (as does that of the Oak when felled,) the sap thereby let out, the timber and heart within is found to be much more solid than that of the Chestnut and other trees that keep the moisture within; in these, however seeming sound outwardly, the timber is frequently extremely rotted and perished. Lastly, concerning the bark, though some are for stripping it, and so to let the tree stand till about Mid-June, to preserve it from the worm, (all which time it will put forth leaves, and seemingly flourish,) yet that which is unbarked is more obnoxious to them, and contracts somewhat a darker hue; (which is the reason so many have commended the season when it will most freely strip ;) however this were rather to be considered for such trees as one would leave round and unsquared, since we find the wild Oak, and many other sorts, felled over late, and when the sap begins to grow proud, to be very subject to the worm; whereas, being cut about mid- winter, it neither casts, rifts, nor twines, because the cold of the winter does both dry and consolidate ; while in spring, and when pregnant, so much of the virtue goes into the leaves and branches. Happy, therefore, were it for our timber, if some real invention of tanning without so much bark (as the hon. Mr. Charles Howard has most ingeniously offered) were become universal, that trees being more early felled, the timber might be better seasoned and conditioned for its various uses*. But as the custom is, men have now time to fell their woods, even from mid- winter to the spring, but never any after the summer solstice. « The illustrious Hervey has demonstrated that the blood of all animals is made to per- form a circulation by the action of the heart ; but the vegetable not being possessed of such a propelling organ, its juices do not circulate, but rise and fall in the same series of vessels. This, the Rev. Dr. Hales, in his “ Vegetable Staticks,” has demonstrated in the most satis- factory manner. | ; x Mons. Buffon very justly observes, that the trees intended to be felled for service, should first be stripped of their bark, and then suffered to stand and die upon the spot before they are cut: by this means, the sappy part becomes almost as hard and firm as the heart. OF FOREST-TREES. 221 And now we speak of tanning, they have in Jamaica the Mangrove, CHAP. ITI. Olive, and a third, whose barks tan much better than do ours in England, so as in six weeks the leather is fit to be employed to any use: they have likewise there a tree whose berries wash better and whiter than any Castile soap. Then for the age of the moon, it has religiously been observed ; so that Diana’s presidency in sylvis was not so much celebrated to credit the fictions of the poets, as for'the dominion of that moist planet, and her influence over timber: however, experienced men commend the felling soon after a full moon, and so during all the decrease, and to let the tree lie at least three months, to render the timber strong and solid: for my part, I am not so much inclined to these criticisms, that I should altogether govern a felling at the pleasure of this mutable lady; how- ever there is doubtless some regard to be had: Nec frustra signorum obitus speculamur et ortus. Nor is’t in vain signs fall and rise to note. As to other more recondite and deep astrological observations, minute and scrupulous, they are, perhaps, not altogether to be rejected, both as to thevarious configurations of the superior bodies, and operation on both vegetable and sensitive, especially as to the growth of fruit, sowing, planting, and cultivating: (indicating the proper seasons, according to the access and recess of the greater luminaries through the zodiac:) it were ingratitude to impute it all to the superstition of the ancients, or the total ignorance of causes in those great and learned men, (such as Hesiod, Virgil, Cato, Varro, Columella, Pliny, and the rest,) who have so freely left us these lessons ; doubtless from their long experience, and extraor- dinary penetration and inquiry into nature. Let the curious then, for their better satisfaction, consult that learned treatise of judicial astrology, written by Sir Christopher Heydon. In the mean time, the old rules are these: Fell in the decrease, or four days after the conjunction of the two great luminaries: some the last quarter of it; or (as Pliny) in the very article of the change, if possible, which happening, saith he, in the last day of the winter solstice, that timber will prove immortal: at least it should Volume II. ah BOOK III. IV 299 A DISCOURSE be from the twentieth to the thirtieth day, according to Columella: Cato four days after the full, as far better for the growth, nay, Oak in the summer; but all vimineous trees, silente lund, such as Sallows, Birch, Poplar, &e. Vegetius for ship-timber, from the fifteenth to the twenty- fifth; the moon as before: but never during the increase, trees being then most abounding with moisture, which is the only source of putre- faction: and yet it is affirmed, upon unquestionable experience, that timber cut at any season of the year in the old moon, or last quarter, when the wind blows westerly, proves as sound and good as at any other period whatsoever; nay, all the whole summer long, as in any month of the year, especially trees that bear no fruit. Theophrastus will have the Fir, Pine, and Pitch-tree felled when first they begin to bud. I enumerate them all, because it may be of great use on some public emergencies. Then for the temper and time of day: the wind low, neither east nor west, (but west of the two,) the east being most pernicious, and exposing it to the worms, and for which the best cure is, the plentiful sobbing it in water; neither in frosty, wet, or dewy weather ; and therefore never in a forenoon, but when the season has been a good while dry and calm; for as the rain sobs it too much, so the wind closes and obstructs the moisture from oozing it. Lastly, touching the species: fell Fir when it begins to spring ; not only because it will then best quit its coat and strip, but for that they hold it will never decay in water; which, howsoever deduced by Theophrastus from the old bridge made of this material over a certain river in Arcadia, cut in this season, is hardly sufficient to satisfy our Inquiry. Previous to this work of fellmg, take the advice of our countryman Markham, and it is not to be rejected: Survey, saith he, your woods as they stand, immediately after Christmas, and then divide the species in your mind, (I add, rather in some note-book or tables,) and consider for what purposes every several kind is most useful, which you may find in the several chapters of this Discourse under every head. After this, reckon the bad and good together, so as one may put off the other, with- out being forced to glean your woods of all your best timber. This done, or before, you shall acquaint yourself with the marketable prices of the country where your fell is made, and that of the several sorts; as what so many inches or feet square, and long, is worth for the several OF FOREST-TREES. 223 employments: what planks, what other scantlings, for so many spokes, CHAP. III. naves, rings, pales, poles, spurs, &c. as suppose it were Ash, to set apart the largest for the wheel-wright, the smallest for the cooper, and that of ordinary scantling for the ploughs, and the brush to be kidded and sold by the hundred or thousand, and so all other sorts of timber, viz. large, middling, middling stuff, and poles, &c. allowing the waste for the charges of felling, &e. all which you shall compute with greater certainty, if you have leisure, and will take the pains to examine some of the trees, either by your own fathom, or (more accurately.) by girting them about with a string, and so reducing them to the square, &c. by which means you may give anear guess; or, you may mark such as you intend to fell ; and then begin your sale about Candlemas till the spring; before which you must not (according as our custom is) lay the axe to the root; though some, for particular employments, as for timber to make ploughs, carts, axle-trees, naves, harrows, and the like husbandry tools, do frequently cut in October. Being now entering with your workmen, one of the first and principal things is, the skilful disbranching of the bole of all such arms and limbs as may endanger it in the fall, wherein much forecast and skill is required of the woodman, so many excellent trees being utterly spoiled for want of this only consideration ; and therefore in arms of timber which are very great, chop a nick underneath close to the bole, so meeting it with downright strokes, the arm will be severed without splicing. We have shewed why some, four or five days before felling, bore the tree cross-way ; others cut a kerf round the body, almost to the very pith or heart, and so let it remain a while; by this means to drain away the moisture, which will distil out of the wounded veins, and is chiefly proper for the moister sort of trees : and in this work the very axe will tell you the difference of the sex, the male being so much harder and browner than the female: but here (and wherever we speak thus of plants) you are to understand the analogical, not proper distinctions. But that none may wonder why in many authors of good note, we find the fruit-bearers of some trees called males, and not rather females, as particularly the Cypress, I shall observe that this preposterous denomi- nation had its source from very ancient custom, and was first begun in Ff2 BOOK III. i ain 294 A DISCOURSE Egypt, (Diodorus says in Greece,) where we are told, that the father only was esteemed the sole author of generation, the mother contributing only receptacle and nutrition to the offspring, which legitimated their mixtures as well with their slaves as free-women: and upon this account it was, that even trees bearing fruit, were amongst them reputed males, and the sterile and barren ones females ; and we are not ignorant how learnedly this doctrine has been lately revived by some of our most celebrated physicians. But since the same arguments do not altogether quadrate in trees, where the coition is not so sensible, (whatever they pretend of the Palms,) I am of opinion we might, with more reason, call that the female which bears any eminent fruit, seed, or egg, (from whence animals, as well as trees, not excepting man himself, as the learned Steno, Swammer- dam, and others have, I think, undeniably made out,) and-them males which produce none: but sometimes to the rudeness or less asperity of the leaves, bark, and grain, nay their medical operations, may deserve the distinction ; to which Aristotle adds branchiness, less moisture, and quick maturity. Lib. 1. de Plantis. All which seems to be most conspicuous in Plum-trees, Hollies, Ashes, Quinces, Pears, and many other sorts.— But I return to felling. When this is performed, you should leave the stools as close to the ground as possible may be, especially if you design a renascency from the roots ; unless you will grub for a total destruction, or the use of that part we have already mentioned, so far superior in goodness to what is more remote from the root, and besides the longer you cut and convert the timber, the better for many uses. Some are of opinion, that the seedling Oak should never be cut to improve his bole; because, say they, it produces a reddish wood, not acceptable to the workman ; and that the tree which grows on the head of his mother does seldom prove good timber: it is observed, indeed, that one foot of timber near the root, (which is the proper kerf, or cutting-place,) is worth three farther off; though I know divers who think otherwise: and haply, the successor is more apt to be tender than what was cut off to give it place; but let this be inquired into at leisure. If it be a winter-fell for fuel, prostrate no more in a day than the cattle will eat in two days, I mean.of the browse- wood, and when that is done, kid, and set it up on end, to preserve it from rotting. OF FOREST-TREES. 295 Dr. Plot recommends the disbranching to be done in the spring before felling, whilst the tree is standing ; that is, from May to Michaelmas, and so to let it continue till the next spring, and disburden them when felled, as the custom is in Staffordshire and the north, for exceedingly contri- buting to a dry seasoning, freeing it from the attack of worms and other accidental corruption; and thinks that the prejudice accruing thereby, as to the tanner, (in regard of the more difficult excortication,) is no way to be put in balance with the advantage and improvement of the timber for paling, building of ships, houses, &c. accounting this method of that universal importance, as to merit the deliberation of a parliament : in the meanwhile, by whatever method you proceed as to this, when once a tree is prostrate, and the bark stripped off, let it so be set as it may be best dry ; then cleanse the bole of the branches which were left, and saw it into lengths for the squaring, to which belong the measure and girth, as our workmen call it, which I refer to the buyer, and to many subsidiary books lately printed, wherein it is taught by a very familiar mechanical caleule and easy method. But by none, in my apprehension, set forth in a more facile and accurate way, than what that industrious mathematician, Mr. Leybourn, has published, in his late Lene of Proportion made Easy, and others his labours; where he treats as well of the square as the round, as it is applicable to boards and superficials, and to timber which is hewed, or less rough, in so easy a method, as nothing can be more desired. I know our ordinary carpenters, &e. have generally upon their rulers a line, which they usually call Gunter’s line; but few of them understand how to work from it as they should: and divers country gentlemen, stewards, and woodmen, when they are to measure rough timber upon the ground, con- fide much to the girt, which they do with a string, at about four or five feet distance from the root, or great extreme; of the string’s length, they take a quarter for the true square ; which is so manifestly erroneous, that thereby they make every tree, so measured, more than a fifth part less than really it is. This mistake should, therefore, be reformed ; and it were, I conceive, worth the seller’s while to inspect it accordingly: their argument is, that when the bark of a tree is stripped, and the body hewed to a square, it-will then hold out no more measure ; that which is ‘cut off being only fit for fuel, and the expense of squaring costs more CHAP. III. a i BOOK III. ey —e/ * Since the first publica tion of this dis- course, most of those groves and trees have been cut down, and the ground turned into streets. 226 A. DISCOURSE than the chips are worth. To convince them of this error, I shall refer and recommend them to the above-named author, and to what the in- dustrious Mr. Cooke has so mathematically demonstrated: where also of taking the altitude of trees, the better to judge of the worth of them, with the measuring of woodlands, &c. together with necessary calcula- tions for the levelling of ground, and removing of earth, drawing of plots and figures ; all of which are very conducible to the several argu- ments of this silvan work. But to proceed : If you are to remove your timber, let the dew be first off, and the south wind blow before you draw it; neither should you, by any means, put it to use for three or four months after, (some not till as many years,) unless great necessity urge you, as it did Duillius, who, in the first Punic war, built his fleet of timber before it was seasoned, being not above two months from the very felling to the launching ; the navy of Hiero was forty-five days from the forest to the sea, and that of Scipio, in the second Carthaginian war, only forty. July is a good time for bringing home your felled timber ; but concerning the time and season of felling, a just treatise might be written: let the learned, therefore, consult Vitruvius, particularly on this subject, lib. 11. cap. ix. Also M. Cato, cap. xvii. Plin. lib. xvi. cap. xxxix. Columella, lib. ili. cap. ii. but especially the most ample Theophrastus yv1éy tcop/as, lib. v. Note, that a ton of tim- ber is forty solid feet, and a load fifty. To make excellent boards and planks, it is the advice of some, you should bark your trees in a fit season, and so let them stand naked a full year before the felling ; and in some cases and grounds it may be profit- able: but let these, with what has been already said in the foregoing chapters of the several kinds, suffice for this article. I shall add one advertisement of caution to those noble persons and others who have groves and trees of ornament near their houses, and in their gardens in London, and the circle of it, especially if they be of great stature, and well-grown, (such as were lately the groves in the several inns of court, nay, even that comparatively new plantation in my Lord of Bedford’s gar- den*, and wherever they stand in the more interior parts of this city,) that they be not over hasty, or by any means persuaded to cut down any of their old trees, upon hope of new more flourishing plantations, thickening or re- OF FOREST-TREES. 22:7 pairing deformities, because they grew so well when first they were set: CHAP. III. it is to be considered how exceedingly that pernicious smoke of the sea- coal is increased in and about London since they were first planted, and the buildings environing them, and inclosing it in among them, which does so universally contaminate the air, that when plantations of trees shall be now begun in any of those places, they will have much ado, great difficulty, and require a long time to be brought to perfection: therefore, let them make much of what they have; and though I dis- courage none, yet I can animate none to cut down the old. And here might now come ina pretty speculation, what should be the reason after general fellings, and extirpations of vast woods of one species, the next spontaneous succession should be of quite a different sort ? We see, indeed, something of this in our gardens and corn-fields, as the best of poets witnesseth, but that may be much imputed to the altera- tion, by improvement or detriment of the soil, and other accidents.— Whatever the cause may be, since it appears not from any universal de- cay of nature, (sufficiently exploded,) I shall only here produce matter of fact, and that it ordinarily happens. As in some goodly woods formerly belonging to my grandfather, that were all of Oak, after felling, they universally sprung up Beech; and it is affirmed by general experience, that after Beech, Birch succeeds, as in that famous wood at Tarnway, on the river Findorn, in the province of Murray, in Scotland, where nothing had grown but Oak in a wood three miles in length; and haply more southerly, it might have been Beech, and not Birch, till the third degra- dation. Birches familiarly grow out of old and decayed Oaks; but whence this sympathy and affection should proceed, is more difficult to resolve, inasmuch as we do not detect any so prolifical and eminent seed in that tree. Some accidents of that nature, may be imputed to the winds and the birds that frequently have been known to waft and convey seeds to places widely distant, as we have touched in the chapter of Firs. Holly has been seen to grow out of Ash, as Ash out of several trees ; and I have it confidently asserted by persons of undoubted truth, that they have seen a tree cut in the middle, whose heart was Ash-wood, and the exterior part Oak, and this in Northamptonshire. And why not as well (though with something more difficulty) as through a Willow, whose body (as is noted) it has been observed to penetrate even to the earth, detruding the BOOK III. a ai 228 A DISCOURSE Willow quite out of its place; of which a pretty emblem might be conceived. But I pursue these instances no farther. The fallen leaves of trees in woods, which lie sometimes very thick and. deep, should be raked and shovelled up; being dry, are very useful for the covering of tender kitchen-garden plants, in winter, instead of litter ; and the rest, if buried in some hole to rot, when dried and reduced to powder, become excellent mould. I wonder this husbandry is so much neglected ¥. y Mr. Speechly, gardener to his grace the Duke of Portland, has, by his grace’s orders, communicated to me the following curious and interesting account of the use of Oak-leaves in hot-houses : ce I presume that the leaves of the Oak abound with the same quality as the bark of the tree, therefore, the sooner they are raked up after they fall from the trees, the better, as that quality will naturally decrease during the time they are exposed to the weather. After being raked into heaps they should immediately be carried to some place near the hot-houses, where they must lie to couch. I generally fence them round with charcoal-hurdles, or any thing else, to keep them from being blown about the garden in windy weather. In this place we tread them well, and water them in case they happen to have been brought in dry. We make the heap six or seven feet in thick~ ness, covering it over with old mats, or any thing else, to prevent the upper leaves from being blown away. Ina few days the heap will come to a strong heat. For the first year or two that I used these leaves, I did not continue them in the heap longer than ten days or a fortnight ; but in this I discovered a considerable inconvenience, as they settled so much when got into the hot-house, as soon to require a supply. Taught by experience, I now let them remain in the heap for five or six weeks, by which time they are properly prepared for the hot-houses. In getting them into the Pine-pits, if they appear dry, we water them again, treading them in layers exceedingly well, till the pits are quite full. We then cover the whole with tan to the thickness of two inches, and tread it well till the surface becomes smooth and even. On this we place the Pine-pots in the manner they are to stand, beginning with the middle row first, and filling up the spaces between the pots with tan. In like manner, we proceed to the next row till the whole be finished; and this operation is performed in the same manner as when tan only is used. After this, the leaves require no farther trouble the whole season through, as they will retain a constant and regular heat for twelve months without either stirring or turn- ing; and if I may form a judgment from their appearance when taken out, (being always entire and perfect) it is probable they would continue their heat through a second year: but as an annual supply of leaves is here easily obtained, such a trial is hardly worth the trouble of making. «c After this, the Pines will have no occasion to be moved but at the stated times of their management, viz. at the shifting them in their pots, &c. when at each time a little OF FOREST-TREES. 229 CHAP. IV. Of TIMBER, the SEASONING and USES, and FUEL. SINCE it is certain and demonstrable, that all arts and artisans what- CHAP. IV. soever must fail and cease, if there were no timber and wood in a nation ; veh Dread (for he that shall take his pen, and begin to set down what art, mystery, or trade belonging any way to human life, could be maintained and fresh tan should be added to make up the deficiency arising from the settling of the beds; but this will be inconsiderable, as the leaves do not settle much after their long couching. During the first two years of my practice I did not use any tan, but plunged the Pine-pots into the leaves, and just covered the surface of the beds, when finished, with a little saw-dust to give it a neatness. This method was attended with one inconve- nience ; for by the caking of the leaves they shrunk from the sides of the pots, whereby they became exposed to the air, and at the same time, the heat of the beds was permitted to escape. «« Many powerful reasons may be given why Oak leaves (for I have not tried any other kinds) are preferable to tanners’ bark. “First. They always heat regularly ; for during the whole time that I have used them, which is near seven years, I] never once knew of their heating with violence; and this is so frequently the case with tan, that I affirm, and indeed it is well known to every person conversant in the management of the hot-house, that Pines suffer more from this one ‘circumstance, than from all the other accidents put together—insects excepted. When this accident happens near the time of their fruiting, the effect is soon seen in the fruit, which always comes ill-shaped and exceedingly small. Sometimes there will be little or no fruit at all; therefore, gardeners who make use of tan only for their Pines, should be most particularly careful to avoid an over-heat at that critical season—the time of shening fruit. “Secondly. The heat of Oak leaves is constant; whereas tanners’ bark generally turns cold in a very short time after its furious heat is gone off. This obliges the gar- dener to give the tan frequent turnings in order to promote its heating. These frequent turnings (not to mention the expense) are attended with the worst consequences ; for by the continual moving of the pots backwards and forwards, the Pines are exposed to the extremes of heat and cold, whereby their growth is considerably retarded ; whereas when leaves are used, the Pines will have no occasion to be moved but at the times of potting, &c. The Pines have one particular advantage in this undisturbed situation ; their roots grow through the bottoms of the pots and mat amongst the leaves in a surprising manner. From the vigour of the plants, when in this situation, it is highly Volume II. G g BOOK III. Py SEASONING. 230 A DISCOURSE exercised without wood, will quickly find that I speak no paradox ;) I say, when this shall be well considered, it will appear that we had_bet- ter be without gold than without timber : this contemplation, and the universal use of that precious material (which yet is not of universal use till it be duly prepared) has moved me to design a solemn chapter for the seasoning, as well as to mention some farther particular appli- cation of it. The first and chiefest use of timber was, doubtless, for the building of houses and habitations to shelter men in: it is in the first chapter of the second book, that Vitruvius shews, in what simple and plain manner our first progenitors erected their humble cottages, when, like those of Colchis and Pontus, they began to creep out of the subterranean and cavernous rocks, and laid the first groundsil upon which they placed the upright posts, and rudely framed a pointed roof, Arboribus perpetuis planis ; (on which the critics have vexed their researches ;) from which mean begin- ning, all the superb and pompous effects of architecture have proceeded. But let us pursue our title, having before spoken concerning some pre- parations of standing trees designed for timber, by a half cutting, dis- barking, and the seasons of drawing and using it. Lay up your timber very dry, in an airy place, (yet out of the wind or sun,) and not standing upright, but lying along, one piece upon another, interposing some short blocks between them, to preserve them from a certain mouldiness, which they usually contract while they sweat, and probable that the leaves, even in this state, afford them an uncommon and agreeable nou- rishment. «Thirdly. There is a saving in point of expense, which is no inconsiderable object in places where tan cannot be had but from a great distance, as is the case here; the article of carriage amounting to ten shillings for each waggon-load. Indeed, this was the principal reason that first induced me to make trial of leaves. «My last ground of preference is the consideration, that decayed leaves make good manure; whereas rotten tan is experimentally found to be of no value. I have often tried it both on sand and clay, also on wet and dry lands, and never could discover, in any of my experiments, that it deserved the name of a manure; whereas decayed leaves are the richest, and, of all others, the most suitable for a garden. But this must only be understood of leaves after they have undergone their fermentation, which reduces them to a true vegetable mould, in which we experimentally know that the food of plants is con- tained ;—but whether that food be oil, mucilage, or salt, or a combination of all three, OF FOREST-TREES. 231 which frequently produces a kind of fungus, especially if there be any sappy parts remaining. Some there are yet, who keep their timber as moist as they can, by submerging it in water, where they let it imbibe, to hinder the cleaving ; and this is good in Fir, both for the better stripping and seasoning ; yea, and not only Fir, but in other timber : lay, therefore, your boards a fort- night in the water, (if running, the better, as at some mill-pond head,) and then setting them upright in the sun and wind, so as it may freely pass through them, (especially during the heats of summer, which is the time of finishing buildings,) turn them daily, and, thus treated, even newly-sawn boards will floor far better than a many years’ dry-season- ing, as they call it. But to prevent all possible accidents, when you lay your floors, let the joints be shot, fitted, and tacked down only for the first year, nailing them for good and all the next; and by this means they will be staunch, close, and without shrinking in the least, as if they were all of one piece ; and upon this occasion, I am to add an obser- vation which may prove of no small use to builders: that if one take up deal boards that have lain in the floor an hundred years, and shoot them again, they will certainly shrink (foties quoties) without the former method. Amongst wheel-wrights, the water-seasoning is of especial regard, and in such esteem amongst some, that I am assured the Vene- tians, for their provision in the arsenal, lay their Oak some years in water before they employ it. Indeed, the Turks not only fell at all times of the year, without any regard to the season, but employ their CHAP. IV. PS I leave to philosophers to determine. This black mould is, of all others, the most proper to mix with compost earth; and I use it in general for Pines, and almost for every thing that grows in pots. For flowers it is most excellent. The remainder of this vegetable mould may be employed in manuring the quarters of the kitchen-garden; for which pur- pose it is highly useful. «Leaves mixed with dung make excellent hot-beds, and I find that beds com- pounded in this manner, preserve their heat much longer than when made entirely with dung. In both cases the application of leaves will be a considerable saving of dung, a circumstance very agreeable, as it will be the means of preventing the contests frequently observed in large families between the superintendent of the gardens, and the director of. the husbandry. «W. SPEECHLY.” We cseck, Feb. 20, 1776. Gg 2 ——_ BOOK III. —\— 232 A DISCOURSE timber green and unseasoned ; so that though they have excellent Oak, it decays in a short time by this only neglect. Elm felled ever so green for Sudden use, if plunged four or five days - in water, (especially salt-water,) obtains an admirable seasoning, and may immediately be used. I the oftener insist on this water-seasoning, not only as a remedy against the worm, but for its efficacy against warping and distortions of timber, whether used within, or exposed. to the air. Some again commend burying in the earth, others in wheat ; and there be seasonings of the fire, as for the scorching and hardening of piles, which are to stand either in the water or the earth”. * Et suspensa focis explorat robora fumus. GEORG. I. the Oak Explore, suspended in the chimney smoke. For that to most timber it contributes much to its duration. 'Thus do all the elements contribute to the art of seasoning. The learned inter- preter of Antonio Neri’s Art of Glass, cap. v. speaking of the difference of vegetables, as they are made use of at various seasons, observes from the button-mould-makers, in those woods they use, that Pear-tree, cut in summer, works toughest, but Holly in the winter; Box hardest about Easter, but mellow in the summer; Hawthorn kindly about October, and Service-tree in summer. And yet even the greenest timber is sometimes desirable for such as carve and turn, but it chokes the teeth of our saws ; and for doors, win- dows, floors, and other close works, it is altogether to be rejected, espe- cially where Walnut-tree is the material ; which will be sure to shrink: therefore, it is best to choose such as are of two or three years’ seasoning, and that is neither moist nor over dry ; the mean is best. Sir Hugh Platt informs us, that the Venetians used to burn and scorch their timber in a flaming fire, continually turning it round with an engine, till they have 2 When wood is charred, it becomes incorruptible ; for which reason, when we wish to pre- serve piles from decay, they should be charred on their outside. Oak-posts used in inclo- sures always decay about two inches above and below the surface. Charring that part would probably add several years to the duration of the wood. OF FOREST-TREES. 233 gotten upon it a hard, black, coaly crust, and the secret carries with it great probability ; for the wood is brought by it to such a hardness and dryness, that neither earth nor water can penetrate it: I myself remem- bering to have seen charcoal dug out of the ground amongst the ruins of ancient buildings, which had, in all probability, lain covered with earth above fifteen hundred years *. Timber which is cleft, is nothing so obnoxious to rift and cleave as what is hewn; nor that which is squared, as what is round: and there- - fore where use is to be made of huge and massy columns, let them be bored through from end to end; it is an excellent preservative from splitting, and not unphilosophical ; though to cure this accident, painters’ putty is recommended, also the rubbing them over with a wax-cloth is good ; or before it be converted, the smearing the timber over with cow- dung, which prevents the effects both of sun and air upon it, if of neces- sity it must lie exposed. But besides the former remedies, I find this, for the closing of the chops and clefts of green timber, to anoint and supple it with the fat of powdered beef broth, with which it must be well soaked, and the chasms filled with sponges dipt into it; this to be twice done over. Some carpenters make use of grease and saw-dust mingled ; but the first is so good a way, says my author, that I have seen wind-shock timber so exquisitely closed, as not to be discerned where the defects were: this must be used when the timber is green. We spake before of squaring ; and I would now recommend the quar- - tering of such trees as will allow useful and competent scantlings, to be of much more durableness and effect for strength, than where (as custom is, and for want of observation) whole beams and timbers are applied in ships or houses, with slab and all about them, upon false suppositions of strength beyond these quarters: for there is in all trees an evident interstice, or separation, between the heart and the rest of the body, which renders it much more obnoxious to decay and miscarry, than when they are treated a It is upwards of seventeen hundred years since the city of Herculaneum was destroyed by an eruption from Mount Vesuvius, and very lately the beams of the theatre were dug out of the ruins, completely charred by the burning lava. Charcoal is a body of so un- alterable and indestructible a nature, that none of the elements, excepting fire, can de- stroy it. CHAP. IV. P| ew BOOK III. were 234 A DISCOURSE and converted as I have described it ; and it would likewise save a world of materials in the building of great ships, where so much excellent timber is hewed away to spoil, were it more in practice. Finally, I must not omit to take notice of the coating of timber in work, used by the Hollanders, for the preservation of their gates, portcullises, draw- bridges, sluices, and other huge beams and contignations of timber expo- sed to the sun and perpetual injuries of the weather, by a certain mixture of pitch and tar, upon which they strew small pieces of cockle, and other shells, beaten almost to powder, and mingled with sea-sand, or the scales of iron, beaten small and sifted, which inerusts and arms it, after an in- credible manner, against all these assaults and foreign invaders; but if this should be deemed more obnoxious to firing, I have heard that a wash made of alum has wonderfully protected it against the assaults even of that de- vouring element ; and that so a wooden tower or fort of the Pireeus, the port of Athens, was defended by Archelaus, a commander of Mithridates, against the great Sylla. But you have several compositions for this pur- pose, in that incomparable Treatise of Naval Architecture, written in Low Dutch by N. Witsen, book i. chap. 5. The book is in folio, and he that should well translate it into our language (which I much wonder has not yet been done) would deserve well of the public. Timber that you have occasion to lay in mortar, or which is in any part contiguous to lime, as doors, window-cases, groundsils, and the extremi- ties of beams, &c. have sometimes been capped with molten pitch, as a marvellous preserver of it from the burning and destructive effects of the lime; but it has since been found rather to heat and decay them, by hin- dering the transudation which those parts require ; better supplied with loam or strewings of brick-dust, or pieces of boards; some leave a small hole for the air. But though lime be so destructive whilst timber lies thus dry, it seems they mingle it with hair, to keep the worm out of ships which they sheath for southern voyages ; though it is held much to retard their course: wherefore the Portuguese scorch them with fire, which often proves very dangerous ; and indeed their timber being harder, is not so easily penetrable; and-therefore have some been thinking of finding out some tougher sorts of materials, especially of a bitter sap ; such as is re- ported to be the wood of a certain Indian Pear: and some talk of a lixi- vivum to do the feat; others of a pitchy substance to be extracted out of OF FOREST-TREES. 235 sea-coal ; but nothing has yet been found more expedient than the late application of thin lamins of sheet-lead, if that also be no impediment to sailing: however, there are many kinds of wood in the Western- Indies (besides the Acajou) that breed no worms, and such is the White Wood of Jamaica, proper enough to build ships. In the mean time, let me not omit what the learned Dr. Lister, in his Notes upon Godarius of Insects, says, That he is persuaded there could not be a more probable expedient to discover what kind of timber were best for sheathing, than to tie certain polished pieces of wood (cut like tallies) to a buoy, in some waters and streams much infested with the worms; for that sort of wood which the worm should refuse, would in all reason be chosen for the use desired. The Indies being stored with greater varieties of timber than Europe, it were probable there might some be found, which that kind of river-worm will never attack °. For all uses, that timber is esteemed the best which is the most pon- derous, and which, lying long, makes deepest impression in the earth, or in the water, being floated; also what is without knots, yet firm, and free from sap, which is that fatty, whiter, and softer part, called by the ancients, Alburnum, which you are diligently to hew away, > Our ships of war, destined for the West-Indies, are now sheathed with plates of copper ; and this improvement in naval architecture is found to answer the purpose of effectually preventing the ravages of the seae-worm, whereby the ships are enabled to continue longer upon their stations. This worm (teredo navalis) which is found so pernicious to the works of man, appears to have the same office allotted to it by the Author of Nature, as the termites upon land : for was it not for the rapacity of the sea-worm, tropical rivers would be choked up by the bodies of trees which are annually carried down by the rapid torrents. Wood, when immersed in deep water, is almost incorruptible, but when acted upon by those nu- merous animals, it is soon reduced into small particles, and, mixing with the ocean, is thrown upon the shore, where the sun, air, and various insects, speedily bring about its entire dis- solution, in which state it becomes vegetable earth. This is part of the regular system by which the Supreme Berne continues, directs, and governs the works of his creation, dissolu« tion and combination regularly following each other in endless succession : Haud igitur penitus pereunt quecumque videntur : Quando aliud ex alio reficit natura: nec ullam Rem gigni patitur, nisi morte adjutam aliena. LUCRET. CHAP. IV. an die BOOK IIL. i ai 236 A DISCOURSE My Lord Bacon, exper. 658, recommends for trial of a sound or knotty piece of timber, to cause one to speak at one of the extremes to his companion listening to the other; for if it be knotty, the sound, says he, will come abrupt. Moreover, it is expedient that you know which are the veins and which the grain in timber, because of the difficulty of working against it: those, therefore, are counted the veins which grow largest, and are softer, for the benefit of cleaving and hewing ; that the grain, or pectines, which runs in waves, and makes the diverse and beautiful chamfers which some woods abound in to admiration. ‘The Fir-tree, horizontally cut, has two circles of different fibres, which (when the timber comes to be cleft in the middle) separate into four different waves, whence Pliny calls them quadrifluvios : and it is to be noted, that the nodus, and knotty part of these sort of trees, is that only which grows from the first boughs to the summit, or top, by Vitruvius termed the F'usterna, which both Baldus and Salmasius derive a Fuste. 'The other clean part, free of these boils, (being that which, when the sappy slab is cut away, is the best,) he calls Sapznea. Finally ; the grain of Beech runs two contrary ways, and is, therefore, to be wrought accordingly ; and indeed the grain of all timber ought well to be observed, since the more you work according to it, especially in cleaving, and the less you saw, the stronger will be your work. Here it may be fitly inquired, whether of all the sorts we have enume- rated, the old or the younger trees do yield the fairest colour, pleasantest grain, and gloss for wainscots, cabinets, boxes, gun-stocks, &e. and what kind of Pear or Plum-tree gives the deepest red, and approaches nearest in beauty to Brazil. It is affirmed the old Oak, old Walnut, and young Ash are best for most uses, and yet for ship-carpentry this does not always hold; nor does the bigness of it so much recommend it, because it is commonly a sign of age, which (like to very old men) is often brittle and effete. Black and thorny Plum-tree is of the deepest oriency ; but whe- ther these belong to the forest, I am not yet satisfied, and therefore have assigned them no chapter apart. But now I speak of the Plum-tree, I am assured by a worthy friend, that the gum thereof, dissolved in vine- gar, has cured the most contumacious tetters, when all other remedies, outward or inwardly applied, nothing availed. OF FOREST-TREES. 937 Lastly. I would also add something concerning what woods are ob- CHAP. IV. served to be most sonorous for musical instruments: we as yet detect “~V~ few but the German Aér, which is a species of Maple, for the rims of viols, and the choicest and finest grained Fir for the bellies: the fin- ger-boards, back, and ribs, I have seen of Yew, Pear-tree, &c. but pipes, recorders, and wind-instruments, are made both of hard and soft woods. I had lately an organ with a set of oaken pipes, which were the most sweet and mellow that were ever heard ; it was a very old instrument, and formerly, I think, belonged to the, Duke of Norfolk. For the place of growth, that timber is esteemed best which grows most in the sun, and on a dry and hale ground; for those trees which suck, and drink little, are most hard, robust, and longer lived; instances of sobriety. The climate contributes much to its quality, and the northern situation is preferred to the rest of the quarters; so as that which grew in Tuscany was, of old, thought better than that of the Venetian side; and yet the Biscay timber is esteemed better than what they have from colder countries; and trees of the wilder kind, and barren, than the over-much cultivated and great bearers. But of this already. To omit nothing, authors have summed up the natures of timber, as the hardest, Ebony, Box, Larch, Lotus, Terebinth, Cornus, Yew, &c. and though these indurated woods be too ponderous for ship-carpentry, yet there have been vessels built of them by the Portuguese in America: in which the planks and innermost timbers had been sawed very thin for lightness sake, and the knee-timber put together of divers small pieces, by reason of the inflexibleness of it, both which could not but render the ships very weak: in the meantime, the perfection of these hard materials consists much in their receiving the most exquisite politure ; and for this, linseed, or the sweeter nut-oil, does the effect best : Pliny gives us the receipt, with a decoction of Walnut-shells, and certain Wild Pears. Next to these, Oak for ships and houses, (or more minutely,) the Oak for the keel, the Robur for the prow, Walnut the stern, Elm the pump. Then for bucklers and targets were commended the more soft and moist, because apt to close, swell, and make up their wounds again; such as Willow, Lime, Birch, Alder, Elder, Ash, Poplar, &c. Volume II. Hh BOOK III. eye 238 A DISCOURSE The Robur, or Wild Oak timber, is best to stand within ground; the Quercus without; and our English, for being least obnoxious to splinter, and the Irish for resisting the worm, (tough as leather,) are doubtless, for shipping, to be preferred before all other. ‘The Cypress, Fir, Pines, Cedar, &c. are best for posts and columns, because of their erect growth, natural and comely diminutions. 'Then again it is noted, that oriental trees are hardest towards the cortex or bark, our western towards the middle, which we call the heart ; and that trees which bear no fruit, or but little, are more durable than the more pregnant. It is noted of Oak, that the knot of an inveterate tree, just where a lusty arm joins to the stem, is as curiously veined as the Walnut ; which being omitted in the chapter of the Oak, I here observe. The Palmeto growing to that pro- digious height in the Barbadoes, and whose top bears an excellently- tasted cabbage, grows so wonderfully hard, that an edge-tool can scarcely be forced into it. Pines, Pitch, Alder, and Elm, are excellent to make pumps and conduit- pipes, and for all water-works, &c. Fir for beams, bolts, bars, being tough, and not so apt to break as the hardest Oak: in some, the more odoriferous trees are the more durable and lasting ; and yet I conceive that well-seasoned Oak may contend with any of them, especially if pre- served under ground, or kept perfectly dry. In the mean time, as to its application in shipping, the best of it ought to be employed for the keel, (that is, within, else Elm exceeds,) the main beams and rafters, whilst for the ornamental parts, much slighter timber serves. One note more is re- quisite, namely, that great care be had to make the trenails of \the best, toughest, and sincerest part; many a vessel having been lost upon this account ; and therefore, dry and young timber is to be preferred for this, and for which the Hollanders are plentifully furnished out of Ire- land, as Nicholas Witsen has himself acknowledged. Is it not, after all this, to be deplored, that we, who have such perpe- tual use and convenience for ship-timber, should be driven to procure of foreign stores, so many thousand loads, at intolerable prices ? but this we are obliged to do from the eastern countries, as far as Norway, Poland, Prussia, Dantzic, and farther, even from Bohemia, though greatly im- paired by sobbing so long in the passage : but of this our most industrious OF FOREST-TREES. 239 and worthy friend Mr. Pepys (late secretary of the admiralty) has given _ a just and profitable account in his Memoirs. Here farther, for the uses of timber, I will observe to our reader some other particulars, for direction both of the seller and buyer, applicable to the several species: and first of the two sorts of laths allowed by sta- tute, one of five, the other of four feet long, because of the different in- tervals of rafters: that of five has one hundred to the bundle; that of four, one hundred and twenty, and should be in breadth one inch and a half, and half an inch thick: of either of which sorts there are three, viz. heart-oak, sap-laths, and deal-laths, which also differ in price: the heart-oak are fittest to lie under tiling ; the second. sort for plastering of side-walls; and the third for ceilings, because they are straight and even. Here we will gratify our curious reader with as curious an account of the comparative strength and fortitude of the several usual sorts of tim- ber, as upon suggestions, previous to this work, it was several times ex- perimented by the Royal Society, though omitted in the first impres- sion, because the trials were not complete as they now thus stand in our register *. Se ee ee ¢ The most accurate experiments upon the comparative strength of different kinds of wood are given by P. Van Musschenbroek, in a work entitled, “ Physicae Experimentales et Geometrice Dissertationes.” Mr. Emmerson, in his “ Principles of Mechanics,” is the latest author upon the subject that I know of. “A piece of good Oak, an inch square, «and a yard long, supported on both ends, will bear in the middle, for a very little time, “about three hundred and thirty pounds avoirdupois. This is at a medium; for there ‘are some pieces that will carry something more, and others not so much. But such a “ piece of wood should not, in practice, be trusted for any length of time, with above a “third or fourth part of that weight. For, since this is the extreme weight which the best « wood will bear, that of a worse sort must break with it. For I have found, by expe- “rience, that there is a great deal of difference in strength, in different pieces of the very ‘same tree ; some pieces I have found that would not bear half the weight others would «‘do. The wood of the boughs and branches ts far weaker than that of the body: the “‘ wood of the great limbs is stronger than that of the small ones; and the wood in the “heart of a sound tree is strongest of all. I have also found, by experience, that a piece “ of timber that has borne a great weight for a small time, has broke with a far less weight « when left upon it for a far longer time. Wood is likewise weaker when it is green, and *¢ strongest when thoroughly dried. If wood happens to be sappy, it will be weaker upon “that account ; and will likewise decay sooner. Knots in wood weaken it very much; Hh 2 CHAP. IV. a i A BOOK III. ea ie ad 240 A DISCOURSE Marcu 23, 1663. The experiment of breaking several sorts of wood was begun to be made: and there were taken three pieces of several kinds, of Fir, Oak, and Ash, each an inch thick, and two feet long; the Fir weighed 875 ounces, and was broken with two hundred pounds weight; the Oak weighed 12% ounces, broken with two hundred and fifty pounds weight ; the Ash weighed 10} ounces, broken with three hundred and twenty- five pounds weight. Besides, there were taken three pieces of the same sort of wood, each of half an inch thick, and one foot long; the Fir weighed 1 ounce, and was broken with five-eights of an hundred ; the Oak weighed 1% ounce, broken with five-eights of an hundred; the Ash weighed 13 ounce, broken with one hundred pounds. Again ; there was a piece of Fir half an inch square, and two feet long, broken with thirty-three pounds ; a piece of half an inch thick, one inch broad, and seven feet long, broken with one hundred weight edge- wise; and a piece of half an inch thick, and one and a half broad, and two feet long, broken with one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight, also edge-wise. \ “also when wood is cross-grained, as it often happens in sawing, this will weaken it more “or less, according as it is more or less cross the grain; and I have found, by experience, “‘ that tough wood, cross the grain, such as Elm or Ash, is from seven to ten times weaker ‘than straight ; and wood that easily splits, such as Fir, is from sixteen to twenty times “weaker: and for common use, it is hardly possible to find wood but it will be subject to “some of these things: besides, when timber lies long in'a building, itis apt to decay, or “be worm-eaten, which must needs very much impair its strength. From all which it ap- “pears, that a large allowance ought to be made for the strength of wood, when applied to “any use, especially where it is to continue for a long time.” The following proportions of the stetau of several sorts of wood are taken from Mr. Emerson’ s tables : Box, Yew, Plumstree,.and, Oak pap... sunestipsnnepnessonpssssinan pd Elm and Ash ..... NAA a lee ai ee ere Walnut and Thorn .........+6 Be elsedid ceialenat aeaaeate aaltee seonsh i] 1E Red Fir, Hollen, Elder, Plane, Crab, and Applesne eacicaete Gi Beech, Cherry-tree, and Hazel ..,....-.-0rsssssaseseecsswiserss . OF Alder, Aspen, Birch, White Fir, Willow or Saunt Hepeerate? )O OF FOREST-TREES. OA} The experiment was ordered to be repeated, and recommended by the president to Sir William Petty and Dr. Hook ; and it was suggested by some of the company, that in these trials, consideration might be had of the age, knottiness, solidity, several soils, and parts of trees, &c. and Sir Robert Murray did particularly add, that it might be observed how far any kind. of wood bends before it breaks. Marcu —— 1664. The operator gave an account of more pieces of wood broken by weight, viz. a piece of Fir four feet long, two inches thick, and fifty-three ounces weight, broken with eight hundred pounds weight, and very little bend- ing, with seven hundred and fifty ; by which the hypothesis seems to be confirmed, that in similar pieces, the proportion of the breaking-weight is according to the basis of the wood broken. Secondly, of a piece of Fir two feet long, one inch square, cut away from the middle both ways to half an inch, which supported two hundred and fifty pounds weight be- fore it broke, which is more by fifty pounds than a piece of the same thickness every way was formerly broken with: the difference was guessed to proceed from the more firmness of this other piece. His lordship, the president, was desired to contribute to the prosecu- tion of this experiment, and particularly to consider what line a beam must be cut in, and how thick it ought to be at the extreme, to be equally strong; which was brought in April 13, but I find it not entered. APRIL 20, 1664. The experiment of breaking wood was prosecuted, and there were taken two pieces of Fir, each two feet long, and one inch square, which were broken, the one long-ways with three hundred pounds weight, the other transverse-ways with two hundred and fifty pounds: secondly, two pieces of the same wood, each of three quarters of an inch square, and two feet long, broken, the one long-ways with one hundred and twenty-five; the other transverse with one hundred pounds weight: thirdly, one piece of two feet long and half an inch square, broken long- ways with eighty-one pounds: fourthly, one piece cut out of a crooked CHAP. IV. Pyne BOOK III. PN! 242 A DISCOURSE oaken billet, with an arching grain, about three quarters of an inch square, and two feet long, broken with seventy-five pounds. JUNE 29, 1664. There were made several experiments more of breaking wood : first, a piece of Fir, half an inch diameter, and three inches long, at which dis- tance the weight hung, broke in the plane of the grain horizontally, with sixty-six pounds and three-quarters, whereof fifteen pounds troy ; verti- cally, with two pounds more. Also Fir of one quarter of an inch dia- meter, and an inch and a half long, broke vertically with twenty pounds, and horizontally with nineteen pounds. Elm of half an inch diameter, and three inches long, broke horizontally with forty-seven pounds ; ver- tically with twenty-three pounds. Elm a quarter of an inch diameter, and an inch and a half long, broke horizontally with twelve pounds ; . vertically with twelve pounds, which is note-worthy. JuLY 6, 1664. The experiment of breaking woods prosecuted : a piece of Oak of half an inch diameter, and three inches long, at which distance the weight hung, broke horizontally with forty-eight pounds ; vertically, with forty pounds. Ash of half an inch diameter, and three inches long, horizon- tally with seventy-seven pounds; vertically, with seventy-five pounds. Ash of half an inch diameter, and an inch and a half long, horizontally with nineteen pounds ; vertically, with ten pounds. Thus far the register. In the mean time I learn, that in the mines of Mendip, pieces of tim- ber, of but the thickness of a man’s arm, will support ten ton of earth; and that some of it has lain two hundred years, which is yet as firm as ever, growing tough and black ; and being exposed two or three days to the wind and sun, scarce yields to the axe. Here might come in the Problems of Cardinal Cusanus, in lib. iv. Idiote dial. 4to, concerning the different velocity of the ascent of great pieces of timber, before the smaller, submerged in water, as also of the OF FOREST-TREES. 243 weight ; as v.g. why a piece of wood an hundred pounds weight, poising more in the air than two pounds of lead, the two pounds of lead should seem to weigh (he should say sink) more in the water *? why fruits, being cut off from the tree, weigh heavier than when they were growing ? with several the like paradoxes, haply more curious than useful, and therefore we purposely omit them; but so may we not the recommen- dation of that useful Treatise of Duplicate Proportion, together with a new Hypothesis of Elastic or Springy Bodies, to shew the strengths of timbers, and other homogeneous materials applied to buildings, machines, &¢e. as it is published by that admirable genius, the learned Sir William Petty : to which we join that part of Dr. Grew’s Comparative Anatomy of Trunks, as variously fitted for mechanical uses; where that most in- dustrious and curious searcher into nature, describes to use whence woods are soft, fast, hard, apt to be cleft, tough, durable, &c. Lastly. Concerning squared and principal timber, for any usual build- ings, these are the legal proportions, and which builders ought not to vary from. Bey lyd ie Ing in: Feet In. In. cue, CN Pale: 11 8 )%& \ 113 in length 9 18 to ZOY .- : 13 & OC » must be )8 3 or girders 20 93cm their Vote ca ae aie from ..... .\ square .., ‘3 pienrreae 0) Wik 23))° 26 16 12\+4710} square #6 3 26) 4.28 Lbs Binding In length 5 ) Wall-plates and beams (In, In. joists and ) F. F. ( must be 7&5 of any length, from 15) 7 5 trimmers ) 7 to 11}( in their 3 5\ feet, may have in their ) 10&6 ATOM witatens square ... SUUALCH cesmecbnacescenessp teen i Purlines (F: F: ) In length, must ( 9—8 from 4 1° to 183 have in their & 183 214) square ......... ( 12—9 Wey hee In, In. Single nee 124 143 JIn length,& 8 5 6 f#rafters must ( 5—34 re ees 144 184 must have ) 9 7 ah 77 in a have 18} to 213 ( in their 10to8 8 \length< -2 sin & cut taper foi oat , 12 other ) 9 ¢ Oar Pa aw s 3 \square on 9 sida rom 91 their 241 2637 one side 9 9 961 to 2 \squ : 3 5—4 Pe) Principal dischargers sah {onthe ade ich OF eT yg LONE. upward J square ... { 16——13 But carpenters also work by square, which is ten feet in framing and erecting the carcase, as they call it, of any timber edifice, which is valued CHAP. IV, ye * Of the spe- cific gravity of timber in proportion to water, see the table in the Philosophical Transactions, n. 169, and 199. BOOK III. PV 24.4. A DISCOURSE according to the goodness and choice of the materials, and curiosity in framing, especially roofs and stair-cases, which are of most charges. And here might also something be added concerning themanner of framing the carcases of buildings, as of floors, pitch of roofs, the length of hips and sleepers, together with the names of all those several timbers used in fabrics totally consisting of wood ; but I find it done to my hand, and published some years since, at the end of a late translation of the first book of Palladio; to which I refer the reader. And to accomplish our artist in timber, with the utmost which that material is capable of, I do recommend. him to the study and contemplation of that stupendous roof, which now lies over the renowed Sheldonean theatre at the university of Oxford ; being the sole work and contrivement of my most honoured friend, Sir Christopher Wren, now worthily dignified with the superin- tendency of the Royal Buildings. See Dr. Plot’s description of it in his Natural History of Oxfordshire, 272, 273, tab. 13, 14: also Dr. Wallis de Motu, part. iii. de Vecte, cap. vi. prop. 10. Other conversions there are of timber, of all lengths, sizes, and dimen- sions, for arches, bridges, floors, and flat-work, (without the supports of pillars,) tables, cabinets, inlayings, and carvings, screws, &c. with the art of turning, to the height of which divers gentlemen have arrived, and, for their diversion, produced pieces of admirable invention and curiosity : these, I say, belonging to the mechanic uses of timber, might enter here, with a catalogue of innumerable models and other rarities to be found in the repositories and collections of the curious: but let this suffice. We did, in book ii. chap. 1. mention certain subterranean trees, which Mr. Camden supposes grew altogether under the ground: and truly it did appear a very paradox to me, till I both saw and diligently examined that piece (plank, stone, or both shall I name it ?) of lignum fossil, taken out of a certain quarry thereof at Aqua Sparta, not far from Rome, and sent to the most incomparably learned Sir George Ent, by that obliging virtuoso cavalier dal Pozzo. He that shall examine the hardness, and feel the ponderousness of it, sinking in water, &c. will easily take it for a stone; but he that shall behold its grain, so exquisitely undulated and varied, together with its colour, manner of hewing, chips, and other most perfect resemblances, will never scruple to pronounce it arrant wood. OF FOREST-TREES. Q45 Signior Stelluti, an Italian, has published a whole Treatise expressly to describe this great curiosity : and there has been brought to our notice a certain relation of an Elm growing in Berkshire, near Farringdon, which being cut towards the root, was there plainly petrified ; the like, as I once myself remember to have seen in another tree, which grew quite through arock near the sepulchre of Agrippina (the mother of that monster Nero) at the Baia by Naples, which appeared to be all stone, and trickling down in drops of water, if I forget not. But while others have philosophized, according to their manner, upon these extraordinary concretions, see what the most industrious and knowing Dr. Hook, curator of this Royal So- ciety, has with no less reason, but more succinctness, observed from a late microscopical examen of another piece of petrified wood; the descrip- tion and ingenuity whereof cannot but gratify the curious, who will, by this instance, not only be instructed how to make inquiries upon the like occasions, but see also with what accurateness the society constantly proceeds in all their indagations and experiments ; and with what can- dour they relate, and communicate them. « It resembled wood, in that, « First, All the parts of the petrified substance seemed not at all dis- « located or altered from their natural position while they were wood ; “ but the whole piece retained the exact shape of wood, having many “of the conspicuous pores of wood still remaining, and shewing a mani- “ fest difference, visible enough between the grain of the wood and that “of the bark, especially when any side of it was cut smooth and polite ; “ for then it appeared to have a very lovely grain, like that of some * curious close wood. Next it resembled wood, in that all the smaller, and (if so I may call “ those which are only to be seen bya good glass) microscopical pores of it, “ appeared (either when the substance was cut and polished transversely, “ or parallel to the pores) perfectly like the microscopical pores of several “ kinds of wood, retaining both the shape and position of such pores. ' © Tt differed from wood, “ First, in weight; being to common water, as 34 to 1; whereas “ there are few of our English woods that, when dry, are found to be ** so heavy as water. Volume II. li CHAP. 1V. ee BOOK III. a ey 246 A DISCOURSE “ Secondly, in hardness; being very nearly as hard as flint, and in “some places of it also resembling the grain of a flint ; it would very “readily cut glass, and could not, without difficulty, (especially in some “ parts of it,) be scratched by a black hard flint ; it would readily strike “ fire against a steel, as also against a flint. “ Thirdly, in the closeness of it; for though all the microscopical “pores of the wood were very conspicuous in one position, yet, by * altering that position of the polished surface to the light, it also was “‘ manifest that those pores appeared darker than the rest of the body, “ only because they were filled up with a more dusky substance, and “ not because they were hollow. “ Fourthly, in that it would not burn in the fire; nay, though I kept “ it a good while red-hot in the flame of a lamp, very intensely cast on “it by a blast through a small pipe, yet it seemed not at all to have “ diminished its extension ; but only I found it to have changed its “ colour, and to have put on a more dark and dusky brown hue: nor “ could I perceive that those parts which seemed to have been wood at “ first, were any thing wasted, but the parts appeared as solid and close “as before. It was farther observable, that as it did not consume like “ wood, so neither did it crack and fly like a flint, or such like hard “stone ; nor was it long before it appeared red-hot. « Fifthly, in its dissolubleness; for putting some drops of distilled. “ vinegar upon the stone, I found it presently to yield very many bubbles, « just like those which may be observed in spirit of vinegar when it “ eorrodes coral; though I guess many of those bubbles proceeded from “ the small parcels of air which were driven out of the pores of this “ petrified substance, by the insinuating liquid menstruum. | “ Sixthly, in its rigidness and friability ; being not at all flexible, but “ brittle like flint; insomuch, that with one knock of a hammer I broke “ off a small piece of it, and with the same hammer quickly beat it to “ pretty fine powder upon an anvil. “Seventhly, it seemed, to the touch, very different from wood, feeling “more cold than wood usually does, and much like other close stones «© and minerals. OF FOREST-TREES. 247 * The reason of all which phenomena seems to be, CHAP. IV. « That this petrified wood having lain in some place where it was well “7Y” * soaked with petrifying water, (that is, such a water as is well impreg- “ nated with stony and earthy particles,) did by degrees separate, bystraining “and filtration, or, perhaps, by precipitation, cohesion, or coagulation, “ abundance of stony particles from that permeating water ; which stony “ particles having, by means of the fluid vehicle, conveyed themselves “ not only into the microscopical pores, and perfectly stopped them up, *‘ but also into the pores, which may perhaps be even in that part of the “‘ wood which through the microscope appears most solid, did thereby so “ augment the weight of the wood, as to make it above three times hea- “ vier than water, and perhaps six times as heavy as it was when wood: “ Next they hereby so lock up and fetter the parts of the wood, that the “ fire cannot easily make them fly away, but the action of the fire upon “ them is only able to char those parts,as it were; like as a piece of wood, «if it be closed very fast up in clay, and kept a good while red-hot in the “ fire, will, by the heat of the fire, be charred, and not consumed; which “ may perhaps be,the reason why the petrified substance appeared of a “ blackish brown colour after it had been burnt. By this intrusion of the “ petrified particles, it also becomes hard and friable; for the smaller pores of the wood being perfectly stuffed up with these stony particles, “ the particles of the wood have few or no pores in which they can reside; « and, consequently, no flection or yielding can be caused in such a sub- “stance. ‘The remaining particles likewise of the wood among the stony « particles, may keep them from cracking and flying, as they do in flint.” The casual finding of subterraneous trees has been the occasion of this ‘curious digression, besides what we have already said in chap. xxii. book i. Now it were a strange paradox to affirm, that the timber under the ground should, to a great degree, equal the value of that which grows above the ground ; seeing, though it be far less, yet it is far richer, the roots of the vilest shrub being better for its toughness, and, for ornament and delicate uses, much more preferable than the heart of the fairest and soundest tree. And many hills and other waste places, that have in late and former ages been stately groves and woods, have yet this treasure remaining, and per- chance sound and unperished, and commonly (as we observed) an hin- drance to other plantations ; engines, therefore, and expedients for the more easily extracting these cumbrances, and making riddance upon such 112 BOOK III. a 248 A DISCOURSE occasions, besides those we have produced, should be excogitated and inquired after, for the dispatch of this difficult work. From all these instances we may gather the necessity of a more than ordinary study and diligence in those whose profession obliges them todeal in timber ; nor is it a small stock of philosophy that will enable them to skill in the nature and properties of this material, which not only concerns the architects themselves, but their subsidiaries, viz. carpenters, joiners, and especially wood-brokers. I cannot, therefore, but take notice, that among the ancient Sportulz*, bequeathed by several founders and found- 4 Pliny, in lib. xix. cap. ii. describes a plant called Spartum, of which, when macerated, ropes were made, and which, in its natural state, was applied to various domestic purposes. Livy informs us, that Asdrubal laid up a considerable quantity of it for the service of his fleet, lib. xxii. cap. xx. It is probably from this plant that the terms Sporta, Sportula, §c. are derived; for it appears to have been very proper for the purpose of making baskets. Sportula is literally a little basket, and, in the Roman classics, signifies a distribution, some- times of victuals, because they were given in such baskets, and sometimes of money. The distinction of patront and clientes formed an essential part of the Roman political constitu- tion ; and whenever the latter had been employed in doing honour to their patrons, it had been customary from early times, to entertain them at supper, which, among the Romans, “was the principal meal. This custom, it seems, continued to the reign of Nero; for. Suetonius, lib. vi. cap. xvi. tells us, that Nero changed the public suppers into Sportule, which from Juvenal, sat. i. v. 95, appear to have been a distribution of victuals in the porch or front of the patron’s house. Afterwards, instead of victuals, a small sum of money, forty quadrantes, which were a coin of brass or lead, in value something less than a half- penny each, was given, still under the name of Sportula, as appears from Martial, lib. iii. epig. vii—Domitian at first seems to have pursued the practice of Nero: for it appears from Suetonius, lib. viii. cap. iv. that on a certain solemn occasion, he gave victuals to the senate and the knights in Panaria, and to the common people in Sportelle. The Panaria, probably, were vessels of a larger size, or of more elegant materials than the Sportelle. Af- terwards, however, Domitian restored the ancient custom of treating the clients with a full meal, as we are informed by Suetonius, lib. viii. cap. vii. as well as by Martial, lib. viii. epig. 1. v.10. In this passage, Martial opposes the Sportula to what he calls recta cena, which it seems is what he meant, in the preceding quotation, where he makes a little dis- tinction, by the term salarium, that is, victuals for a day. It appears that among the Ro- mans, largesses of victuals or of money were very common upon solemn oceasiuns, such as. matriages, entering on public offices, or the like—Claudius, we are told, jocularly gave the name of Sportula to a small exhibition of gladiators, without preparation, and that con- tinued but for a short time, because, says Suetonius, primum daturus edixerat velut ad subitam condiclamg ; cceenulam invilare se populum : he said he would give them such an entertainment as if the people had invited themselves to a short and hasty supper, lib. v. chap. xxi.— The OF FOREST-TREES. 249 resses for the encouragement of gardeners, there was a college or hall, not unlike that of our carpenters, where, upon a certain day, the fra- temity not only met to feast, but, doubtless, to confer and edify one another, as appears by an ancient inscription of the Dendrophori at - Puteoli, mentioned by the learned Dr. Spon *, which, for the honour of our present Discourse, we subjoin: EX S. C. DENDROPHORI CREATI QVI SVNT SVB CVRA XV VIR ST. CCVV PARTRON. L. AMPIVS STEPHANVS SAC. M. DEI QQ. DEND. DEDICATIONI HVIVS PANEN VINVM ET SPORTVLAS DEDIT C. VALERIVS PICENTINVS LONGINIVS IVSTINVS C. IVLIVS HERCVLANVS A. FIRMIVS POLYBIVS With many others, (a numerous catalogue of consuls’ names,) it being, it seems, a corporation established by the state, when they carried boughs and branches of trees in procession, and distributed a sportula of bread and wine: but of this, and of the Fabri Tignarii, Naupegiarii, (ship- carpenters,) and Centonarii, see this learned man’s excellent dissertation. These colleges or halls were dedicated to Diana, as goddess of the woods, of which another Roman inscription is yet extant : DIANAE COLLEG, NAUPEGIAR, M. JUNIUS. BALISTUS. ET. Q. AVILLIUS. EROS. II. VIR. D. D. younger Pliny, in book x. ep. cxvil. writes from Bithynia to Trajan, to ask the em- peror’s opinion concerning the custom that prevailed there of distributing a denarius or two, a coin in value about sevenpence, on occasion of taking the manly robe, of entering on a magistracy, or dedicating a public work; which largesses the critics on this author have not hesitated to call Sportnle, probably with sufficient reason, though that word does not occur in the epistle, notwithstanding that it has been referred to by some authors as justifying the application of this term in the very extensive sense of any kind of gift on any public occasion.—In the Greek glosses, Sportula is rendered sometimes a distribution of silver. CHAP. IV. Ne a ed ® Miscell. Erudit. Antic, Sect. xi, Art. 11. The Jews had their feast of Evaobopicty mentioned by Josephus, in which they were obliged to carry wood to the temple for the maintain- ing the fires of the altar. BOOK IIT. Sy eee FUEL. * V. Eustath. in Odyss. iii. 250 A DISCOURSE For the use of our chimneys, and maintenance of ‘fire; the plenty of wood for fuel, rather than the quality, is to be looked after ; and yet there are some greatly to be preferred before others, as harder, longer lasting, better heating, and more cheerfully burning; for which we have com- mended the Ash, &e. in the foregoing paragraphs, and to which I pretend not here to add much for the avoiding repetitions, though even an history of the best way of charring would not misbecome this discourse. But something more is to be said, sure, concerning the felling of Iig- num, fuel-wood; for so critics would distinguish it from Materza, timber. Benedictus Cursius, Hortor. lib. viii. cap. x1. reckons up what woods make the best firing: also of coaling, et de facibus, clearing, and what else belongs to Sviolouéa, especially for the use of sacrifices*, which had their particular sorts, as in the temple Despoene in Arcadia, where they were prohibited the burning of Olive-wood, the Vaticinatric Laurel, the thick- rind Oak, or any fungous, or rotten wood, but were obliged to use what was well dried, and apt to kindle without smoking. In the sacrifice of Jupiter they used White Poplar, and the Pine on the altar of Ceres. The Persian Magi burnt their sacrifices with Myrtle and the boughs of Laurel ; and, in general, all the sacrifices offered up to the pagan gods were lighted with that wood which was sacred to the particular deity. Of all which to particularize, let the curious inquire. We proceed, therefore, with what concerns this most useful chapter. And first, that our fuelist begin with the underwood : some conceive between Martinmas and Holy-Rood ; but generally with Oak as soon as it will strip, but not after May ; and for Ashes, betwixt Michaelmas and Candlemas. Let these be so felled as that the cattle may have the browsing of them, for in winter they will not only eat the tender twigs, but even the very moss; but fell no more in a day than they can eat for this purpose. This done, kid or bavin them, and pitch them upon their ends, to preserve them from rotting: thus the underwood being disposed of, the rest will prosper the better ; and besides, it otherwise does but rot upon the earth, and destroy that which would spring. If you head or top for the fire, it is not amiss to begin three or four feet above the tim- ber, if it be considerable; but in case they are only shaken trees and hedge-rows, strip them even to thirty feet high, because they are usually full of boughs ; and it were good to top such as you perceive to wither OF FOREST-TREES. 251 at the tops, a competent way beneath, to prevent their sickness down- wards, which will else certainly ensue; whereas by this means even dying trees may be preserved many years to good emolument, though they never advance taller; and being thus frequently shred, they will pro- duce more than if suffered to stand and decay: this is a profitable note for such as have old, doting, or any ways infirm wood. In other fell- ings, some advise never to commence the disbranching from the top; for though the incumbency of the very boughs upon the next, cause them to fall off the easier, yet it endangers the splicing of the next, which is very prejudicial, and therefore, advise the beginning at the nearest. And in cutting for fuel, you may, as at the top, so at the sides, cut a foot or more from the body; but never when you shred timber- trees. We have said how dangerous it is to cut for fire-wood when the sap is up; it is a mark of improvident husbands; besides, it will never burn well, though abundance be congested. Lastly, remember that the east and north winds are unkind to the succeeding shoots. Thus we have endeavoured to prescribe the best directions we could learn concerning this necessary subject. And in this penury of that dear commodity, and to incite all ingenious persons, studious of the benefit of their country, to think of ways how our woods may be preserved, by all manner of arts which may prolong the lasting of our fuel, I would give the best encouragements. ‘Those that shall seriously consider the intolerable misery of the poor Cauchi, (the then inhabitants of the Low Countries,) described by Pliny, lib. xvi. cap. i. (how opulent soever their late industry has rendered them) for want only of wood for fuel, will have reason to deplore the excessive decay of our former store of that useful commodity ; and by what shifts our neighbours, the Hollanders, do yet repair that de- fect, be invited to exercise their ingenuity : the process of which is cast- ing the die, or square of the turf, in four equal quarters; and to build them so up, (as our brickmakers do their crude ware,) that they may have the free intercourse of the air till they are dry. See Quicciardius, in his Description of Holland, or Du Cange’s Glossary, verbo Turba. But besides the dung of beasts*, and the peat and turf (which we may find in our oozy lands and heathy commons) for their chimneys, they make use of stoves, both portable and standing ; and truly the more frequent use of those inventions in our great wasting cities, (as the custom is through all Germany,) as also of those new and excellent ovens invented CHAP. IV. ya *In many places, (where fuel is scarce,) poor people spread fern and straw in the ways and paths - where cattle dung and tread, and then clap it against a wall till it be dry: but that of ogs is very noisome. BOOK III. ye 252 A DISCOURSE by Dr. Keffler, for the incomparably baking of bread, &c. would be’ an extraordinary expedient of husbanding our fuel, as well as the right mingling, and making up of charcoal-dust and loam, as it is hinted to us by Sir Hugh Platt, and is generally used in Maestricht, Liege, and the country about it; than which there is not a more sweet, lasting, and beautiful fuel. The manner of it is thus: Take about one-third part of the smallest of any coal, (pit, sea, or char- coal,) and commixing it very well with loam, (whereof there is in some places to be found a sort somewhat more combustible,) make it up into balls (moistened with a little urine of man or beast) as big as an ordinary goose-egg, or somewhat bigger ; or, if you will, in any other form, like brick-bats, &e. Expose these in the air till they are thoroughly dry; they may be built into the most orderly fires you can imagine, will burn very clear, give a wonderful heat, and continue a very long time. But first you must make the fire of charcoal, or small-coal, covering it with your eggs, hot-shots, or hovilles, as they are called, and building them up in pyramids, or what shape you please; they will continue a glowing, solemn, and constant fire for seven or eight hours, without being stirred ; then encourage and recruit the innermost with a few fresh eggs, and turn the rest, which are not yet quite reduced to cinders. This mix- ture is devised to slacken the impetuous devouring of the fire, and to keep the coals from consuming too fast *. € About Bristol, Brislington, and other places of the west of England, they make coal- balls of their culm, or small refuse-coal, which would not otherwise be saleable. The way in which these balls are prepared, is to take a certain quantity of the culm, to which they add an equal quantity of sleech, or mud, which the tide leaves on the sea-shore. After mixing them grossly with shovels, they blend them with their hands more perfectly, and mould them into balls of six inches in diameter. And in making them up, they work as much culm into the sleech with their hands, as they possibly can, without making them crumbly. These balls may be burnt immediately, or they may be laid up and kept as long as the owner pleases. This kind of fuel makes a pleasant, fierce, and good fire, and emits no disagreeable fumes. Coal-balls are made in Wales, particularly about Car- marthen, in another way. Instead of sleech, they there use clay, allowing two parts culm to one of clay. Tothe heap they add a sufficient quantity of water, tempering all together in the manner of mortar. When sufficiently mixed they form the whole into balls. These last-mentioned balls, made with clay, do not make so pleasant a fuel as those made with sleech, because the clay is apt to send forth a stinking smoke, especially if the balls are burnt before they are dry ; yet notwithstanding this inconvenience, they make a cheap and good fuel. OF FOREST-TREES. 253 Two or three short billets, covered with charcoal, last much longer, cHap, Iv. and with more life, than twice the quantity by itself, whether charcoal “7Y™ alone or billet ; and the billets under the charcoal being undisturbed, will melt, as it were, into charcoals of such a lasting size. If small-coal be spread over the charcoal, where you burn it alone, it will bind it to longer continuance; and yet more, if the small-coal be made of the roots of thorns, briers, and brambles. Consult Lord Bacon, Exper. 775. The Quercus Marina (wrack or sea-weed) which comes in our oyster- barrels, laid under Newcastle-coal to kindle it, (as theuse is in some places,) will, as I am informed, make it out-last two great fires of simple coals, and maintain a glowing luculent heat without waste. This sort of fuel is much made use of in Malta and the islands thereabout, especially to burn in their ovens; and the peasant who first brought it into custom, I find highly commended by an author, as a great benefactor to his country. The manner of gathering it, is to cut it in summer-time from the rocks, whereon it grows abundantly, and bringing it in boats or otherwise to land, spread and dry it in the sun like hay, turning and cocking it till it be fully cured. It makes an excellent fire alone, and roasts to admiration; and when all is burnt, the ashes make one of the best manures for land in the world for the time they continue in virtue. Thus fuel adds much life, continuance, and aid to our sullen sea-coal; and if the main ocean should afford fuel, (as the barnacles and soland-geese are said to do in some parts of Scotland with the very sticks of their nests,) we in these isles may thank ourselves if we be not warm. ‘These few particulars I but mention to animate improvements, and encourage ingenious attempts to detect more cheap and useful processes for ways of charring coals, peat, and the like fuliginous materials, as the accomplished Mr. Boyle has intimated to us in the fifth of those his precious Essays concerning the usefulness of Natural Philosophy, part ii. chap. vii. to which I refer the curious. In the mean time, were not he worthy of a statue of gold, that (salvo to our Newcastle trade and seminary of mariners) should in this penury of fire-wood about so monstrous a devourer as this vast city, (poisoned with smoke and soot,) find out an expedient that should, within the space of five and twenty years, free it from all this hellish and pernicious fog, by furnishing it with Volume II. Kk BOOK III. Sy 254 A DISCOURSE fuel sufficient to feed and maintain all its hearths and fires with sweet and wholesome billet ? this the ingenious Mr, Nourse seems to demonstrate,. and I think not impossible, whilst my Fumifugium' is long since vanished in aura. There is no very great store of wood about Madrid, where the winters are sharp, and so very piercing, that there is spent no less than four millions of arrobas of charcoal : (every arroba being three quarters of our bushel, and pays to the king a real before it comes into the town, or is sold:) it is charred of the Enzina, or Cork-tree: besides which they use very little fuel-wood, it being exceedingly hard, and, consequently, lasting and sweet.—But to return to the law. By the preamble of the statute of 7 Edward VI. one may perceive (the measures compared) how plentiful fuel was in the time of Edward IV. to what it was in the reigns of his successors: this suggested a review of sizes, and a reformation of abuses; in which it was enacted, that every sack of coals should contain four bushels ; every taleshide to be four feet long, besides the carf; and if named of one, marked one, to contain six- teen inches circumference, within a foot of the middle ; if of two marks, twenty-thr2e inches ; of three, twenty-eight ; of four, thirty-five ; of five, thirty-eight inches about, and so proportionably. Billets were to be of three feet, and four inches in length: the single to be seventeen inches and a half about ; and every billet of one cast (as f Mr. Evelyn wrote a Treatise in 1661, entitled Fumzfugzwm, recommending a method to prevent the bad effects of smoke in the city of London. In that work, he considers the great quantities of smoke, which, in large towns, daily ascend into the atmosphere, as likely to produce infectious diseases ; but that opinion does not seem to be well founded. On the con- trary, these acid streams correct and neutralize the volatile alkali, which, in all large towns, arises in abundance from putrid substances, and which, if not corrected, would be productive of disease, by affording a putrefactive ferment to all living bodies under the influence of a putrid disposition : | Did not the acid vigour of the mine, Roll’d from so many thund’ring chimneys, tame The putrid steams that overswarm the sky ; This caustic venom would perhaps corrode Those tender cells that draw the vital air, In vain with all their unctuous rills bedew'd. ARMSTRONG. ‘OF FOREST-TREES. 255 they term the mark) 'to be ten inches about ;' of two cast, fourteen inches, CHAP. IV. and to be marked (unless for the private use of the owner) within six ““v™” inches of the middle; of one cast, within four inches of the end, &c. Every bound faggot should be three feet long ; the band twenty-four inches in circumference, besides the knot. In the 43d Eliz. the same statute (which before only concerned London and its suburbs) was made more universal, and that of Edw. VI. explained with this addition: for such taleshides as were of necessity to be made of eleft-wood, if of one mark, and half-round, to be nineteen inches about ; if quarter-cleft, eighteen inches and.a half: marked two, being round, it shall be twenty-three inches compass ; half-round, twenty-seven ; quar- ter-cleft, twenty-six: marked three, round, twenty-eight; half-round, thirty-three ; quarter-cleft, thirty-two: marked four, being round, thirty- three inches about ; half-round, thirty-nine ; quarter-cleft, thirty-eight : marked five, round, thirty-eight inches about; half-round, forty-four ; quarter-cleft, forty-three. The measure to be taken within half a foot of the middle of the length mentioned in the former statute. Then for the billet, every one named a single, being round, to have seven inches and a half circumference ; but no single to be made of cleft- wood: if marked one, and round, to contain eleven inches compass ; if half-round, thirteen ; quarter-cleft, twelve and a half. If marked two, being round, to contain sixteen inches; half-round, nineteen ; quarter-cleft, eighteen and a half; the length as in the statute of king Edward VI. Faggots tobe every stick of three feet in length, excepting only one stick of one foot long, to harden and wedge the binding of it; this to prevent the abuse, too much practised, of filling the middle part and ends with trash and short sticks, which had been omitted in the former statute. Concerning this and the dimensions of wood in the stack, see Coppices, chap. i. book iii. to direct the less-instructed purchaser: and I have been the more particular upon this occasion, because nothing is more deceitful than our fuel brought in billet by the notch, as they call it in London; for by the vile iniquity of some wretches marking the billets as they come to the wharf, gentlemen are egregiously cheated. I could produce. KkQ BOOK III. ee 256 A DISCOURSE an instance of a friend of mine, and a member of this society, of which the wood-monger has little cause to brag, since he never durst come at him, or challenge his money for the commodity he brought, because he durst not stand to the measure. At Hall, near Foy, there is a faggot which consists of but one piece of wood, naturally grown in that form, with a band wrapped about it, and parted at the ends into four sticks, one of which is subdivided into two others: it was carefully preserved many years by an earl of Devonshire, and looked on as portending the fate of his estate, which is since indeed come into the hands of four Cornish gentlemen, one of whose estates is likewise divided betwixt two heirs. This we have out of Camden, and I here note it for the extravagancy of the thing ; though as to the verity of such portents from trees, &c. I do not find upon inquiry (which I have diligently made of my lord Brereton) that there is any certainty of the rising of those logs in the lake belonging to that noble person, so as still to premonish the death of the heir of that family, how confidently soever re- ported ; though sometimes it has happened, but the event is not constant. To this class may be referred what is affirmed concerning the fatal pre- diction of Oaks bearing strange leaves, which may be inquired of ; and of accidents fasciating the boughs or branches of trees, as noticed by Dr. Plot in Willows and other soft woods, especially in an Ash at Bisseter, uniformly wreathed two or three times round : such a curiosity also hangs up in the portico of the physic-garden at Oxford, in a top branch of Holly, which shews it likewise happening sometimes even to harderwoods; and it is probable that such as we sometimes find so heliacally twisted, have received some blast that has contracted the fibres, and curled them in that extravagant manner. Wonderful contortion and perplexity of the parts of trees may be seen and admired in Tzeda roots, especially in that given to the Royal Society by the right hon. the lord Somer, (the late most learned president,) and now amongst the natural rarities of the repository. I will now describe to you the mystery of charring, (whereof some- thing was but touched in the process of extracting tar out of the Pines,) as I received it from a most industrious person. Of charcoal there is usually made three sorts, viz. one for the iron- works, a second for gunpowder, and a third for London and court, be- sides small-coals, of which we shall also speak in due place. OF FOREST-TREES. 257 ~ We will begin with that sort which is used for the iron-works, be- cause the rest are made much after the same manner, and with very little difference. The best wood for this is good Oak, cut into lengths of three feet, as they size it for the stack: this is better than the cord-wood, though of a large measure, and much used in Essex. The wood being cut, and set in stacks ready for the coaling, choose out some level place in the coppice, the most free from stubs, &c. to make the hearth on: in the midst of this area drive down a stake for your centre, and with a pole, having a ring fastened to one of the extremes, (or else with a cord put over the centre,) describe a circumference from twenty or more feet semi-diameter, according to the quantity of your wood de- signed for coaling, which being near, may conveniently be charred on that hearth ; and which at one time may be twelve, sixteen, twenty, twenty-four, even to thirty stacks: if twelve, therefore, be the quantity you will coal, a circle, whose diameter is twenty-four feet, will suffice for the hearth; if twenty stacks, a diameter of thirty-two feet; if thirty, forty feet ; and so proportionably. Having thus marked out the ground with mattocks, hoes, and fit in- struments, bare it of the turf, and of all other combustible stuff whatso- ever, which you are to rake up towards the periphery, or outside of the circumference, for a use to be afterwards made of it, planing and level- ling the ground within the cirele: this done, the wood is to be brought - from the nearest part where it is stacked, in wheel-barrows; and first the smallest of it placed at the utmost limit, or very margin of the hearth, where it is ta be set long-ways, as it lay in the stack; the biggest of the wood pitch or set up on end round about against the small wood, and all this within the circle, till you come within five or six feet of the centre ; at which distance you shall begin to set the wood in a triangular from till it come to be three feet high: against this again, place your greater wood almost perpendicular, reducing it from the triangular to a circular form, till, being come within a yard of the centre, you may pile the wood long-ways, as it lay in the stack, being careful that the ends of the wood do not touch the pole, which must now be erected in the eentre, nine feet in height, that so there may remain a round hole, which is to be formed in working up the stack-wood for a tunnel, and the more CHAP. IV. Py 258 A DISCOURSE BOOK HI. commodious firing of the pit, as they call it, though not very properly. This provided for, go on to pile, and set your wood upright to the other as before, till, having gained a yard more, you lay it long-ways again, as was shewed: and thus continue the work, still interchanging the posi- tion of the wood till the whole area of the hearth and circle be filled and piled up at the least eight feet high, and so drawn in by degrees in piling, that it resemble the form of a copped household loaf, filling all inequa- lities with the smaller truncheons till it lie very close, and be perfectly and evenly shaped. This done, take straw, haum, or fern, and lay it on the outside of the bottom of the heap, or wood, to keep the next cover from falling amongst the sticks ; upon this put the turf, and cast on the dust and rubbish which was grubbed and raked up at the making of the hearth, and reserved near the circle of it; with this cover the whole heap of wood to the very top of the pit or tunnel to a reasonable and competent thickness, beaten close and even, that so the fire may not vent but in the places where you intend it; and if, m preparing the hearth, at first there did not rise sufficient turf and rubbish for this work, supply it from some covenient place near to your ieap. There be who cover this again with a sandy or finer mould, which, if it c!ose well, need not be above an inch or two thick. ‘This done, provide a screen by making light hurdles with slit rods and straw of a competent thickness to keep off the wind, and broad and high enough to defend an opposite side to the very top of your pit, being eight or nine feet, and so as to be easily removed, as need shall require, for the dung of your pit. When now all is in this posture, and the wood well ranged and closed, . as has been directed, set fire to your heap; but first you must provide you a ladder to ascend the top of your pit; this they usually make of a curved tiller, fit to apply to the convex shape of the heap, and cut it full of notches for the more commodious setting their feet while they govern the fire above; therefore, now they pull up and take away the stake which was erected in the centre to guide the building of the pile and cavity of the tunnel: this done, put in a quantity of charcoals, (about a peck,) and let them fall to the bottom of the hearth; upon them cast in coals that are fully kindled; and when those which were first put in, are beginning to sink, throw in more fuel, and so, from time to time, till the coals have universally taken fire up to the top ; then cut an ample and reasonable thick turf, and clap it over the hole, or OF FOREST-TREES. 259 mouth of the tunnel, stopping it as close as may be with some of the former dust and rubbish. Lasty, with the handles of your rakes, or the like, you must make vent-holes, or registers, (as our chemists name them,) through the stuff which covers your heap to the very wood, these in ran- gers of two or’three feet distance, quite round within a foot (or there- about) of the top, though some begin them at the bottom: a day after, begin another row of holes a foot and a half beneath the former, and so more till they arrive to the ground, as occasion requires. Note. That as the pit does coal and sink towards the centre, it is continually. to be fed with short and fitting wood, that no part remain unfired ; andif it chars faster at one part than at the other, there close up the vent-holes, and open them where need is. A pit will in this manner be. burning off and charring five or six days ; and as it coals, the smoke, from thick and gross clouds, will grow more blue and livid, and the whole mass sink accord- ingly, so as by these indications you may the better know how to stop and govern your spiracles. Two or three days it will only require for cooling, which the vents being stopped, they assist by taking now off the outward covering with a rabil or rubber; but this not far above the space of one yard breadth at a time; and first they remove the coarsest and grossest of it, throwing the finer over the heap again, that so it may neither cool too hastily, nor endanger the burning and reducing all to ashes, should the whole pit be uncovered and exposed to the air at once ; therefore, they open it thus round by degrees. When now, by all the former symptoms, you judge it fully charred, you may begin to draw, that is, to take out the coals, first round the bottom, by which means the coals, rubbish, and dust, sinking and falling in together, may choke and extinguish the fire. Your coals sufficiently cooled, with a very long-toothed rake and a vann, you may load them into the coal-wains, which are made close with boards purposely to carry them to market. Of these coals the grosser sort are commonly reserved for the forges and iron-works, the middling and smoother put up in sacks, and carried by the colliers to London and the adjacent towns: those which are charred of the roots, if picked out, are accounted best for chemical fires, and where a lasting and extraordinary blast is required. Coal for the powder-mills is made of Alder-wood, (but Lime-tree were much better, had we it in that plenty which we easily might,) cut, CHAP. IV. Sa BOOK III. nye 260 A DISCOURSE stacked, and set on the hearth like the former; but first the wood ought to be wholly disbarked, which work is to be done about Mid« summer before, and being thoroughly dry, it may be coaled in the same method, the heap or pile, only somewhat smaller, by reason that they seldom coal above five or six stacks at a time, laying it but two lengths of the wood one above the other, in form somewhat flatter on the top than what we have described ; likewise do they fling all their rubbish and dust on the top, and begin not to cover at the bottom, as in the former example. In like sort, when they have drawn up the fire in the tunnel, and stopped it, they begin to draw down their dust by degrees round the heap, and this proportionably as it fires, till they come about to the bottom; all which is despatched in the course of two days. One of these heaps will char threescore sacks of coal, which may all be carried at one time in a waggon ; and some make the court-coals after the same manner. Lastly. Small-coals are made of the spray and brush-wood, which is stripped off from the branches of copse-wood, and which is sometimes bound up into bavins for this use, though also it be as frequently charred without binding, and then they call it cooming it together. This they place in some near floor, made level and freed of incumbrances, where, setting one of the bavins, or part of the spray, on fire, two men stand ready to throw on bavin upon bavin, as fast as they can take fire, which makes a very great and sudden blaze, till they have burni all that lies near the place, to the number (it may be) of five or six hundred bavins: but before they begin to set fire, they fill great tubs or vessels with water, which stand ready by them, and this they dash-on with a great dish or scoop so soon as ever they have thrown on all their bavins, con- tinually plying the great heap of glowing coals, which gives a sudden stop to the fury of the fire, while with a great rake they lay and spread it abroad, and ply their casting of water still on the coals, which are now perpetually turned by two men with great shovels, a third throwing on the water. ‘This they continue till no more fire appears, though they cease not from being very hot ; after this they shovel them up into great heaps, and when they are thoroughly cold, put them up in sacks for London, where they use them amongst divers artificers, both to kindle great fires, and to temper and anneal their several works. Lastly, this is to be observed, that the wood which yields the finest coal-is more flexible and gentle than that which yields the contrary. OF FOREST-TREES. 261 The best season for the fetching home of other fuel is in June, the ways being then most dry and passable ; yet I know some good husbands will begin rather in May, because fallowing and stirring of ground for corn comes in the ensuing months, and the days are long enough, and swains have then least to do. And thus we have seen how for house-bote, and ship-bote, plough- bote, hey-bote, and fire-bote, the planting and propagation of timber and forest-trees is requisite ; so as it was not for nothing that the very name (which the Greeks generally applied to timber) 0/7, by synecdoche, was taken always pro materia ; since we hardly find any thing in Nature more universally useful; or, in comparison with it, deserving the name of material; it being, in truth, the mother-parent and (metaphorically) the passive principle ready for the form. To complete this chapter of the universal use of trees, and the parts of them, something I could be tempted to say concerning staves, wands, &e. their antiquity, use, divine, domestic, civil, and political ; the time of cutting, manner of seasoning, forming, and other curious particulars, (how dry soever the subject may appear,) both of delight and profit ; but we reserve it for some more fit opportunity, and perhaps it may merit a peculiar treatise, as acceptable as it will prove amusing. We have already spoken of that modern art of tapping trees in the spring, by which, doubtless, some excellent and specific medicines may be attained, as (before) from the Birch, for the stone; from Elms and Elder, against fevers ; so from the Vine, the Oak, and even the very Bramble, besides the wholesome and pleasant drinks, spirits, &c. that may possibly be educed out of them. This we leave to the industrious ; satisfying ourselves that we have been among the first who have hinted and published the ways of performing it. Let us now sum up all the good qualities and transcendent perfections of trees, in the harmonious Poets’ Concert of Elogies: _ — dant utile lignum Navigiis Pinos, domibus Cedrosque Cupressosque ; Hine radios trivere rotis, hine tympana plaustris Agricole, et pandas ratibus posuere carinas. Volume II. 3 yall CHAP. IV. yey 262 A DISCOURSE BOOK III. Viminibus Salices foecunde, frondibus Ulmi : At Myrtus validis hastilibus, et bona bello Cornus: Ityraos Taxi torquentur in arcus. Nec Tiliz leves, aut torno rasile Buxum, Non formam accipiunt, ferroque cavantur acuto : Nec non et torrentem undam levis innatat Alnus Missa Pado; nec non et apes examina condunt Corticibusque cavis, vitioseeque Ilicis alveo. GEORG. li. Pines are for masts an useful wood, Cedar and Cypress, to build houses good : Hence covers for their carts, and spokes for wheels Swains make, and ships do form their crooked keels : With twigs the Sallows, Elms with leaves are freight ; Myrtles stout spears, and Cornel good for fight : The Yews into Ityrean bows are bent ; Smooth Limes and Box, the turner’s instrument Shaves into form, and hollow cups does trim ; And down the rapid Po light Alders swim : In hollow bark bees do their honey stive, And make the trunk of an old Oak their hive. The most ingenious Ovid introduces the miraculous groves raised by the melodious song of Orpheus : ‘Non Chaonis abfuit arbos, Non nemus Heliadum, non frondibus Asculus altis. Nec Tilia molles, nec Fagus, et innuba Laurus. Et Coryli fragiles, et fraxinus utilis hastis, Enodisque Abies, curvataque glandibus Ilex, Et Platanus genialis, Acerque coloribus impar, Amnicoleque simul Salices, et aquatica Lotos, Perpetuoque virens Buxus, tenuesque Myrice. Et bicolor Myrtus, et baccis cerula Tinus : Vos quoque flexi-pedes Hedere venistis, et una Pampinez vites, et amicte Vitibus Ulmi : Ornique, et Piceze, Pomoque onerata rubenti Arbutus, et lente victoris premia Palme : Et succincta comas, hirsutaque vertice Pinus Grata Deum matri. MET. X. nor trees of Chaony, The Poplar, various Oaks that pierce the sky, Soft Linden, smooth-rind Beech, unmarried Bays, The brittle Hasel, Ash, whose spears we praise, OF FOREST-TREES. 263 Unknotty Fir, the solace-shading Planes, CHAP. ae Rough Chestnuts, Maple fleck’d with different grains, Iw Stream-bordering Willow, Lotus loving lakes, Tough Box, whom never sappy spring forsakes, The slender Tamarisk, with trees that bear A purple Fig, nor Myrtles absent were. The wanton Ivy wreath’d in amorous twines, Vines bearing grapes, and Elms supporting Vines; Straight Service-trees, trees dropping pitch, fruit-red Arbutus, these the rest accompanied. ‘With limber Palms, of victory the prize, And upright Pine, whose leaves like bristles rise, Priz’d by the mother of the gods SANDYS. This incomparable poet is imitated by our divine Spenser, where he brings his gentle knight into a shady grove, praising the trees so straight and hy, The sayling Pine, the Cedar proud and tall, The Vine-prop Elme, the Poplar never dry, The builder Oake, sole king of forrests all, The Aspine good for staves, the Cypress funerall. The Laurell, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the Firre that weepeth still, The Willow worne of forlorne paramours, The Eugh obedient to the bender’s will, The Birch for shaftes, the Sallow for the mill, The Mirrhe sweet bleeding in the bitter wound, The war-like Beech, the Ash for nothing ill, The fruitful Olive, and the Platane round, The carver Holme, the Maple seeldom inward sound. CANTO I. And in this symphony might the noble Tasso bear likewise his part, but that these are sufficient, e¢ tria sunt omnia. What now remains, concerns only some general precepts and direc- tions applicable to most of that we have formerly touched; together with a brief of what farther laws have been enacted for the improvement and preservation of woods; and which having despatched, we shall with a short pareenesis, touching the present ordering and disposing of the royal plantations for the future benefit of the nation, put an end to this rustic Discourse. L12 264: A DISCOURSE Ce Av ave APHORISMS, or certain General Precepts, of Use to the foregoing Chapters. BOOK un ERY all sorts of seeds, and by their thriving you shall best discern wv’ what are the most proper kinds for grounds, Quippe solo natura subest —— and of these design the main of your plantation. ‘Try all soils, and fit the species to their natures. Beech, Hasel, and Holly affect gravel and gritty ; and if mixed with loam, Oak, Ash, and Elm. In stiff ground, plant Ash and Hornbeam ; and in light feeding ground or loam, any sort whatsoever: in the lower and wetter lands, the aquatics §. s Of plants, each species affects a particular soil in preference to every other. In their culture, therefore, it is of the utmost importance to have a distinct knowledge of the loca natalia, that the nature of the soil in which they are cultivated, may be made to approach, as near as possible, to that in which they spontaneously grow. This is the solid and proper foundation of planting and gardening : Nec vero terre ferre omnes omnia possunt. Fluminibus Salices, crassisque paludibus Alni Nascuntur, steriles saxosis montibus Orni, Litora Myrteis letissima: denique apertos Bacchus amat colles, Aquilonem et frigora Taxi. GEORG. il. The numerous species of plants which grow betwixt the north pole and the equator, when viewed in detail, appear to differ from each other only by insensible degrees ; yet are the plants of the frozen zones, when viewed in cumulo, or in a body, totally different from those which are produced betwixt the tropics. Thus we often see whole families of plants, natives of the torrid zone, which are never to be found in any of the others. “In the climate of plants,” says Linneus, “are to be considered latitude, longitude, and the temperature or elevation of the soil.” Vaillant was among the first who viewed the loca natalia of plants in this light; but his observations were confined to latitude alone.— Places situated under the same parallel of latitude, but in opposite hemispheres, produce plants that are totally different; even those in the same hemisphere are rarely alike.— Thus Rome, Pekin, and New York, in America, are situated almost in the same degree of north latitude, yet produce very different plants. The same may be said of the plants OF FOREST-TREES. 265 Keep your newly-sown seeds continually fresh, and in the shade, (as much as may be,) till they peep. All curious seeds and plants are diligently to be weeded, till they are strong enough to over-drop or suppress them: and you shall carefully hoe, half-dig, and stir up the earth about their roots during the first three years, especially in the vernal and autumnal equinoxes: this work should be done in a moist season for the first year, to prevent the dust from suffocating the tender buds; but afterwards in the more dry weather. Plants raised from seed should be thinned where they come up too thick ; and none so fit to be transplanted into hedge-rows as those you thus draw, especially where ground is precious. ie Ot Te a lela AME el ae ca RN a Os nk ES I eS of Florida and Palestine, the Cape of Good Hope, and Chili, in South America, places which exactly correspond in latitude ; the two former situated in the northern hemisphere ; the latter in the southern. What has been affirmed of latitude, may likewise be asserted of places that are situated upon the same meridian. Thus the North Cape, Rome, Upsal, the Cape of Good Hope, agree in longitude, yet produce plants that are totally different. The aptitude or disposition of plants to grow in certain climates, and not in others, seems to depend not so much upon longitude and latitude, as upon the elevation of the soil, or difference of temperature in such climates. From this cause proceeds the difference which is generally found to obtain betwixt the plants of the torrid, and those of the tem- perate and frigid zones. For when in the torrid zone we find the mountains, which, by their elevation, have acquired a temperature similar to that of the temperate or frigid zones, we always discover on such mountains the same, or, at least, a part of the same plants. Thus the plants on the mountains of Lapland, of Switzerland, Greenland, Siberia, Wales, the Pyreneans, Olympus, Ararat, and Brazil, though placed at such immense dis- tances from each other, are nearly the same. As at a certain depth, the temperature of water is found to be nearly the same in all climates, so the greatest part of aquatic plants are common to the torrid, temperate, and frigid zones. Thus the Water-lily, Aldrovanda, Sun-dew, Arrow-head, Water-milfoil, and many other aquatics, are equally natives of Europe and the Indies. It is remarked by many writers, that the climate of modern Europe is much warmer than that of the ancient ; and as a proof of its being so, we need only compare the testimonies of the most authentic ancient writers with our own observations and experience. The Abbé du Bos observes upon the climate of Italy, that it is warmer at present than in ancient times. He says, “ The annals of Rome tell us, that in the year 480, ab. U. C, «the winter was so severe, that it destroyed the trees. The Tyber froze at Rome, and “the ground was covered with snow forty-five days. When Juvenal describes a super- CHAP. V. | BOOK III. BP\ ee 266 A DISCOURSE Suckers that sprout from the farthest part of the stem, or body of the mother-tree, are best, as easier plucked up without detriment to the roots and fibres, or violence to the mother : it were good, therefore, first to uncover the roots whence they spring, and to cut them close off, re-planting them immediately ; those which grow at more distance may be separated with some of the old root, if you find the sucker not well furnished. To produce suckers, lay the roots bare, and slit some of them here and there discreetly, and then cover them. Layers are to be bent down and couched in rich mould ; and if you find them stubborn, you may slit a little in the bark and wood, but no deeper than to make it ply, without wounding the tender heart. Putting forth root is assisted by pricking the bark, slitting, or binding a pack- thread about the part you would have the root spring from. -The proper season is the early spring and mid-autumn ; and in all dry seasons observe to keep the layers diligently watered. Slips and cuttings (by which most trees may be propagated) should be separated at the burs, joints, or knobs: strip them of their leaves before “ stitious woman, he represents her as breaking the ice of the Tyber, that she might per- “form her ablutions : Hybernum fracta glacie descendet in amnem, Ter matutino Tyberi mergetur. “The poet speaks of the freezing of the river as a common event. Many passages in «« Horace suppose the streets of Rome full of snow and ice. We should have had more “ certainty with regard to this point, had the ancient Romans known the use of ther- *mometers. But their writers, without intending it, give us information sufficient to con- “vince us, that the winters are now more temperate there than formerly. At present, the “‘ Tyber no more freezes at Rome than the Nile at Cairo. The citizens of Rome esteem «the winter very rigorous if the snow lies two days, and if one sees for eight and forty hours “a few icicles hanging from a fountain that has a north exposition.” Pliny, the consul, in his letter to Apollinaris, in which he describes his villain Tuscany, says, that it produces Bay-trees in great perfection, but that sometimes, though not oftener than in the neighbour- hood of Rome, they are killed by the sharpness of the seasons. Ovid describes the place of his banishment, Tomus, on the Euxine sea, as enjoying a most rigorous winter; but Tournefort, who visited the same country, says, that there is not a finer climate in the world. He remarks, that nothing but Ovid’s melancholy could have induced him to paint the coun- try in such horrid colours. But I think the facts mentioned by the poet are too circum- stantial to admit of such an interpretation. OF FOREST-TREES. 267 you bury them, leaving no side-branches. Some slit the end where it crap. V. is cut off; at two years’ end is the soonest they will be fit to take up; layers much sooner. In planting, omit not the placing of your trees towards their accus- tomed aspect ; and if you have leisure, make the holes the autumn before; the wider the better: three feet over and two deep is little enough if the ground be any thing stiff, often stirring and turning the mould, and mixing it with better as you may find cause, This done, dig or plough about them, and that as near their stems as you can come without hurting them, and therefore rather use the spade for the first two or three years; and preserve what you plant steady from the winds and annoyance of cattle, &c. Remove the softest wood to the moistest grounds : Divisee arboribus patria ———_—— GEORG. ii. Begin to plant forest-trees when the leaves fall after Michaelmas ; you may adventure when they are tarnished and grow yellow ; it is lost time to commence later, and, for the most part of your trees, early planters seldom repent ; for sometimes a tedious bind of frost prevents the whole season. The baldness of a tree is a note of deceit; for some Oaks, Hornbeam, and most Beeches preserve their dead leaves till new ones push them off. Set deeper in the lighter grounds than in the strong, but shallowest in clay : five inches is sufficient for the driest, and one or two for the moist, provided you establish them against winds. Plant forth in warm and moist seasons, the air tranquil and serene, the wind westerly ; but never while it actually freezes or rains, nor in misty weather, for it moulds and infects the roots. What you gather and draw out of woods, plant immediately, for their roots are very apt to be mortified, or hardened and withered by the winds and cold air. Trees produced from seeds must have the tap-roots abated, (the Walnut-tree and some others excepted, and yet if planted merely for fruit, some affirm it may be adventured on with success,) and the bruised parts cut away, but sparing the fibrous, for they are the principal feeders ; and ‘those who cleanse them too much are punished for the mistake, BOOK III. — 268 A DISCOURSE In spring, rub off some of the collateral buds to check the exuberaney of sap in the branches, till the roots be well established. Plant no more than you will fence, for that neglected, tree-culture comes to nothing; therefore all young-set trees should be defended from the winds and sun, especially the east and north, till their roots are fixed, that is, till you perceive them shoot; and the not exactly observing of this article, is the cause of the perishing ef the most tender planta- tions; for it is the invasion of these two assailants which does more mischief to our new-set and less hardy trees, than the most severe and durable frosts of a whole winter. And here let me add this caution again, that, in planting of trees of stature for avenues or shades, you set them at such distance as they be not in reach of the mansion-house, in case of being blown down by the winds, for reasons sufficiently ob- vious. See Hist. of the Storm, Nov. 26, 1703 ». The properest soil, and most natural, apply to distinct species: nec vero terre ferre omnes omnia possunt. Yet we find by experience, that most of our forest-trees grow well enough in the coarsest lands, provided there be a competent depth of mould; for albeit, most of our wild plants covet to run just under the surface, yet, where there is not suf- ficient depth to cool them, and entertain the moisture and influences, they are neither lasting nor prosperous. W ood well planted, will grow in moorish, boggy, heathy, and the stoniest grounds; only the white and blue clay, which is commonly the best pasture, is the worst for wood; and such good timber as we find in any of these, Oaks excepted, is of an excessive age, requiring thrice the time to arrive at their stature. If the season require it, all new plantations are to be plied with water- ings, which is better poured into a circle at some distance from the roots, which should continually be bared of grass; and if the water be rich, or impregnated, the shoots will soon discover it; for the liquor, h Tn the fourth book of this volume, Mr. Evelyn has given a short account of this dread- ful storm; and as it was one of the most sweeping tempests that ever visited this island, I have, in a note, given a more circumstantial account of it, from an annual sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Winter, to commemorate that awful day. OF FOREST-TREES. 269 being percolated through a quantity of earth, will carry the nitrous vir- CHAP. V: _tue of the soil with it: by no means, therefore, water at the stem, be- cause it washes the mould from the roots, comes too crude, and endan- gers their rotting. But, for the cooling and refreshing tree roots, the congesting of rotten litter, sprinkled over with fine earth, is good ; or place potsherds, flints, or pebbles near the foot of the stem ; for so the poet: Aut lapidem bibulum, aut squallentes infode conchas : Inter erim labentur aque, tenuisque subibit Halitus. ————————_ GEORG. ii. Lime-stones, or squalid shells, that may the rain, Vapours, and gliding moisture entertain. But remember you remove them after a competent time, else the vermine, snails, and insects, which they produce and shelter, will gnaw and greatly injure.the bark ; and therefore to lay a coat of moist rotten litter with a little earth upon it, will preserve it moist in summer and warm in winter, enriching the showers and dews that strain through it. Young plants will be strangled with corn, oats, peas, or hemp, or any rankly growing grain, if a competent circle and distance be not left, as of near a yard or so off the stem. This is a useful remark ; but whether the setting or sowing of beans near trees makes them thrive the more, -as Theophrastus writes, (I suppose he means fruit-trees,) I leave to ex- perience. Cut no trees (especially having an eminent pith in them, being young and tender too) when either heat or cold are in extremes, nor in very wet and showy weather ; and in this work it is profitable to discharge all trees of unthriving, broken, wind-shaken browse, and such as our law terms cablicia, and to take them off to the quick, Ne pars sincera trahatur. And for evergreens, especially such as are tender, prune them not after planting, till they do radicate ; that is, by some little fresh shoot discover that they have taken root. Cut not off the top of the leading twig or shoot (unless very crooked, and then at the next erect bud) when you transplant timber-trees, but Volume II. Mm BOOK III. ee 270 A DISCOURSE those of the collateral you may shorten, stripping up the rest close to the stem ; and such as you do spare, let them not be the most opposite, but rather one above another, to preserve the part from swelling and hinder- ing its taper growth: be careful, also, to keep your trees from being top-heavy, by shortening the side-branches competently near the stem.— Young plants, nipt either by the frost, or teeth of cattle, do commonly break on the sides, which impedes both growth and spring: in this case, prune off some, and quicken the leading shoot with your knife at some distance beneath its infirmity: but if it be in a very unlikely con- dition at spring, cut off all close to the very ground, and hope for a new shoot, continually suppressing whatever else may accompany it, by cut- ting them away in summer. Walnut, Ash, and pithy trees are safer pruned in summer and warm weather than in the spring, whatever the vulgar fancy. IT will conclude with the technical names, or dissimilar parts of trees, as I find them enumerated by the industrious and learned Dr. Merett : Scapus, Truncus, Cortex, Liber, Malicorium, Matrix, Medulla et Cor, Pecten, Circuli, Sureuli, Rami, Sarmenta, Ramusculi, Spadix, Vimen, Virgultum et Cremium, Vitilia, Talea, Scobs, Termes, Turiones, Frondes, Cachrys et Nucamentum, Julus et Catulus, Coma: to which add Alburnum, Capitulum, Cima, Echinus, Geniculum, Pericarpium, Petio- lus: the Species, Frutex, Suffrutex, &c.; all which I leave to be put into good and proper English (as our learned Phytologist, Mr. Ray, has done) by those who shall once oblige our nation with a full and absolutely complete dictionary, as yet a desiderate amongst us; how- ever, of late, infinitely improved i. iIn the year 1731, Mr. Philip Miller published the first edition of his Gardeners’ Dictionary. It has gone through nine editions, and is a work of considerable merit. 2nd Edit. in 1733.—3rd Edit. in 1738.—4th Edit. in 1740.—5th Edit. in 1743.—6th Edit. in 1752.—7th Edit. in 1759.—8th Edit. in 1768.—and 9th Edit. in 1798, with alterations and improvements, by Mr. Martin, Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge—In the year 1764, Dr. Berkenhout published his Clavis Anglica Lingue Botanice ; and in 1770, Mr. C, Milne favoured the botanical student with an excellent Botanical Dictionary, to which a Supplement was added in 1778. OF FOREST-TREES. Q71 CHAP. VIL Of the Laws and Statutes for the Preservation and Improvement of WOODS and FORESTS. Ir is not to be passed by, that the very first law we find which was ever promulged, was concerning trees—and that laws themselves were first written upon them%, or tables composed of them; and after that establish- ment in Paradise, the next we meet withal are as ancient as Moses. You may find the statute at large in Deut. xx. 19, 20, which though they chiefly tended to fruit-trees, even in an enemy’s country, yet you will find a case of necessity only alleged for the permission to destroy any other. To sum up briefly the laws and civil constitutions of great antiquity, Servius informs us it was no less than capital, alienas arbores incidere ; the Lex Aquilia, and those of the twelve tables mentioned by Paulus, Cujas, Julianus, and others of that robe, repeated divers more. It was by those sacred constitutions provided, that none might somuch as plant trees on the confines of his neighbour’s ground, but he was to leave a space of at the least five feet, for the smallest tree, that they might not injure him with their shadow. Si arbor in vicint agrum impenderit, eam sublucato, &c.; and if, for all this, any hung over farther, it was to be stripped up fifteen feet : and this law Balduinus, Olderdorpius, and Hotoman recite out of Ulpian, lib. i. F. de Arb. Caedend. where we have the preetor’s interdict expressed, and the impendent wood adjudged to appertain to him whose field or fence was thereby damnified: nay, the wise Solon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees, as the divine Plato did against stealing of fruit, and violating of plantations: and the interdiction de glande legenda runs thus in Ulpian, AIT PRATOR, GLANDEM, QUA EX ILLIUS AGRO IN TUUM CADAT, QUO MINUS ILLI TERTIO QUOQUE DIE LEGEREH, AUPERREH LICEAT; VIM FIERIVETO. And yet, though by the pretor’s permission he might come every third day to gather it up without trespass, his neighbour was to share of the mast which so fell into his ground; and this chapter is well supplied M m 2 CHAP. VI. * The laws of uma were first cut in Quernis Tabue lis, before they were engraven in brass. See Dionys. Hali- carnass. I. iii. BOOK III. a gi ed 272 A DISCOURSE by Pliny, lib. xvi. cap. v. and Cujas, upon the place, interprets glan- dem to signify, not the acorns of the Oak alone, but all sorts of fruit whatsoever, as by usage of the Greeks, &xeédpva imports the fruit of all kinds of forest-trees. There were also laws concerning boundaries, to be found at large in other learned authors De Re Agraria, of which we give this short ex- tract : some admitted any sort of trees, others used peculiar kinds for the fencing of their grounds ; others fenced with foreign trees, that the difference of the wood might serve as a mark: some, by.agreement, planted them in common upon the very borders; some, at their private charge, a little within the margents of their own fields, &c. Amongst the different sorts of trees, we find Pines and Cypress-trees’ placed for bounds, also Ash, Elm, and Poplar ; which when near the limits, with any cultivated ground between, the intermediate spaces were filled with shrubs. In case the trees were in common, some preserved them un- touched on both sides; others, the stems only, the lop, the tops, and branches (especially if they belonged to a particular person) to cut or spare at their pleasure, provided they planted others in their room. In trees marked, it was considered whether they were in common, in which case they were marked in the middle, or on each side ; and if one side of the tree had leaves, the other was cut, to signify their belonging to those persons, on the border of whose grounds they were left entire: this for trees of eight feet asunder. Those at twenty feet distance, were marked with X or T, to notify a flexure or turning thereabout. Some permitted them to stand till they arrived to such a bulk and stature as to over-top the rest, distinguished also from those marked on both sides, whether they stood in woods, barren or uncultivated land, as being supposed in com- mon: the same rule held if marked in the middle. If but one side was marked, the unmarked side was the boundary : if the mark was different on either side, (and none else to be seen,) such trees were not to be ac- counted boundaries. Lastly, in champaign and open places, foreign trees were usually planted. If, as sometimes, briers and such shrubs grow on the ancient limits, it should be considered of what kind they are, and in- quired how it happens that they are often found in the middle of the fields. There are more of those nice rules to be found among the lawyers, whilst, before any of these instances, the images of satyrs bounded the OF FOREST-TREES. 273 confines, and were counted as Termini‘, which none might remove, with- CHAP. VI! out being accounted as sacrilegious, and the person punished with death. he itad These, and the Herme, were reputed protectors of such boundaries: et te pater Silvane, tutor finium ! Hor. In the mean time, no trees whatsoever might be planted near public aqueducts, lest the roots should insinuate into, and displace the stones 5 nor on the very margent of navigable rivers, lest the boats and other ves- sels, passing to and fro, should be hindered ; therefore such impediments were called rete, quia naves retinent, says the gloss; and because the falling of the leaves corrupted the water: so nor within such a distance of highways, (which also our own laws prohibit,) that they might dry the bet- ter, and less cumber the traveller. Trees that obstructed the foundation of houses were to be felled: Barthol. lib. i. doct. c. de Interdict. Ulp. in L. priore ff. de Arb. cedend. Trees spreading their roots in neighbour- ground to be in common: see Cujas and Paulus in L, Arb. ff. de Com- muni dividend. where more of the alienation of trees felled, and not stand- ing, but with the funds, as also of the Usu-fruit of trees, and the differ-~ ence betwixt Arbores Grandes, and Cremiales or Ceduze; of all which U}Jpian, Baldus, Alciat, with the laws to govern the conlucatores and «The Herme, or what the Latins call Termeni, were placed for boundaries of lands. They were sometimes worshipped as gods, but the sacrifices offered to them were wnbloody ; and Piutarch gives the reason, “lest they should violate the tokens of peace and agree- ment by staining them with blood.” The Termini were originally square statues of Mer- cury, and generally without legs and arms. The Athenians placed them in the vestibules of their houses and temples, and it was esteemed highly criminal to remove or deface them. One night (says Thucydides) the heads of all the Herme in the city were cut off: strict search was made after the perpetrators of this crime, in order to bring them to punish- ment: Alcibiades was suspected, and obliged to fly into banishment. Other heads, besides that of Mereury, were placed upon square pillars, and constituted Termini. When it was a head of Minerva, called in Greek Athena, it was named a Hermathena. Those which had Apollo’s head were named Hermapollo ; and those Hermeros which had the head of Cupid, from his being named Eros. Such as had the heads of Hercules, Anubis, Osyris,or Harpocrates, were called Hermheracles, Hermanubis, Hermosiris, and Hermharpocrates. These names frequently occur in the Latin classics. Exclusive of worship, it was strict policy both in the Greeks and Romans to consider their Termini as sacred ; and if we look into the books of the Old Testament, we shall find that vengeance was denounced against such as removed them. “Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's land-mark.” BOOK IIL. —~—/ 274 A DISCOURSE sublucatores, or pruners: vid. Pan. s.¢. Sent. lib. v. Festus, &c. for we pass over what concerns Vines and Olive-trees, to be found in Cato de R. R. &e. Nor is it here that I design to enlarge, as those who have philologized on this occasion de sycophantis, and other curious criticisms ; but to pass now on, and confine myself to the prudent sanctions of our own parliaments ; for though, according to the old and best spirit of true English, we ought to be more powerfully led by royal example, than to have need of more cogent and violent laws; yet, that our discourse may be as ample, and as little defective as we can render it, something, it is fit, should be spoken concerning such laws and ordinances, as have been, from time to time, constituted amongst us for the encouragement and direction of such as do well, and for the animadversion and punishment of those who continue refractory. But, before we descend to our municipal, and present laws and consti- tutions, let us inquire what was anciently meant by a forest, waving those (I think) impertinent etymologies, guia foris est, Lumbard gloss, &e. O DED eaaore arcana tenlDe On R0e 35080 2 6 89406 0 O Clipstone-paykcpepredesvoccatsecadenssrecasvocsen, JOSS, 2 25 Beskwood-park, .,......:+0+0008 case sep kousewe Se GOV 0) (a) Bulwellopark: jpsccivsctwen ac suseuteseetemess league 226 3542 Notting hams parks icdeicsereeacnaun seers cnchns 129 3 9 eee 95117 3 36” Many of the plantations lately made upon this forest, have names given them, with a view to commemorate the signal victories obtained by our gallant admirals. My excel- lent friend, the honourable Frederic Montague, has shewn distinguished patriotism in this way. One of his plantations is named the Howe Plantation. Another is called the Spencer Plantation, in honour of the noble earl who presided at the head of the admiralty, and on whose judicious naval arrangements, too much praise cannot be bestowed. About a mile from these, on the right-hand side of the road, stands the Nelson Plantation, in honour of the splendid victory obtained over the French fleet at the mouth of the Nile by lord Nelson. Contiguous to this is the St. Vincent Plantation, in commemoration of the signal victory obtained by earl St. Vincent over the Spanish fleet. Adjoining, is another plantation in honour of Sir John Borlace Warren’s gallant behaviour on the coast of Ireland, and is called the Warren Plantation. On the right-hand side of the coach-road to Papplewick, CHAP. VI. Se i iin a BOOK III. a 300 A DISCOURSE Masohertus, cited by Camden, that were every one of them a mile in compass. Ina word, to give an instance of what store of woods, and tim- ber of prodigious size, there were growing in our little county of Surry, (with sufficient grief and reluctancy I speak it,) my own grandfather had from Mansfield, is the Duncan Pluntation, in honour of the victory gained by lord viscount Dunean over the Dutch fleet. In these plantations, pillars are erected with inscrip- tions. 3 Since this survey, many extensive inclosures have been made, and much waste land has been planted by the duke of Portland and other proprietors, to whose patriotism this nation is much indebted. The time will come when these Oaks will be venerated by posterity as monuments of British valour, successfully exerted in every part of the habitable globe, in defence of the happiness and liberties of mankind. The illustrious Linnzus styled our happy island the “‘ Punctum Vite in Vitello Orbis.” A compliment that Rome, in the me- ridian of her glory, never deserved. Forests in Engiand, many of which are without trees. Northumberland, 2—Rothbury, in the middle of it; Lowes, on the west-side. Cumber- land, 5—Nicol, Knaredale, Westwood, Inglewood, and Copeland, all desolate. Westmore- land, 6—Milburn, on the north ; Whinfield, Martindale, and Thornwaite, on the west; Stani- more, and Mellerstang, on the east. Bishopric of Durham, 1—Langdale or Teesdale, on the banks of the Tees. Lancashire, 3—Lancaster, and Wiresdale, a little to the south; Simons- wood, almost to Liverpool. Yorkshire, 10—Lime, Applegarth, Swalidale, and Wenesley Dale, on the north ; Pickering, on the east ; Knaresborough in the middle ; Harewood, on the south; Galtrice, on the east, which extends almost to York; Hardwick, near Halifax ; Hatfield Chace, the scite now only to be seen. Cheshire, 2—Delamere, and Macclesfield : there was formerly Wircall forest, which occupied the peninsula between the Mersey and the Dee. Nottinghamshire, 1—Sherwood. Shropshire, 4—Huckstow, Kinswood, Bridge- north, and Clune. Staffordshire, 2—Needwood, and the extensive forest of Cankwood. Leicestershire, 2—Charnwood, to the south, and the forest of Leicester. Rutlandshire, 1— Lyfield. Hertfordshire, 4—Bringwood, Durfield, Hawood, and Acornbury. Worcester- shire, 3—Wire, north-west, Malvern, and Feckingham. Warwickshire, 1—Arden. North- amptonshire, 4—Rockingham,: Salcey, Yardley, and Whittlebury. Huntingdonshire, 1— Wabridge. Gloucestershire, 3—Dean, Micklewood, and Kingswood. Oxfordshire, 1— Wichwood. | Buckinghamshire, 2—Bernwood, and Clitern. Essex, 2—Epping, and Hain- hault. Wiltshire, 4—Peevisham, Blakemore, Bradon, and Savernach. Berkshire, 1—Wind- sor. Middlesex, 1—Enfield. Surry and Kent; 1—Tunbridge. Sussex, 7—St. Leonard’s, Word, Ashdown, Walterdown, Dallington, Arundel, and Charlton. In Cornwall there does not appear to have been any. Devonshire, 2—Dartmore and Exmore. Somersetshire, 2—Neroke and Selwood. Dorsetshire, 3—Gillingham Cranburn ; Cranburn Chace, east ; Blackmore, west, commonly called the forest of Whitehart; the whole island of Purbeck was once a forest. Hampshire, 5—Chute, on the north; Harewood, on the west; Holt, on the east ; Waltham, on the south; Bere, near Titchfield, and the New Forest, on the south-~ west.—In all, 86 forests. OF FOREST-TREES. 301 standing at Wotton, and about that estate, timber that now were worth 100,000/. Since of what was left my father, (who was a great preserver of wood,) there has been 30,0007. worth of timber fallen by the axe, and the fury of the late hurricane and storm: now no more Wotton, stripped and naked, and ashamed almost to own its name! All which considered, (for there are many other places and estates which have suffered the like calamity,) should raise, methinks, a new spirit of in- dustry in the nobility and gentry of the whole nation, like that with which Nehemiah inspired the nobles as well as the people of the capti- vity (than which nothing so much resembled that tedious slavery, and re- turn from it, than did the restoration of king Charles II.) Let ws arise up, says the brave man, and build: and so they strengthened their hands, for the people had a mind to the work. And such an universal spirit and resolution to fall to planting, for the repairing of our wooden walls and castles, as well as of our estates, should truly animate us: let ws arise then, and plant, and not give it over till we have repaired the havoc our barbarous ene- mies have made: pardon, then, this zeal, O ye lovers of your country, if it have transported me! to you princes, dukes, earls, lords, knights, and gentlemen, noble patriots, (as most concerned,) I speak, to encou- rage and animate a work so glorious, so necessary. Of the noble forest of Nuremburg and its privileges, such care has been taken by many emperors, that the very models of the ploughs are still pre- served, drawn by above an hundred horses, (it being two hundred years sincethisroyal plantation was begun,) wisely presaging what ravage might be made by the spoil which the wars have since caused in that goodly country ; which being then an almost continual forest, is now so sadly wasted. Nor has this been the fate of Germany alone, but of all the most flourishing parts of Europe, through theexecrableand unsatiableambition of thosewhohave been the occasion of the ruin, not only of these venerable shades, stately trees and avenues, (the graceful ornaments of the most princely seats,) but of the miserable desolation of entire provinces, which their legions have left, with the inhuman murders of so many christians, without distinction or just provocation! mischiefs not to be repaired in many ages, the truculent and savage marks, among others, of a most christian king, nomine non re! in the mean time, what provision this de- molisher of woods in other countries makes to furnish and store his own Volume II. Qgq CHAP. VII. Sa Nehem, ii. 13. BOOK III. Se n'ai A 302 A DISCOURSE dominions with so necessary a material, we have mentioned in this chapter, and how impolitic a waste there was of timber in France in John Bodin’s time, see his Book de repub. lib. vi. cap. 1. But leaving this sad and melancholy prospect, I return to the effects of peace, and it shall be to that plantation of Elms, carried out of England by Philip II. of Spain, to adorn his royal palace at Aranjuez, (of which J have already spoken, lib. i. cap. iv.) near Madrid in Spain: the palace is seated on the banks of the famous river Tagus, and the plantation on the north, where there is a piece of ground inclosed, formed into walks of six hundred andeighty yards long,and three hundred in breadth, in shape of a trapezium or parallellogram, about which the Tagus is artificially drawn to fence it. Next the river-side are more walks, not above twenty feet in breadth, for closer shade, planted on each side with double ranks of Elm, some of which are forty yards high, stript up to the top, and so near set as fifteen feet space: the second row is about six feet distant from the other ; not planted exactly against its usual opposite, but the interval and through the space between, glides a narrow shallow channel of water to refresh the trees upon occasion ; thus, Which is the method used in many ridings of Elm-walks, some of which are a league in length, adorning this seat beyond any palace, some think, inthe world. Many of these indeed are on the decay, prejudiced by their being planted so near one another; but for all that, it takes not much from the beauty of the vista, which is certainly the most surprisingly agreeable; to which the ample fountain, and noble statues in the cross-walks, make so glorious an addition as would require a particular description. And now do I not for all this so magnify it, as if not to be paralleled in our own country, where, I dare affirm, there are many that exceed it, both in form and planting, (which has there several defects,) but as we said, for an exotic example, so admired and celebrated by that boasting nation, as if the universe could not shew the like, .; OF FOREST-TREES. 303 And what, in the mean time, can be more delightful than for noble cpap. vil. persons to adorn their goodly mansions and demesnes with trees of vener- “~“ Y “ able shade, and profitable timber? by all the rules and methods imagi- nable, to cut and dispose those ampler inclosures into lawns and ridings, for exercise, health, and prospect, for which I should here presume to furnish some farther directions, were it not already done to my hand by the often-cited Mr. Cooke, in that useful work of his; where, in the thirty-eighth chapter, he has laid down all that I conceive necessary, by measures exactly taken from the middle line of any front, following the centre-stake, if it be for a walk: he there determines the wideness of the walk, according to its length, as forty feet to one-half of a mile; if more, fifty or sixty; and if you withal desire shade, that then you should make three walks, the two collaterals twenty feet broad, to a middle one of forty, twenty-five to fifty, so that the middle be as wide as both the other : he likewise shews how proper it is that walks should not terminate abruptly, but rather in some capacious or pretty figure, be it circle, oval, semi-circle, triangle, or square, especially in parks, or where they do not lead into other walks; and even in that case, that they may gracefully be a circle to receive them: there he shews how to pierce a walk through the thickest wood, either by stakes set up where they may be seen to direct, or by candle and lantern in a calm night: he also gives the distances of the trees in relation to each other, ac- cording to the species, and shews how necessary it is to plant them nearer in those ovals, circles, and squares, for the better distinction of the figures, suppose to half the distance of that of the walks, and proportion- able to the amplitude or smallness thereof. As for lawns, he advises that they should, if possible, be contrived to the south or east side of the seat or mansion, for avoiding the impetuousness of western winds ; and that your best rooms may front those lawns and openings, and to skreen from the occidental and afternoon’s sun, which also hinders the prospect : a lawn on the north exposes the house to that piercing quarter, and therefore it should be well defended with the tallest trees: for the figure, he commends the square, with three avenues breaking out at the three angles, or one at the angle opposite to the house; and these lawns - may be bounded with walks, or a single row of Lime-trees, at a compe- tent distance: to which I add, the circle, with a star of walks radiating from it, likewise exceedingly pleasant ; such as the right hon. the earl of Winchelsea has cut out at his noble seat in Kent; and since, far exceed- Qq2 BOOK III. a aie 304 A DISCOURSE ing the most, at Long-Leats, the stately palace of lord viscount Weymouth; at Badminton, the duke of Beaufort’s princely seat in Gloucestershire ; at Ackdown-park, in Berks, a most delightful solitude, from the centre of a large wood belonging to the lord Craven; and in Worcestershire, at Westwood, the mansion of sir John Packington ; besides those mentioned by Dr. Plot in his Natural History of Stafford- shire, with many others; most of which have been graphically plotted and designed (together with the seats, gardens, fountains, piscinas, plan- tations, avenues, vistas, and prospects about them) by Mr. Kniff, in near one hundred copperplates ; a most laudable undertaking, and becoming the encouragement of those noble persons, who weuld do honour to themselves, their families, and the whole nation. But these incomparable amenities and undertakings will best of all be- come the inspection and care of the noble owners, lieutenants, rangers, and ingenious gentlemen, when they delight themselves as much in the goodliness of their trees, as other men generally do in their dogs and horses, for races and hunting ; neither of which recreations is comparable to that of planting, either for virtue or pleasure, were things justly considered according to their true estimation : not that I am of so morose a humour, that I reprove any of these noble and manly diversions, seasonably used; but because I would court the industry of great and opulent persons to profitable and permanent delights: for, suppose that ambition were changed into a laudable emulation, who should best, and with most artifice, raise a plantation of trees, that should, by their direction and encouragement, have all the proper ornaments, and per- fections their nature is susceptible of; such as Alian sums up, lib. iii. cap. Xiv. euyevets, 6: xAcdor, xa2 4 xdun modMn, &e. kindand gentlelimbs, plenty of large leaves, an ample and fair body, profound or spreading roots, strong against impetuous winds, (for so I affect to read it,) extensive and venerable shade, and the like: methinks this were as much a subject of glory as could be fancied of the kind: and comparable, I durst pronounce preferable, to any of their recreations ; and how goodly an ornament to their demesnes and dwellings, let their own eyes be the judges. One encouragement more I would reinforce from an history I have read of a certain frugal and most industrious Italian nobleman, who, after his lady was brought to bed of a daughter, (considering that wood and OF FOREST-TREES. 305 timber was a revenue coming on whilst the owners were asleep,) com- manded his servants immediately to plant in his lands, which were ample, Oaks, Ashes, and other profitable and marketable trees, to the number of an hundred thousand ; as undoubtedly calculating, that each of those trees might be worth twenty-pence, before his daughter became marriageable, which would amount to 100,000 francs, (near ten thousand pounds sterling,) and this he intended to be given with his daughter for a portion. This was good philosophy, and such as I am assured was fre- quently practised in Flanders, upon the very same account : let us see it once take effect amongst our many slothful gentry, who have certainly as large demesnes, and yet are so deficient in that decent point of timely providing for their numerous children: and those who have none, let them the rather plant: trees and vegetables have perpetuated some names longer and better than a pedigree of a numerous offspring, as I have already shewed ; and it were a pledge of a noble mind, to oblige the fu- ture age by our particular industry, and by a long lasting train, with the living work of our own hands.. But I now proceed to more general concerns in order to the queries ; and first to the proportion. It were just, and infinitely befitting the miserable needs of the whole nation, that every twenty acres of pasture made an allowance for half an acre of timber; the ground dug about Christmas, casting the grassy side downwards till June; then dug again, and about November stirred afresh, and sown with mast, or planted in a clump, well preserved and fenced for fourteen or fifteen years, unless that sheep might haply graze about four or five years: and where the young trees stand too thick, there to draw and transplant them into the hedge-rows, which would also prove excellent shelter for the cattle: this husbandry would more especially become Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Cornwall, and such other of our counties as are the most naked of timber, fuel, &c. and un- provided of covert; for it is rightly observed, that the most fruitful places least abound in wood, and do the most stand in need of it: 1. Example by LricesTERsHIRE ; What soil can be better than that, For any thing heart can desire ? And yet doth it want ye see what ; Mast, covert, close pasture, and woop, And other things needful, as good. CHAP. VII. i aid BOOK III. i i 306 A DISCOURSE 2. More plenty of mutton and beef, Corn, butter, and cheese of the best, More wealth any where, (to be brief,) More people, more handsome, and prest, . Where find ye (go search any coast) Than there where 1ncLosurE is most ? 3. More work for the labouring man, As well in the town as the field ; Or therefore (devise, if ye can) More profit what countries do yield ? More seldom where see ye the poor Go begging from door to door ? 4. In wooptanp, the poor men that have Scarce fully two acres of land, More merrily live, and do save, Than t’other with twenty in hand: Yet pay they as much for the two As t’other for twenty must do. If this same be true, as it is, Why gather they nothing by this? Thus honest Tusser, above an hundred years since, and the whole age has justified it; since it is evident, that by inclosure, and this diligent culture, the very worst land of England would yield tenfold more profit, than that which is here celebrated for the best and richest spot of it. Such as are ready to tell you their lands are so wet that their woods do not thrive in them, let them be converted to pasture, or bestow the same industry on them which good husbands do on meadows by draining ; which, instead of those narrow rills, (gutters rather,) might be reduced to a proportionable canal, cut even and straight, the earth taken out and spread upon the weeping and uliginous places; nor would the charge be so much as that of the yearly and perpetual renewing and cleansing of those numerous and irregular sluices; besides, there is a profit in storing the canal with fish. It is a slothfulness to do otherwise, since it might be effected in few years, by continually, and by degrees making the middle cut large, where OF FOREST-TREES. 307 it cannot be so conveniently done at once, and the pains would certainly CHAP.VII. be as fully recompensed in the growth of their timber as in that of their ““Y—" grass: where poor hungry woods grow, rich corn and good cattle would be more plentifully bred ; and it were beneficial to convert some wood- land (where the proper virtue is exhausted) to pasture and tillage, pro- vided that fresh land were improved also to wood in recompense, and to balance the other. Where we find such uliginous and starved places, (which sometimes obey no art or industry to drain, and of which our pale and fading corn is a sure indication,) we are, as it were, courted to obey Nature, and im- prove them by the propagation of Sallows, Willows, Alders, Abele, Black-Cherry, Sycamore, Aspen, Birch, and the like hasty and _profit- able growers, by ranging them, casting of ditches, trenches, &c. as before has been taught. In the mean time, it is a thing to be deplored that some persons bestow so much in grubbing and dressing a few acres, which have been excellent wood, to convert them into wretched pastures, not worth a quarter of what the trees would have yielded, well ordered, and left standing ; since it is certain, that barren land planted with wood will treble the expense in a short time. Of this, the right honourable the lord viscount Scudamore may, give fair proof, who having felled (as I am credibly in- formed) a decayed wood, intended to set it to tenants; but upon second thoughts, (and for that this lordship saw it apt to cast wood,) inclosed and preserved it. Before thirty years were expired it yielded him near 1000. upon wood-falls, whereas the utmost rent of the whole piece of land yearly was not above 8/. 10s. The like I am able to confirm by in- stancing a noble person, who, a little before our unhappy wars, having sown three or four acres with acorns, the fourth year transplanted those which grew too thick, all about his lordship. These trees are now * of = 1664, that stature, and so likely to prove excellent timber, that they are already judged to be almost as much worth as the whole demesne ; and yet they take off nothing from other profits, having been discreetly disposed of at the first designment. And supposing the longevity of trees should not ex- tend to the periods we have, upon so good account, produced ; yet neither is their arrival to a very competent perfection so very discouraging: since I am credibly informed, that several persons have built of timber, and that of Oak, which were acorns within these forty years; and I find it cre- BOOK III. a ai * 1664. 308 A DISCOURSE dibly reported, that even our famous forest of Dean hath been utterly wasted no less than three several times within the space of nine hundred years. ‘The prince elector, Frederic IV. in the year 1606, sowed a part of that most barren heath of Lambertheim with acorns after ploughing, as I have been informed : it is now * likely to prove a most goodly forest, though all this while miserably neglected by reason of the wars. For the care of planting trees should indeed be recommended to princes and great persons, who have the fee of the estate; tenants upon the rack, by rea- son of the tedious expectation and jealousy of having their rents enhanced, are, for the most part, averse to this husbandry; so that unless the landlord will be at the whole charge of planting and fencing, (without which as good no planting,) little is to be expected ; and whatsoever is proposed to them above their usual course, is looked upon as the whim and fancy of speculative persons, which they turn into ridicule when they are applied to action ; and this (says an ingenious and excellent husband, whose observations have afforded me no little treasure) might be the rea- son why the prime writers of all ages endeavoured to involve their dis- courses with allegories and enigmatical terms, to protect them from the contempt and pollution of the vulgar, which has been of some ill con- sequence in husbandry ; for that very few writers of worth have adven- tured upon so plain a subject, though doubtless to any considering per- son, the most delightful kind of natural philosophy, and that which employs the most useful part of the mathematics. The right honourable the late lord viscount Montague has planted many thousands of Oaks, which, I am told, he draws out of coppices, big enough to defend themselves ; and that with such success as has ex- ceedingly improved his possessions ; and it is a worthy example. To conclude, I could have shewn an avenue planted to a house standing in a barren park, the soil a cold clay ; it consisted totally of Oaks, one hundred innumber : the person who first set them, dying very lately, lived to see them spread their branches one hundred and twenty-three feet in compass, which, at the distance of twenty-four feet,mingling their shady tresses for above a thousand in length, formed themselves into one of the most vene- rable and stately arbour-walks that in my life I ever beheld: this was at Baynards in Surry, and belonging lately to my most honoured brother (a most industrious planter of wood) Richard Evelyn, Esq.—since trans- planted to a better world: the walk is fifty-six feet broad, one tree with another containing, by estimation, three quarters of a load of timber, and OF FOREST-TREES. 309 in their lops three cords of fire-wood : their bodies were not of the tallest, CHAP. VII. having been topped when they were young, to reduce them to an uniform height ; yet was the timber most excellent for its scantling, and for their heads, few in England excelling them: where some of their contempo- raries were planted single in the park without cumber, they spread above fourscore feet inarms. All of them since cut down and destroyed by the person who continued to detain the just possession of that estate fromthose to whom of right and conscience it belonged. Since then it is disposed of, and I am glad it has fallen into the hands of the present possessor. But I have some fewinstances to superadd, of no mean encouragement, before I dismiss my reader, because they are so very pregnant and authen- tic. Sir Thomas Southwell, after he had sold:and felled all the timber and underwood in a-certain parcel of land lymg inCarbrook, in the county of Norfolk, called by the name of Latimer-Wood, containing eighty acres, (now, as I understand, belonging to Sir Robert Clayton, knight,) granted a lease of the said ground, with other land, to one Thomas Wastney, the father, with liberty to grub and stub up all the wood and stub-shoots re« maining, and to clear the said ground for pasture or tillage, as he should think to be most for his profit and advantage. Accordingly he puts out the same to labourers to stub and clear ; but was, it seems, persuaded by one of them, to preserve some of the young stands or saplings then grow- ing there, as that which might be of greater emolument to him before the expiration of the lease, than if he should quite extirpate them, and con- vert the said ground to tillage. These saplings were then so small, aswhen it happened that any of the labourers did break the haft of his mattock, he could hardly find one amongst them big enough to make another of for his present use: nay, when the said labourers had made an end of clearing the ground of the old stub-shoots, upon which the timber and underwood did grow, (which is now fifty years since,) there was not a tree left growing in it, that could be valued at above threepence, to be felled for any use or service. About the year 1650, the estate being then come (after the death of Sir Richard Crane, knight) to William Crane, Esq. and the lease of the same to Thomas Wastney, the son, he offered five hundred of the best of the said young Oak saplings to one Daniel Hall, a dealer in timber, for two shillings and sixpence the tree; which he refu- sing to give, the said Thomas Wastney making his application to Mr. Crane above-mentioned, (the owner of the estate,) and desiring Daniel Volume II. Rr a BOOK III. re 310 A DISCOURSE Hall to acquaint him what pity it was to cut down such young and thri- ving trees, Mr. Crane was persuaded to allow the said Thomas Wastney fourscore pounds to let them stand; since which time, the said Mr. Crane sold as many of those trees and saplings as came to about forty pounds, and left growing, and remaining on the ground, about thirteen hundred and eighty trees; which, in August 1675, being (upon the de- sire of Mr. Crane) valued by the said Daniel Hall, were estimated to be worth 700/. himself since offering for some of the said trees forty or fifty shillings a tree; five hundred of them being better worth than 500/. Now the said Latimer-Wood, were it cleared of the timber, would not be let for above four or five shillings per acre at the most. The particulars of this history I received under the hands and certifi- cates of the above-mentioned Daniel Hall, who is the timber-merchant, and two of the stubbers or labourers, yet living, that were employed to clear the ground. I have likewise transmitted to me the following ac- count from Mr. Sharp, under the hand of Robert Daye, Esq. one of his majesty’s justices of the peace for the county of Norfolk. There were, in 1636, an hundred timber-trees of Oak, growing on some grounds belonging then to Thomas Daye, of Scopleton, in the county of Norfolk, Esq. which were that year sold to one Robert Bowgeon, of Hingham, in the said county, for 100/. which price was believed to be equal, if not to surmount their intrinsic worth and value; but, after agree- ment made for them, a refusal happening, (which continued the trees standing till the year 1671,) those very trees were sold to Thomas Ellys, of Windham, timber-master, and one Henry Morley, carpenter, by Mr. Daye, (son of the said Thomas Daye. Esq.) for 560/. And this comes to me attested under the hand of Mr. Daye himself, dated May 4, 1678 ?. From the same Mr. Sharp I received this instance of an Ash _ planted by the hands of one Mr. Edm. Slater, in that county, which he sold for 40s. before his death; but this is frequent. IT am likewise assured that three acres of barren land, sown with acorns about sixty years since, are now become a very thriving wood : the im- P A few years ago, fifty Oak-trees growing in the park at Nostell, the seat of Sir Row- land Winn, Bart. were sold for 2500/. OF FOREST-TREES. 311 provement of those few acres amounts to 300/. more than the rent of CHAP. VII. the land, and what it was before worth to be sold. Once more, and I SNe have done. Upon the estate of George Pitt, Esq. of Stratfieldsea, in the county of Southampton, a survey of timber being taken in the year 1659, it came to 10,300/. besides near 10,000 samplers not valued, and growing up na- turally: since this, there hath been made by several sales 5600/. and there has been felled for repairs, building, and necessary uses, to the value (at least) of 12007. so as the whole falls of timber amount to 68004. The timber upon the same ground being again surveyed anno 1677, ap- peared to beworth above 21,000/. besides eight or nine thousand samplers and young trees to be left standing, and not reckoned in the survey : but what is yet to be observed, most of this timber above-mentioned, being Oak, grows in hedge-rows, and so as that the standing of it does very little prejudice to the plough or pasture. It is likewise affirmed, that upon a living in the same place, of about 400. rent per ann. there were (by an estimation taken in the year 1653) three hundred and thirty-eight young timber-trees, valued at 59/. the sap- lings at 31/7. 14s. And upon a later survey, taken the last year, 1677, the worth of the timber on that living is valued at above 8002. besides four or five hundred young thriving trees, which have, since the survey in 1653, grown naturally up, not reckoned in this account. With such, and the like instances, coming to me from persons and gentlemen of un- questionable credit, (dispersed through several other counties of this na- tion,) I might furnish a just volume; and I have produced these examples because they are conspicuous, full of encouragement, worthy our imita- tion; and that from these, and sundry others which I might enumerate, we have made this observation, that almost any soil is proper for some profitable timber-trees or other, which is good for very little else. Besides common pasture which has long been fed, and is the very best, meadow, that is up-land and rich, and such as we find to be naturally wood-seere, (as they term it,) the bottoms of downs, and like places, well ploughed and sown, will bear lusty timber, being broken up, and let lie till midsummer, and then stirred again before sowing about November. | Rr2 BOOK III. ye 312 A DISCOURSE Mr. Cooke’s directions are these: prepare as for sowing of barley ; about February scatter your seeds: if you plough your ground into great ridges, the thickness of the earth on the top will afford more depth and nourishment for the roots, and the furrows being filled up with leaves, when rotten, will lead the roots from one ridge to another : in dry ground, plough the ridges cross the descent, not to drain, but to keep the water on the ground ; but in wet lands, contrary: this I hold to be an excellent note: he conceives the barley season to be of the latest to sow your seeds, but with oats it does well, so you sow them not too thick ; but it is best of all to sow them by themselves, without any crop of grain at all. A more expeditious way is to plant with sets, making holes or fosses, (which are best,) two feet wide and deep, and about half a rod distant, viz. four in every rod. square, two sets in each hole, sowing your keys and seeds among them the ensuing spring, and that continued as oft as you find stampings and keys to be had, even till your wood be perfectly furnished, only taking care that they lie not long too thick, because it will heat and burn the kernels; and, therefore, let them be put into the ground as soon as they are pressed, or else lay them thin, or parted with straw. In case your land be poor, and wanting depth, or but indifferent, ob- serving the posture of your ground, divide it mto four yards distance at both extremes, by small stakes, making rows of them, by setting up some few between them, to direct and lay your work straight, ploughing one yard of each side of the stakes, if the ground be green sward, for the easier running of the roots: having thus ploughed two yards, and left two unploughed through the whole piece, some short time before the planting season, so soon as the fall of the leaf begins, dig up the unploughed inter- stices, laying one-half of the earth on the unploughed pieces, and the other half upon the rest ; and as you do this, plant your prepared sets about a yard distant, with store of sallow or other cuttings with them, digging that ground which you laid on the ploughed part a good spadedeep, which will make it near a foot thick to plant your sets in: thus proceed from one unploughed ground to another, till all of it is planted: two men on each side of the ridges will soon despatch the work, which should be finished by the latter end of January, which is the best time for the sowing your keys, nuts, and other seeds, unless the weather be frosty, in which case you may a little defer it; and when all is sowed, cover them a little OF FOREST-TREES. 313 with the shovelings of some ditches, ponds, or other stuff, as an assured good way to improve such grounds to considerable advantage. For the planting of Walnuts, Chestnuts, Cider-apples, or any other forest or fruit-trees, in open fields, Mr. Cooke directs how the triangular form exceeds all the rest for beauty and advantage.» I refer you to his 33rd chapter. An old and judicious planter of woods prescribes us these directions for improving of sheep-walks, downs, heaths, &c. Suppose on every such walk, on which five hundred sheep might be kept, there were ploughed CHAP. VII. Saye up twenty acres, (ploughed pretty deep, that the roots might take hold, _ and be able to resist the winds,) this should be sowed with mast of Oak, Beech, chats of Ash, Maple-keys, Sloes, Service-berries, Nuts, Bullaces, Haws, and bruised Crabs, mingled and scattered about the sides and ends of the ground, near a yard in breadth. On the rest sow no Haws, but some few Crab-kernels ; then begin at a side, and sow five yards broad, ploughing under the mast, &c. very shallow; and then leave six yards in breadth, and sow and plough five yards more; and so from side to side, remembering to leave a yard and a half at the last side; let the rest of the headlands lie till the remainder of the close be sown in March with oats, &c. to preserve it from hurt of cattle, and poaching the ground: when the spring is of two years’ growth, draw part of it for quicksets ; and when the rest of the trees are of six years’ shoot, exhaust it of more, and leave not above forty of either side, each row five yards distant, and here and there a crabstock to graff on, and in the environing hedge (to be left thick) let the trees stand four yards asunder ; which if forty-four were spared, will amount to above four thousand trees. At twenty years’ end, stock up two thousand of them ; lop a thousand more every ten years, and reserve the remaining thou- sand for timber. Judge what this may be worth in a short time, besides the grass, which will grow the first six or seven years, and the benefit of shelter for sheep in ill weather, when they cannot be folded; and the pasture which will be had under the trees, now at eleven yards in- terval, by reason of the stocking up those two thousand we mentioned, excepting the hedges; and if in any of these places any considerable waters fortune to lie in their bottoms, fowl would abundantly both breed and harbour there. These are admirable directions for park-lands, where shelter and food is scarce. BOOK IIL. —_—\—— 314 A DISCOURSE Even in the most craggy, uneven, cold, and exposed places, not fit for arable, as in Biscay, &c. and in our very peaks of Derbyshire, and other rocky places, Ashes grow about every village; and we find that Oak, Beech, Elm, and Ash will prosper in the most flinty soils. And it is truly from these indications, more than from any other whatsoever, that a broken and decaying farmer is to be distinguished from a substantial freeholder, the very trees speaking the condition of the master. Let not, then, the royal patrimony beara bankrupt’s reproach. But to descend yet lower: Had every acre but three or four trees, and as many of fruit in it as would a little adorn the hedge-rows, the improvement would be of fair advantage in a few years; for it is a shame that turnip-planters should demolish and undo hedge-rows near London, where the mounds and fences are stripped naked, to give sun to a few miserable roots, which would thrive altogether as well under them, being skilfully pruned and lopped: our gardeners will not believe me, but I know it to be true, though Pliny had not affirmed it. As for Elms, saith he, their shade is so gentle and benign, that it nourishes whatsoever grows under it; and (lib. xvii. cap. xxii.) it is his opinion of all other trees, (very few ex- cepted,) provided their branches be pared away ; which being discreetly done, improves the timber, as we have already shewed. Indeed, where Elms are planted either about very small crofts or ave- nues reserved for pasture, the roots are apt to spring up and annoy the grass: but I speak of the larger field, and even in the former, that part of the root which spreads into the field, may (as I have shewn) be hin- dered from infecting it, by cutting away those fibres which run into the field, without any impeachment to the growth of the trees, of which I have some whose roots are cut off very near the main stems at one side, thriving almost altogether as well as those which have their roots entire. Now let us calculate a little at adventure, and much within what is both feasible and very possible, and we shall find, that four fruit-trees in each acre throughout England, the product sold but at sixpence the bushel, (but where do we now buy them so cheap ?) will be worth a mil- lion yearly. What, then, may we reasonably judge of timber, admit but at the growth of fourpence per acre yearly, (which is the lowest that can be estimated,) amounting to near half a million, if (as is supposed) there may be five or six and twenty millions of square acres in the kingdom, OF FOREST-TREES. 315 (besides fens, highways, rivers, &c. not counted,) and without reckoning in the mast or loppings; which whosoever shall calculate from the an- nual revenue that the mast only of Westphalia, (a small and wretched country in Germany,) does yield to that prince, will conclude to be no despicable improvement. In this poor territory, every farmer does, by ancient custom, plant so many Oaks about his farm as may suffice to feed his swine. To effect this, they have been so careful, that when of late years the armies infested the poor country, (both imperialists and protestants,) the single bishopric of Munster was able to pay one hundred thousand crowns per mensem, (which amounts of our money to about 25,000/. sterling,) besides the or- dinary entertainment of their own princes and private families. This being incredible to be practised in a country so extremely barren, I thought fit to mention, either to encourage or reproach us. General Melander was wont to say, the good husbandry of their ancestors had left them this stock pro sacra anchord ; considering how the people were afterwards re- duced to live even upon their trees, when the soldiers had devoured their hogs ; redeeming themselves from great extremities, by the timber which they were at last compelled to cut down, and which, had it continued, would have proved the utter desolation of that whole country, I have this instance from my most worthy and honourable friend Sir William Cursius, late his majesty’s resident in Germany, who received this particular from the mouth of Melander himself. In like manner, the princes and freedoms of Hesse, Saxony, Thuringia, and divers other places there, make vast incomes of their forest-fruit (besides the timber) for swine only : so as in a certain wood in Hessia only, twenty thousand have been fatted, yielding the prince 30,000 florins. I say, then, whosoever shall duly consider this, will find planting of wood to be no contemptible addition, besides the pasture much improved, the cooling of fat and heavy cattle, keeping them from injurious mo- tions, disturbance, and running as they do in summer, to find shelter from the heat and vexation of flies. But I have done, and it is now time to get out of the wood, and to recommend this, and all that we have proposed, to his most sacred ma- jesty, the honourable parliament, and to the lord high-treasurer, prin- CHAP.VII. aN Gi od BOOK III. a a De collegiis Fabrorum,Cen- tonariorum, et Dendrophoro- rum, Navicula- rior, ratium ex- ercit. et Caudi- cariorum, plu- rime extant in- scriptiones apud Lipsium in lib, inscrip. _antiq. quales Bergo- mersium Brixi- anor. Comen- sium, Lugdu- nens. Arari- corum et Rho- danicor. Eo- rumque corpo- rum et colle- giorum patro- nis curatoribus. Vide etiam Hieron. Rube- Wins lewieneanste Ravennat. Item de Dendropho- ris Cod. Theo- dos. lib. i. et ii. jisdem__verbis inscript: Mo- risot. Orb. Ma- rit. lib. i, cap, XXiv. 316 A DISCOURSE cipal officers, and commissioners of the royal navy, that where such improvements may be made, they be speedily and vigorously prosecuted ; and where any defects appear, they may be duly reformed. And what if, for this purpose, there were yet some additional office constituted, which should have a more universal inspection, and the charge of all the woods and forests in his majesty’s dominions? this might easily be performed by deputies in every county ; persons ju- dicious and skilful in husbandry, and who might be repaired to for ad- vice and direction: and if such there are at present, (as indeed our laws seem to provide,) that their power be sufficiently amplified where any thing appears deficient ; and. as their zeal might be excited by worthy encouragements, so might neglects be encountered by a vigilant and industrious check. It should belong to their province to see that such proportions of timber, é&c. were planted and set out upon every hun- dred, or more of acres, as the honourable commissioners have suggested ; or as might be thought convenient, the quality and nature of the places prudently considered. It should be their office, also, to take notice of the growth and decay of woods, and of their fitness for public uses and sale, and of all these to give advertisements, that all defect in their ill governing may be speedily remedied; and the superior officers or surveyor should be accountable to the lord treasurer, and to the principal officers of his majesty’s navy for the time being. And why might not such a regulation be worthy the establishing by some solemn and public act of state, becoming our glorious prince, SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS! and his prudent senate, the present parliament ? But to shew how this xilotrophie studium for the preservation of timber was honoured, We find in Aristotle’s Politics, the constitution of extra-urban magi- strates to be stlvarum custodes ; and such were the consulares silue, which the great Cesar himself (even in atime when Italy did abound in timber) instituted ; and was one of the very first things which he did, (at the set- tling of that vast empire,) after the civil wars had exceedingly wasted the country. Suetonius relates it in the Life of Julius ; and Peter Crinitus, in his fifth book De Honesta Disciplina, tap. iii: gives this reason for it, Ut materies, saith he, non deesset, qua videlicet, navigia publica possent & pre- Jfecturis fabrum, confici. True it is, that this office was sometimes called OF FOREST-TREES. 317 provincia minor ; but for the most part annexed and joined to some of the CHAP. VII. greatest consuls themselves; that facetious sarcasm of the comedian “7” ¥™ (where Plautus names it provincea caudicaria) referring only to some un- der officers, subservient to the other. And such a charge is at this day ex- tant amongst the noble Venetians, who have near Trivisi, (besides what they nourish in other places,) a goodly forest of Oaks, preserved as a jewel, for the only use of the arsenal, called the montello ; and this is carefully supervised by a certain officer whom they name @d capitano. The like have the Genoeses for the care of the goodly forests of Attone, in the island of Corsica, full of goodly Oaks and other timber; which not only furnish that state with sufficient materials to build their own galleys and other vessels, but so many for sale to other nations, that since the late insult the French monarch made upon their glorious city, he has haugh- tily forbid them to traffic any more with strangers, by supplying them as heretofore, to their great detriment and loss: this timber is of such grain and quality, as, though felled in the new moon, it is not at all impaired. We might, besides all these, instance many other prudent states ; not to importune you with the express laws which Ancus Martius, the ne- phew of Numa, and other princes long before Czsar, did ordain for this very purpose ; since, indeed, the care of so public and honourable an en- terprise as is this of planting and improving of woods, is a right noble and royal undertaking; as that of the forest of Dean in particular, were it bravely managed, an imperial design; and I do pronounce it more worthy of a prince, who truly consults his glory in the highest in- terest of his subjects, than that of gaining battles, or subduing a pro- vince. And now after all this, and the directions and encouragements enume- rated in this chapter, together with the most important concerns of these dominions, I list not to declare by whose negligence so little effects appear of these emprovements, which might by this time have been made in the Royal Magazine, ever since the first edition of this treatise’; though the officers then intrusted, and whose duty it was, be now no more. I cannot, 4 This takes in a period of forty years, viz. from the first appearance of the Silva in 1664, to the publication of the fourth edition in 1704. Volume II. Ss BOOK III. ee 318 A DISCOURSE however, but call to mind how seemingly solicitous and earnest the commissioners were I should digest and methodize the papers I laid before them on this subject, with a zeal becoming public spirits, (as un- der their hands I have to shew,) whilst the putting it in practice to any laudable degree, was soon cast by as a project scarce worth the while. I again affirm, that had these advantages of forest culture been then vigorously encouraged and promoted, there had now been of those ma- terials infinite store, even from the very acorn and seminary, a competent advance of the most useful timber for the building of ships, (as I think is sufficiently made out,) since his late majesty’s restoration. The want of timber, and the necessity of being supplied by foreign countries, if not prevented by better and more industrious instruments, may prove, in a short time, a greater mischief to the public than the late diminution of the coin. I wish I prove no prophet, whilst I cannot for my life but often think of what the learned Melancthon above an hundred years since was wont to say, (long before those barbarous wars had made these devastations in Germany,) That the time was coming, when the want of three things would be the ruin of Europe, lignum, probam monetam, probos amicos ; timber, good money, sincere friends. How far we see this prediction already verified, let others judge: and if what I have here touched with some resentment in behalf of the public and my country, in this rustic Discourse, using the freedom of a plain fo- rester, seems too rude, it is the person I was commanded to put on, and my plea is ready, Apuas mapovons, mas dvyp Evarevela Preesente Quercu, ligna quivis colligit. For who could have spoken less upon so ample a subject? and, there- fore, I hope my zeal for it in these papers will excuse the prolixity of this digression, and all other the imperfections of my services : Si canimus silvas, silvee sunt consule digne. Mid Wook, DENDROLOGIA. BOOK THE FOURTH. An Historical Account of the SACREDNESS' and USE of : STANDING GROVES. Awnp thus we have finished what we esteemed necessary for the direc- tion of planting, and the culture of trees and woods in general ; whether for the raising of new, or preservation of the more ancient and venerable shades, crowning the brows of lofty hills, or furnishing and adorning the ‘more fruitful and humble plains, groves, and forests, such as were never profaned by the inhumanity of edge-tools: woods, whose original are as unknown as the Arcadians; like the goodly Cedars of Libanus, Psalm civ. Arbores Dei, according to the Hebrew, for something, doubt- less, which they noted in the genius of those venerable plants, besides their mere bulk and stature: and, verily, I cannot think to have well acquitted myself of this useful subject, till I shall have, in some sort, vin- dicated the honour of trees and woods, by shewing my reader of what estimation they were of old for their divine, as well as civil uses; or at least refreshed both him and myself with what occurs of historical and instructive amongst the learned concerning them. And first, standing woods and forests were not only the original habitations of men, for de- fence and fortresses, but the first occasion of that speech, polity, and society which made them differ from beasts. This, the architect Vitruvius * ingeniously describes, where he tells us, that the violent per- cussion of one tree against another, forced by an impetuous wind, setting them on fire, the flame did not so much surprise and affright the salvage Ss2 BOOK. IV. Sym * Vitruv. |. ii. cap. |. BOOK IV. ae 320 A DISCOURSE foresters as the warmth, which (after a little gazing at the unusual ac- cident) they found so comfortable: this (says he) invited them to ap- proach it nearer, and, as it spent and consumed, by signs and barbarous tones (which in process of time were formed into significant words) they encouraged one another to supply it with fresh combustibles: by this accident the wild people, who before were afraid of one another, and dwelt asunder, began to find the benefit and sweetness of society, mutual assistance, and conversation; which they afterwards improved, by building houses with those trees, and dwelling nearer together. From these mean and imperfect beginnings, they arrived in time to be authors of the most polished arts ; they established laws, peopled nations, planted countries, and laid the foundation of all that order and magnificence which the succeeding ages have enjoyed. No more, then, let us admire the enormous moles and bridges of Caligula across to Baie; or that of Trajan over the Danube (stupendous work of stone and marble!) to the adverse shores ; whilst our timber and our trees making us bridges to the furthest Indies and antipodes, land us into new worlds. In a word, (and to speak a bold and noble truth,) trees and woods have twice saved the whole world ; first by the ark, then by the cross; making full amends for the evil fruit of the tree in Paradise, by that which was borne on the tree in Golgotha. But that we may give an account of the sacred and other uses of these venerable retirements, we will now proceed to de- scribe what those places were. Though silva was the more general name, denoting a large tract of wood or trees, the incidue and cedue, yet there were several other titles attributed to greater or lesser assemblies of them; domus stlve was a summer-house; and such was Solomon’s "Orxos dSpup8, 1 Reg. vii. 2. When they planted them for pleasure and shade only, they had their nemora ; and as we our parks, for the preservation of game, and particu- larly venison, so had they their saltus, and selva imvia, secluded, for the most part, from the rest. But among authors we meet with nothing more frequent, and indeed more celebrated, than those arboreous amenities and plantations of woods, which they call uct ; and which, though some- times restrained to certain peculiar places for devotion, (which were never to be felled,) yet were they also promiscuously both used, and taken for all that the wide forest comprehends, or can signify. To dismiss a number of critics, the name ducus is derived by Quintilian and others, OF FOREST-TREES. 321 who delight to play with words, (by antiphrasis,) @ minime lucendo, be- BOOK IV. cause of its density *, ya nulli penetrabilis astro. whence Apuleius used Juco sublucido ; and the poets, sublustri umbra: others (on the contrary) have taken it for light in the masculine, wmobra, non quia minime, sed quia maxime luceat ; by so many lamps suspended in them before the shrine ; or because they kindled fires, by what ac- cident unknown : ——_——_—— seu ceeli fulmine misso; Sive quod inter se bellum silvestre gerentes, « Hostibus intulerant ignem formidinis ergo. LUCRET. lib. v. Whether it were By lightning sent from heaven, or else there The salvage men in mutual wars and fight, Had set the trees on fire, their foes t’affright. 4 The learned Mr. Bryant, in his Analysis of Ancient Mythology, has something extremely curious upon the derivation of the word tucus. He says that the sun, by the Amonians, was styled El-Uc, which the Grecians changed into Avxos, Lucos. He was also styled El-Uc-Or, which was changed to Avxwpevg : and El-Uc-Aon, rendered Lycaon, Avxawy. As this personage was the same as El-Uc, Avxos; it was fabled of him that he was turned into a wolf. The cause of this absurd notion arose from hence: every sacred animal in Egypt was distinguished by some title of the deity. But the Greeks never considered whether the term was to be taken in its primary, or in its secondary acceptation ; hence they referred the history to an animal, when it related to the god from whom the animal was denominated. Avxoc, Lucos, was, as I have shewn, the name of the sun; hence, wherever this term occurs in composition, there will be commonly found some reference to that deity, or to his sub- stitute, Apollo. We read of Avie ArodAwvos iepov: of Lycorus, a supposed son of Apollo: of Lycomedes, another son ; of Lycosura, the first city which the sun beheld. The people of Delphi were, of old, called Lycortans ; and the summit of Parnassus, Lycorea. | Near it was a town of the same name; and both were sacred to the god of light. From Lwcos, in this sense, came lux, luceo, lucidus, and Jupiter Lucetius, of the Latins: and Avyyos, Avyya, Avyyevw , of the Greeks: also Avxatac, and audidvxoc, though differently expressed. Hence it was, that many places, sacred to Apollo, were styled Leuce, Leuca, Avxsa, Leucas, Leucate : Mox et Leucate nimbosa cacumina montis, Et formidatus nautis aperitur Apollo. VIRG. Hence, also, inscriptions DEO LEUCANI: which term seems to denote sot-Fons, the fountain of day. The name Lycophron, Avxoppey, which some would derive from Avxoc, a wolf, signifies a person of an enlightened mind. Groves were held very sacred: hence Lucus, which some would absurdly derive a non lucendo, was so named from the deity there worshiped. . Vol. I. p. 79. BOOK IV. SS ® See the learned Pezron Antig. fuse. + Euseb. |. v. cap. 19. De- monstr. Evang. ubi de Tere- bintho. Hiero- nymus, de locis Hebraicis, &c. + Hierom in Epitaph. Paul. vide et Eras. Schol. in Ep. ad Pammachi- um. || See the emperor’s re- script to Bish. Macarius, for the demolition of the idol wor- shiped there; and the build- ing of a magni- ficent church. Euseb. de vit. Constat. 1, iii. eap. 50. A DISCOURSE Or whether the trees set themselves on fire : Mutua dum inter se rami stirpesque teruntur. When clashing boughs thwarting, each other fret. For such accidents, and even the very heat of the sun alone, has kindled wonderful conflagrations; or haply (and more probably) to consume their sacrifices, we will not much insist. The poets, it seems, speaking of Juno, would give it quite another original, and tune it to their songs in- voking Lucina, whilst the main and principal difference consisted not so much in the zame, as the use and dedication, which was for silent, awful, and nore solemn religion ; (silva, quasi silens locus ;) to which purpose they were chiefly manu consiti, such as we have been treating of, entire, and never violated with the axe: Fabius calls them sacros ex vetustate, venerable for their age ; and certain it is, they had of very great antiquity been consecrated to holy uses, not only by superstitious persons to the Gentile deities and heroes, but to the true God by the patriarchs themselves, who, ab initio, (as is presumed,) did frequently retire to such places to serve him, compose their meditations, and cele- brate sacred mysteries, prayers, and oblations ; following the tradition of the Gomerites, or descendants of Noah, who first peopled Galatia and other parts of the world after the universal deluge *. From hence, some presume that even the ancient Druids had their origin: but that Abra- ham might imitate what the most religious of that age had practised before him, may not be unlikely ; for we read he soon planted himself and family at the Quercetum of Mamre, Gen. xiii. where, as Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. 1. i. c. 18. + gives us the account, he spread his pavilions, erected an altar, offered and performed all the priestly rites ; and there, to the immortal glory of the Oak, or rather arboreous temple, he enter- tained God himself. Isidore, St. Hierom +, and Sozomen report confi- dently, that one of the most eminent of those trees remained till the reign of the great Constantine, (and the stump till St. Hierom,) who founded a venerable chapel || under it; and that both the Christians, Jews, and Arabs held a solemn anniversary or station there, and believed that from the very time of Noah it had been a consecrated place. Sure we are, it was about some such assembly of trees, that God was pleased first of all, to appear to the father of the faithful, when he established the co- venant with him; and more expressly, when removing thence, (upon con- firming the league with Abimelech, Gen. xxi. and settling at Beersheba,) OF FOREST-TREES. 323 he designed an express place for God’s divine service: for chere, says the sacred text, he planted a grove, and called upon the name of the Lord. Such another tuft we read of, (for we must not always restrain it to one single tree,) when the patriarch came to 7710 px, Elon Moreh, ad Quercetum Moreh: but whether that were the same under which the high-priest reposited the famous stone, after the exhortation mentioned, * Joshua xxiv. 26, we do not contend: under an Oak, says the Scripture, and it grew near the sanctuary, and probably might be that which his grandchild consecrated with the funeral of his beloved Rebecca, Gen. xxxv. For it is apparent, by the context, that there God appeared to him again: so Grotius, upon the words, “ subter Quercum,” says, I//am ipsam cujus mentio, Gen. xxxiv. 4, in historia Jacobi et Jude ; and. adds, Is locus in honorem Jacobi diu pro templo fuit : “that the very spot was long after used for a temple in honour of Jacob.” This was the place which Sozomen calls Terebinthum, from certain trees growing there ; these, says Josephus, de Bell. Jud. 1. v. were as ancient as the world itself. Some report that this Oak sprung from a staff, which one of the angels, who appeared to the patriarch, fixed in the ground: so Geor. Syncellus in Chronico. Mirum vero est (says Valesius on this passage of Kusebius) cum Quercus ibidem fuerit, sub qua Abraham Ta- bernaculum posuerit, (ut legitur in Gen. xviii.) cur locus ipse a Tere- bintho potius quam a Quercu nomen acceperit. In the mean time, as to the prohibition, Deut. xvi. 21, whether this patriarchal devotion in groves, and under arboreous shades, was approved by God, till there was a fixed altar, and his ceremonial worship confined to the tabernacle and temple, I think needs be no question *, If we, therefore, now would tract the religious esteem of trees and woods yet farther in holy writ, we have that glorious vision of Moses in the fiery thicket ; and it is not to abuse or violate the text, that Mon- cxus and others interpret it to have been an entire grove, and not a single bush only, which he saw as burning, yet unconsumed. Puto ego (says my author) rub vocabulo non quidem rubum aliquem unicum et soli- tarium significari, verum rubetum totum, aut potius fruticetum, quomodo de Quercu Mambre pro Querceto toto docti intelligunt. Now that they worshiped in that place soon after their coming out of Egypt, the fol- lowing story shews, The feast of tabernacles had some resemblance of patriarchal devotion under trees, though but in temporary groves and shades in manner of booths, yet celebrated with all the BOOK IV. a ai * D. Doughty Analecta Sacra. Excurs. xiii + Lev. xxxiii. 40, BOOK IV. an ai See Tirinus. Our Mede. Ainsworth. Diatrib. on Josh. xxiv. 26. Valesius An- not. in lib. 2. Hist. } Eccles. Euseb. p. 23. 324 A DISCOURSE refreshings of the forest; and from the very infancy of the world, in which Adam was entertained in Paradise, and Abraham (as we noted) received his divine guests, not in his tent, but under a tree, an Oak, (triclinium angelicum, the angel’s dining-room,) all in- telligent persons have embraced the solace of shady arbours, and all devout persons found how naturally they dispose our spirits to religious contemplations. Jor this, as some conceive, they much affected to plant their trees in circles, and gave that capacious form to the first temples, observed not only of old, but even at this day by the Jews, as the most accommodate for their assemblies ; or, as others, because that figure most resembled the universe and the heavens: éeplum a templando, says a knowing critic ; and another, templum est nescio quid immane, atque amplum ; such as Arnobius speaks of, that had no roof but heaven, till that sumptuous fabric of Solomon was confined to Jerusalem, and the goodliest Cedars and most costly woods were carried thither to form the columns and lay the rafters; and then, and not till then, was it so much as schism, that I can find, to retire to groves for their devotion, or even to Bethel itself. In such recesses were the ancient oratories and proseuche, built theatre-wise, swb dio, at some distance from the cities, Acts xvi. and made use of even amongst the Gentiles as well as the people of God; (nor is it always the less authentical for having been the guise of nations ;) hence that of Philo, speaking of one who réca¢ Isdafov TEPOTED XAG édevdpolounae, &c. had felled all the trees about it; and such a place the satirist means where he asks, In qua te quero proseucha? because it was the ren- dezvous, also, where poor people used to frequent, to beg the alms of de- vout and charitable persons ; so as it was esteemed piacular for any to cut down so much as a stick about them, unless it were to build them ; when, with the Psalmist, men had honour according to their forward- ness of repairing the houses of God in the land; upon which account it was lawful to lift up aves against the goodliest trees in the forest. But those zealous days are past: At nunc desertis cessant sacraria lucis : Aurum omnes victa jam pietate colunt. PROPERT. Now temples shut, and groves deserted lie: All gold adore, and neglect piety. In the mean time, that which came nearest to the scenopegia of the OF FOREST-TREES. 325 Jews, and other solemnities, was called by the Romans, wmbre ; as BOOK IV. those in Neptunalibus are described by the poet : Plebs venit, ac virides passim disjecta per herbas Potat, et accumbit cum pare quisque sua: Sub jove pars durat: pauci tentoria ponunt : Sunt, quibus é ramis frondea facta casa est. Ovip. Fast. lib. iii. All sorts together flock ; and, on the ground Display’d, each fellow with his mate drinks round. Some sit in open air, some build their tents ; And some themselves in branchy arbours fence. Plutarch, speaking of the anniversary feast of Bacchus, plainly re- sembles it to that of the tabernacles, carrying about Ovpcss Powixdy, branches of Palm, Citron, and other trees, as Josephus describes the Jewish festival’. The custom (for ought I know) is still kept up in many places of our country, and abroad, on May-day, when the young men and maidens, like the pagan Svpcoyop«, go out into the woods and cop- pices, cut down and spoil young springers, to dress up their May-booth, and dance about the pole, as in pictures we see the wanton Israelites about the molten calf. For thus, as we noted, those rites commanded by God came to be profaned, and the retiredness of groves and shades for their opacousness, abused to abominable purposes, and works of dark- ness. But what good or indifferent thing has not been subject to perver- sion? it is said in the end of Isaiah, Haprobratur Hebreis quod in via. selce- Opisthonais idolorum horti essent in quorum medio februabantur ; but how %™ & spre Nat. et Gent. this is applicable to groves, does not appear so fully; though we find 1 ren" them interdicted, Deut. xvi. 21. Judg. vi. 25. 2 Chron. xxxi. 1, and a Rees forbidden to be planted near God’s altar. And an impure grove on tag. 17. Mount Libanus, dedicated to Venus, was by an imperial edict of Con- stantine, extirpated: but from the abuse of the thing to the non-use, the consequence is not always valid; and we may note as to this very par- ticular, that where in divers places of holy writ the denunciation against b There were feasts celebrated at Athens, at which they erected tents and pavilions, and adorned them. These were called scivi. Hence the month, which answers to our May, was called scirophorion. This feast much resembled the feast of tabernacles among the Jews. Volume IT. AN ¢ BOOK IV. Vid. Sance- tium, Piscat. Grotium. * Gen, ii. 15. 326 A DISCOURSE groves is so express, it is frequently to be taken but catachrestically, from the wooden image or statue called by that name, as our learned Selden makes out by sundry instances in his Syntagma de Diis Syris. Indeed the use of groves upon account of devotion, was so ancient, and seemed so universal, that they consecrated not only real and natural groves, but lucos pictos, artificial boscage, and representations of them. The sum of all is, Paradise itself was but a kind of nemorous temple, or sacred grove, planted by God himself, and given to man, tanquam primo sacerdoti ; the word is t1y *, which properly signifies to serve or administer ses divinas ; a place consecrated for sober discipline, and to contemplate those mysterious and sacramental trees, which they were not to touch with their hands; and in memory of them, I am inclined to be- lieve, holy men (as we have shewed in Abraham and others) might plant and cultivate groves, where they traditionally invoked the Deity; and St. Hierom, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Augustin, and other fathers of the church, greatly magnified these pious advantages ; and Cajetan tells us, that from Isaac to Jacob, and their descendants, they followed Abraham in this custom. Solomon was a great planter of groves, and had an house of pleasure, or lodge, in one of them for recess. In such places were the monuments of their saints, and the bones of their heroes depo- sited. David celebrated the humanity of the men of Gilead, for burying the bones of Saul and his sons under a tree at Jabesh. In sucha place did the angel appear to Gideon ; Judg.vi. And the rabbins had a rea- son why they were reputed so venerable ; because being more remote from men and company, they were more apt to compose the soul, and fit it for divine actions *. ¢ Jt is natural for man to feel an awful and religious terror when placed in the centre of a thick wood ; on which account, in all ages, such places have been chosen for the celebra- tion of religious ceremonies. ‘ Lucos, et in iis silentia ipsa adoramus.” Seneca says, Si tibi occurrit vetustis arboribus, et solitam allitudinem egressis frequens lucus, et conspectum celi densitate ramorum aliorum alios protegentium submovens ; illa proceritas sylve, et secretum loci et admiratio umbre, in aperto tam dense atque continue, fidem tibi numinis facit. Epist. xli. All pale with sacred horror, they survey’d The solemn mountain and the reverend shade. Some god, the monarch said, some latent god Dwells in that gloom, and haunts the frowning wood. PITTS VIRGIL. OF FOREST-TREES. 327 Though, since the devil’s intrusion into Paradise, even the most holy BOOK IV. and devoted places were not free from his temptations and ugly strata- een gems, yet we find our blessed Saviour did frequently retire into the wilder- ness, as Elijah and St. John the Baptist did before him, and divers other holy men, particularly the Ocwpu1ixo!, whom Philo mentions, a certain reli- wide Eile DP gious sect, who addicting themselves to contemplation, chose the solitary i recesses of groves and woods ; as of old the Rechabites, Kssenes, primi- tive monks, (and other institutions,) retired amongst the Thebaid deserts; and perhaps the air of such retired places may be assistant and influential for the inciting of penitential expressions and affections, especially where one may have the additional assistance of solitary grots, murmuring streams, and desolate prospects. I remember that under a tree was the place of that admirable St. Augustin’s solemn conversion, after all his important reluctances. . I have often thought of it, and it is a melting passage, as recorded by himself, Con. |. vili. c. 8; and he gives the rea- son; Solitudo enim mihi ad negotium flendi aptior suggerebatur. And that, indeed, such opportunities were successful for recollection, and to the very reformation of some ingenuous spirits, from secular engage- ments to excellent and mortifying purposes, we may find in that won- derful relation of Pontianus’s two friends, great courtiers of the time, as the same holy father relates it, previous to his own conversion. And here I cannot omit an observation of the learned Dr. Plot, in his (often- cited) Nat. Hist. of Oxfordshire, taking notice of two eminent religious houses, whose foundations were occasioned by trees; the first Osney- abbey ; the second, by reason of a certain tree, standing in the mea- dows, (where after was built the abbey,) to which a company of pyes were wont to repair as oft as Editha, the wife of Robert D’Oyly, came to walk that way to solace herself; for the clamorous birds did so affect her, that, consulting with one Radulphus (canon of St. Fridiswid) what it might signify, the subtle man advised her to build a monas- tery where the tree stood, as if so directed by the pyes in a miraculous manner; nor was it long ere the lady procured her husband to do it, and to make Radulphus (her confessor) first prior of it. Such another foundation was caused by a triple Elm, having three trunks issuing from one root. Near such a tree as this was Sir Thomas White, lord mayor of London, warned by a dream to erect a college for the education of youth, which he did, namely, St. John’s in Oxford, ite BOOK IV. Saye Cyril. Alex- an. in Hos, iv. 13. Deut. xiv. 4. 2 Reg. xvi. 4. Melchior A- damus_ Hist. Eccl. cap. CCXXXiv. Mariana in 2. Paralip. Xxvili, 4. 328 A DISCOURSE which with the very tree, still flourishes in that university. But of these enough, and perhaps too much. We shall now, in the next place, endeavour to shew how this innocent veneration for groves passed from the people of God to the Gentiles, and by what degrees it degenerated into dangerous superstitions: for the devil was always God’s ape, and did so. ply his groves, altars, and sacri- fices, and almost all other rites belonging to his worship, that every green tree was full of his abominations, and numerous places were devoted to his impure service: Hee fuere (says Pliny, speaking of groves) numinum templa, &c. ‘These were of old the temples of the gods; “and (after that simple, but ancient custom) men at this day consecrate “the fairest and goodliest trees to some deity or other; nor do we more “ adore our glittering shrines of gold and ivory than the groves in which, “with a profound and awful silence, we worship them.” Quintilian, speaking of the veneration paid an old umbrageous Oak, adds, In quibus grandia, et antiqua robora jam non tantam habent speciem, quantam reli- gionem : for, in truth, the very tree itself was sometimes deified, and that celtic statue of Jupiter was no better than a prodigious tall Oak, whence, it is said, the Chaldean theologues derived their superstition towards it ; and the Persians, we read, used that tree in all their mysterious rites. And, as for wood in general, they paid it that veneration for its main- taining their deity, (represented by their perennial fire,) that they would not suffer any sort of wood to be used for coffins to inclose the dead in, (but wrapt them in plates of iron,) counting it aprofanation. In short, so much were people given up to this devilish and unnatural blindness, as to offer human sacrifices, not to the ¢ree-gods only, but to the trees themselves as real gods. Omnis et humanis lustrata cruoribus arbos. LUCAN. Each tree besprinkled was with human gore. Procopius tells us plainly, that the Sclavii worshipped trees and whole forests of them: see Jo. Dubravius, lib. i. Hist. Bohem. And that for- merly the Gandenses did the like, Surius, the legendary, reports in the life of St. Amadus; so did the Vandals, says Albert Crantz; and even those of Peru, as I learn from Acosta, lib. v. cap. xi. But one of the first idols which procured particular veneration in them, was the Sidonian OF FOREST-TREES. 329 Ashteroth, who took her name d Jucis, as the Jupiter 2vdevdo0g amongst BOOK IV. the Rhodians, the Nemorensis Diana, or Arduenna, a celebrated deity “~~ of this our island, for her patronage of wood and game; Diva potens nemorum, terror silvestribus apris : as Gildas, an ancient bard of ours, has it ; so soon had men degenerated into this irrational and stupid devotion, that arch fanatic satan, who began his pranks in a tree, debauching the contemplative use of groves and other solitudes. Nor were the heathens alone in this crime; the Basilidians, and other heretics even amongst the Christians, did con- secrate to the woods and the trees their serpent-footed and barbarous ABPA@AY, as it is yet to be seen in some of their mysterious talismans and periaptas which they carry about *. But the Roman madness (like that which the prophet derides in the Jews) was well prestringed by Sedulius and others, for imploring these stocks to be propitious to them, as we learn in Catode R.R. Nor was it long after (when they were generally consecrated to Faunus) that they boldly set up his oracles and responses in these nemorous places: hence, the heathen chapels had the name of Hana, and from their wild and ex- travagant religion, the professors of it were called Fanatics ; a name well becoming some of the late enthusiasts amongst us, who, when their quaking fits possess them, resemble the giddy motion of trees, whose heads are agitated with every wind of doctrine. Here we may not omit what learned men have observed concerning the custom of prophets, and persons inspired of old, to sleep upon the boughs and branches of trees: I do not mean on the tops of them, (as the salvages somewhere do in the Indies, for fear of wild beasts in the night-time,) but on mattresses and beds made of their leaves, ad consulen- 4 The Basilidians embraced a religion which was half Christian and half pagan: it sprung up in the second century. Innumerable gems are preserved in the cabinets of the curious, which were considered by this sect as amulets against misfortunes and diseases. These were called Abraxas, from their having this word usually engraved upon them. The inscriptions and figures are a compound of pagan and Christian hieroglyphics. S. Irenzeus, S. Epipha- nius, and S. Jerom, have left us no more than bare specimens of this sort of heretical impiety ; whereas the monuments left us by the heretics themselves, teach us many things that other- wise would have been buried in oblivion, BOOK IV. ea i See S. Ful- gent. Mythol. cap. xiii. et Munsterum in Comment. See Hier. in Trad. Heb. 3 Reg. c. iv. * Vide Anni- um Viterb. lib. xvii. fol. 158. + Cic. de Leg. lib. ii. = See Aristo- phanes Schol. ad Pluti Ver- ba, meg TO ETw= mo, &e, OTE NOL TAVTH THY MOTIVWVs Heeb fidrwy Oe vO ow rayTays ey moig teporg TOS. atlaredeot 7% eayeeS 7c] cue To which add, Apul. Miles. VI. Videt. do- na speciosa, et lacinias aurv literatas, ramis arborum poS- tibusque suf- fixas. 330 A DISCOURSE dum, to ask advice of God. Naturalists tell us, that the Laurus and Agnus Castus were trees which greatly composed the fancy, and did fa- cilitate true visions; and that the first was specifically*eflicacious mpos 78< évSsctacuss, (as my author expresses it,) to inspire a poetical fury: sucha tradition there goes of Rebekah the wife of Isaac, in imitation of her father-in-law: the instance is recited out of an ancient Ecclesiastical History by Abulensis. From hence the Delphic tripod, the Dodonean oracle in Epirus, and others of that nature, had their original: at this decubation upon boughs, the satyrist seems to hint, where he introduces the gypsies : Arcanam Judza tremens mendicat in aurem, Interpres legum Solymarum, et magna sacerdos Arboris, ac summi fida internuncia ceeli. Juv. Sat. vi. —— With fear A cheating Jewess whispers in her ear, And begs an alms: an high-priest’s daughter she, Vers’d in their Talmud and divinity ; And prophesies beneath a shady tree. For indeed, the Delphic oracle (as Dicdorus, lib. xvi. tells us) was first made € Lauri ramis, of the branches of Laurel transferred from Thessaly, bended and arched over in form of a bower or summer-house ; a very simple fabric you may be sure: and Cardan, | remember, in his book de Fato, insists very much on dreams had by sleeping upon the boughs and leaves of trees, for portents and presages ; and that the use of some of them do dispose men to visions. From hence, then, began temples to be erected * and sought to in such places; nay, we find} sanction for it among the laws of the twelve ta- bles; and as there was hardly a grove without its temple, so almost every temple had a grove belonging to it, where they placed idols, altars, and lights, endowed with fair revenues, which the devotion of super- stitious persons continually augmented : such were those t arbores obum- bratrices, mentioned by Tertullian, Apol. cap. ix. on which they sus- pended their “AvaS7pzacx and devoted things: and I remember to have seen something very like this in Italy, and other parts; namely, where the images of the blessed virgin, and other saints, have been enshrined in hollow and umbrageous trees, frequented with much veneration ; OF FOREST-TREES. 831 which puts me in mind of what that great traveller Pietro della Valla re- lates, where, speaking of an extraordinary Cypress, yet extant, near the tomb of Cyrus, to which, at this day, many pilgrimages are made, he men- tions a gummy transudation which it yields, that the Turks affirm to turn every Friday into drops of blood: the tree is hollow within, adorned with many lamps, and fitted for an oratory ; and indeed some would de- rive the name lucus, a grove, as more particularly to signify such enor- mous and cavernous trees, quod 1bi lumina accenderentur religionis causa: but our author adds, the Ethnics do still repute all great trees to be divine, and the habitation of souls departed. Perhaps such a hol- low tree was that asylum of our poet’s hero, when he fled from his burning Troy : juxtaque antiqua Cupressus Religione patrum multos servata per annos. EN. il. an ancient Cypress near, Kept by religious parents many a year. Kor that they were places of protection, and privileged like churches and altars, appears out of Livy, and other good authority. Thus where they introduce Romulus encouraging his new colony, ut saxo lucum circumdedit alto, Cuilibet huc, inquit, confuge, tutus eris. So soon as e’er the grove he had immur’d, Haste hither, says he, here you are secur’d. Such a sanctuary was the aricina, and suburban Diana, called the nemo- rale templum, and divers more which we shall reckon up anon. Lucian in his Dea Syria, speaks of these temples and dedications in their groves among the Egyptians: Lucus im urbe fuit, &c. and what follows? Hic templum—and since they could not translate the grove with the idol, they * carved out something like it, which the superstitious people bought, carried home, ‘and made use of, representing those venerable places, in which they had the images of some feigned deity ; (suppose it Tellus, Baal, or Priapus;) and such was the J upiter &vdevdpoc of the Rho- dians, Bacchus of the Boetians, m>nwy the Sidonian Ashteroth: and the women mentioned 2 Reg. xxiii. 7, who are said to weave hangings and curtains for the grove, were no other than makers of tentories to spread from tree to tree, for the more opportune and secret perpetration of those BOOK IV. FF ae) * Luci dicun- tur, non modo collectio arbo- rum, &c. sed etiam sciagra~ phi sive deli- neationes luco- rum in tabella: see the Anno- tation on Isa. Xvii. collated with 2 Reg. xviii, 4. Crit. Sacr. for they brought the grove out of the temple, and burntit : which clearly shews it was the picture or image of the grove, and not the trees them- Seives, 332 A DISCOURSE BOOK Iv. impure rites and mysteries, which (without these coverings) even the —Y" opacousness of the places were not obscure enough to conceal *. a Cio: Oh The famous Druids, or Saronides *, whom the learned Bochart, from Jani Angl. fae. Diodorus, proves to be the same, derived their Oak-theology, namely, wat from that spreading and gloomy-shading tree, probably the grove at Mambre, Gen. xiii. 2. How their mysteries were celebrated in their woods and forests, is at large to be found in Cesar, Pliny, Strabo, Dio- dorus, Mela, Apuleius, Ammianus, Lucan, Aventinus, and innumerable other writers, where you will see that they chose the woods and the groves, not only for all their religious exercises, but their courts of justice, as the whole institution and discipline is recorded by Cesar, lib. vi. and as he, it seems, found it in our country of Britain, from whence it was afterwards translated into Gallia; for he attributes the first rise of it to this once happy island of groves and Oaks; and affirms, that the ancient Gauls travelled hither for their initiation‘. To this Tacitus assents, 14 Annal. and our most learned critics vindicate it, both from the Greeks and French impertinently challenging it: but the very name itself, which is purely Celtic, does best decide the controversy: for though Apis be Quercus, yet Vossius skilfully proves that the Druids were altogether strangers to the Greeks; but what comes yet nearer to us, dru, fides, (as one observes,) begetting our now antiquated trou or true, makes our title the stronger : add to this, that amongst the Germans it signified no less than God himself; and we find drutin or trudin, to import divine, or faithful, in the Othfridian gospel, both of them sacerdotal expressions. But that in this island of ours, men should be so extremely devoted to © For proofs of the lewdness and obscenity of many of the religious rites of the hea- then, vid. Herodot. Euterp. cap. Ixiv. Diodor. Sicul. lib. iv. Valer. Maxim. lib. ii. cap. vi. Juvenal, Sat. ix. ver. 24, and what Eusebius saith of a grove on Mount Li- banus, dedicated to Venus, in his Life of Constantine, lib. ii. cap. lv. Compare 1 Kings xiv. 23. f Cesar and Tacitus differ as to the origin of the Druids, the former saying, that the Druidical religion originated in Britain, and the latter, that it was introduced by the Celtic Gauls, when they peopled this island; of this latter fact, there can be no doubt. It is certain, however, that the British Druids preserved their religion in greater purity than the Gauls, insomuch that young men were frequently sent from Gaul into Britain, to be in- structed in the mysteries of the Druidical religion. The true derivation of Druid, is from the Celtic word Deru, an Oak. OF FOREST-TREES. 333 trees, and especially to the Oak, the strength and defence of all our en- BOOK) IV. joyments, environed as we are by the seas, and martial neighbours, is less to be wondered ; Non igitur Dryadz nostrates pectore vano Nec sine consulto coluerunt Numine Quercum ; Non illam Albionis jam tum celebravit honore Stulta superstitio, venturive inscia scecli Angliaci ingentes puto preevidisse triumphos Roboris, imperiumque.maris, quod maximus olim Cano.ipes vasta victor ditione teneret. COULEI!, lib. vi. PI. Our British Druids, not with vain intent, Or without Providence, did the Oak frequent ; That Albion did that tree so much advance, Nor superstition was, nor ignorance. Those priests divining even then, bespoke The mighty triumphs of the royal Oak: When the sea’s empire with like boundless fame, Victorious CHARLEs, the son of Cuar.es, shall claim. as we may find the prediction gloriously followed by our ingenious poet, where his Dryad consigns that sacred depositum to this monarch of the forest, the Oak, than which nothing can be more sublime and rapturous ; whilst we must never forget that wonderful Providence which saved this forlorn and persecuted prince, after his defeat at Worcester, under the shelter of this auspicious and hospitable tree; when All the countries filled With enemies’ troops, in every house and grove His sacred head is at a value held, They seek, and near, now very near they move. What should they do? they from the danger take Rash, hasty counsel ; yet, from heav’n inspir’d, A spacious Oak he did his palace make, And safely in its hollow womb retir’d. The loyal tree its willing boughs inclin’d, Well to receive the climbing royal guest, (In trees more pity than in men we find,) And its thick leaves into an arbour press’d. A rugged seat of wood became a throne, Th’ obsequious boughs his canopy of state : With bowing tops the tree its king did own, And silently ador’d him as he sate. Volume IT. Uu BOOK IV. —P\ ey * See this most elegant- ly discussed in a Greek epistle of Budzus to his brother. 334 A DISCOURSE But to return to the superstitions we were speaking of. They were utterly abolished under the reign of Claudius, as appears by Suetonius ; and yet, by Tacitus, they continued here in Britain till Nero; and in Gaul till Vitellius, as is found by St. Gregory writing to Q. Brunehaut, about the prohibiting the sacrifices and worship which they paid to trees; which, Sir James Ware affirms, continued in Ireland till Christianity came in. From these silvan philosophers and divines (not to speak much of the Indian Brachmans, or ancient gymnosophists) it is believed that the great Pythagoras might institute his silent monastery ; and we read that Plato entertained his auditors amongst his walks of trees, which were. after- ward defaced by the inhumanity of Sylla, when, as Appian tells us, he cut down those venerable shades to build forts against the Pyreus. Another we find he had, planted near Anicerides with his own hands, wherein grew that celebrated Platanus, under which he introduces his master Socrates discoursing with Pheedrus de Pulchro. Such another place was the Athenian Cephisia, as A. Gellius describes it. We have already men- tioned the stately Xysta, with their shades, in book ii. c. 11. Democritus also taught in a grove, as we find in that of Hippocrates to Damagetus, where there was a particular tree designed ad otium hterarum: and I re- member Tertullian calls these places studia opaca. Under such shades and walks was at first the famous ACADEMIA, so venerable, as it was esteemed by the old philosophers profane so much as to laugh in it. See Laertius, lian, &c. I could here tell you of Palemon, Timon, Apollonius, Theophrastus, and many more, that erected their schools in such colleges of trees, but I spare my reader; I shall only note, that it is reported of Thucydides that he compiled his noble History in the Scaplan groves, as Pliny writes; and in that matchless piece of Cicero, de Oratore, we shall find the imterlocutors to be often under the Pla- tanus in his Tusculan villa, where, invited by the freshness and sweet- ness of the place, Admonuit (says one of them) me hec tua Platanus que non minus ad opacandum hunc locum patulis est diffusa ramis, quam illa, cujus umbram secutus est Socrates, que mihi videtur non tam ipsa aquila, que describitur, quam Platonis oratione crevisse, &c. as the orator brings it in, in the person of one of that meeting. I confess Quintilian seems much to question whether such places do not rather perturb and distract from an orator’s * recollection and the OF FOREST-TREES. 335 depth of contemplation : Non tamen (says he) protinus audiendi, qui cre- dunt, aptissima in hoc nemora silvasque ; quod illa ceeli libertas, locorum- gue ameenitas, sublimem animum, et beatiorem spiritum parent : mihi cerié jucundus hic magis, quam studiorum hortator, videtur esse secessus: nam- que illa ipsa, que delectant, necesse est avocent ab intentione operis desti- nati: he proceeds Quare silvarum ameenttas, et preterlabentia flu- mina, et inspirantes ramis arborum aure, volucrumque cantus, et ipsa late circumspiciendi libertas, ad se trahunt ; ut mihi remiitere potius vo- luptas ista videatur cogitationem, quam intendere. But this is only sin- gular suffrage, which, as conscious of his error, we soon hear him retract, when he is, by and by, as loud in their praises, as the places in the world the best fitted for the diviner rhetoric of poetry. But let us admit another * to cast in his symbol for groves: Nemora (says he) et luci, et secretum ipsum, tantam mihi afferunt voluptatem, ut inter precipuos car- minum fructus numerem, quod nec in strepitu, nec sedente ante ostium litigatore, nec inter sordes et lacrymas reorum componuntur: sed secedit animus in loca pura, atque innocentia, fruiturque sedibus sacris. Whether this were the effect of the incomparable younger Pliny’s epistle to this noble historian, I know not; but to shew him, by his own example, how study and forest-sport may consist together, he tells him how little the noise of the chasers and bawling dog's disturbed him, when at any time he indulged himself in that healthful diversion : so far was he from being idle, and losing time, that besides his javelin and hunting-pole, he never omitted to carry his style and table-book with him, that upon any intermission, whilst he now and then sat by the toil and nets, he might be ready to note down any noble thought, which might otherwise escape him: the very motions (says he) and agitation of the body in the wood and solitude, magna cogitationis 1ncitamenta sunt: I know, my friend, (continues he,) you will smile at it ; however take my counsel ; be sure never to carry your bottle and bisque into the field, without your style and tablet: you will find as well Minerva as Diana in the woods and mountains. And, indeed, the poets thought of no other heaven upon earth, or elsewhere ; for when Anchises was setting forth the felicity of the Uu2 BOOK. IV. nya * Tacitus, Plin. Ep. vi. lib. I. Corneiio Tacito. 336 7 A DISCOURSE BOOK IV. other life to his son, the most lively description he could make of it, wv was to tell him, Lucis habitamus opacis. We dwell in shady groves. And when Mneas had travelled far to find those happy abodes, Devenere locos leetos, et amcena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beutas. They came to groves, of happy souls the rest, To evergreens, the dwellings of the blest. Such a prospect has Virgil given us of his Elysium; and therefore, wise and great persons had always these sweet opportunities of recess, their domos silve, as we read, Reg. vil. 2, which were thence called houses of royal refreshment; or, as the Septuagint, Otxs¢ dovps, not much unlike the lodges in divers of our noblemen’s parks and forest- walks ; which minds me of his choice in another poem : Pallas quas condidit arces, Ipsa colat: nobis placeant ante omnia silve. ECLOG. ii. _ In lofty towers let Pallas take her rest, * Whilst shady groves *bove all things please us best. And for the same reason Mezcenas Maluit umbrosam Quercum Chose thé broad Oak And as Horace bespeaks them, Me gelidum nemus, Nympharumque leves cum satyris chori Secernunt populo Me the cool woods above the rest advance, Where the rough satyrs with the light nymphs dance. And Virgil again, Nostra nec erubuit silvas habitare Thalia. Our sweet Thalia loves, nor does she scorn To hunt umbrageous groves OF FOREST-TREES. 337 Or as thus expressed by Petrarch, Silva placet Musis, urbs est inimica poetis. The Muse herself enjoys Best in the woods ; verse flies the city noise. So true is that of yet as noble a poet of our own ; As well might corn as verse in cities grow : In vain the thankless glebe we plough and sow: Against th’ unnatural soil in vain we strive: Tis not a ground in which these plants will thrive. COWLEY. When it seems they will bear nothing but nettles and thorns of satire, and, as Juvenal says, by indignation too; and therefore, almost all the poets, except those who were not able to eat bread without the bounty of great men, that is, without what they could get by flattering them, (which was Homer and Pindar’s case,) have not only withdrawn them- selves from the vices and vanities of the great world, into the innocent felicities of gardens and groves, and retiredness, but have also com- mended and adorned nothing so much in their never-dying poems, Here, then, is the true Parnassus, Castalia, and the Muses ; and at every eall in a grove of venerable Oak, methinks I hear the answer of an hundred old Druids, and the bards of our inspired ancestors, In a word, so charmed were poets with those natural shades, especially that of the Platanus, that they honoured temples with the names of g-oves*, though they had not a tree about them. Nay, sometimes one .stately tree alone was so revered: and of such a:one there is mention in a fragment of an inscription in a garden at Rome, where there was a temple built under a spreading Beech-tree, sacred to Jupiter, under the name of Fagutalis, Innumerable are the testimonies I might produce in behalf of groves and woods out of the poets, Virgil, Gratius, Ovid, Horace, Claudian, Statius, Silius, and others of later times, especially the divine Petrarch, (for seriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus,) were I minded to swell this charming subject beyond the limits of a chapter. I think only to take notice, that theatrical representations, such as were those of the Ionian, called Andria, the scenes of pastorals, and the like innocent rural enter- taimments, were of old adorned and trimmed up ¢ ramis et frondibus, cum BOOK IV. PY Rew! * "Adon xe- NaVTES Te izav TAYTl, xLV 1 Line 0s TON lat = nog eoi¥e . i . Strab, lib. ix. BOOK IV. ye "See Wow- er, de Umbra, cap. XXVi. Bisciola Hora subces, cap. 9. * Quercus Reformationis. 338 A DISCOURSE racemis et corymbis, and frequently represented in groves, as the learned Scaliger shews. Here the most beloved and coy mistress of Apollo rooted ; and, in the walks and shades of trees *, the noblest raptures have been conceived, and poets have composed verses which have animated men to heroic and glorious actions: here orators (as we shewed) have made their panegyrics, historians grave relations, and the profound philo- sophers have loved here to pass their lives in repose and contemplation. Nor were the groves thus frequented by the great scholars and the great wits only, but by the greatest statesmen and politicians also. Thence that of Cicero speaking of Plato, with Clinias and Megillus, who were used to discourse de Rerumpublicarum institutis, et optimis legibus, in the groves of Cypress, and other umbrageous recesses. It was under a vast Oak, growing in the park of St. Vincent, near Paris, that St. Louis was used to hear complaints, determine causes, and do justice to suchas resorted thither: and we read of a solemn treaty of peace held under a flourishing Elm between Gisors and Treves, which was afterwards felled by the French king Philip, in a rage against king Henry II. for not agreeing to it. Nay, they have sometimes been known to crown their kings under a goodly tree, or in some venerable grove, where they had their stations and conventions; for so they chose Abimelech: see Tostatus upon Judg. ix. 6. Iread (in Chronicon Jo. Bromton) that Augustin the monk (sent hither from the pope) held a kind of council under a certain Oak in the west of England, and that concerning the great question, namely the right celebration of Easter, and the state of the Anglican church, &c. where also it is reported he did a great miracle., In the mean time, I meet with but one instance where this goodly tree has been (in our country) abused to cover impious designs, as was that of the arch-rebel Kett, who, in the reign of Edward VI. (becoming leader to that fanatic insurrection in Norfolk) made an Oak (under the specious name of * Reformation) the court, council-house, and place of convention, whence he sent forth his traitorous edicts : the history and event of which, to the destruction of the rebel and his followers, together with the sermon (call it speech, or what you please) which our then young Matthew Parker (afterward the venerable and learned archbishop of Canterbury) boldly pronounced on it, to reduce them to obedience, is most elegantly described in Latin, and in a style little inferior to the ancients, by our countryman Alexander Nevyll, in his KETTUS : Stve de furoribus Nor- folciensium Ketro Duce. But toreturn: the Athenians were wont to OF FOREST-TREES. 339 consult of their gravest matters and public concernments in groves. BOOK IV. Famous for these assemblies were the Ceraunian, and at Rome the Lucus Petilinus, the Farentinus, and others, in which there was held that re- nowned parliament after the defeat of the Gauls by M. Popilius ; for it was supposed that in places so sacred they would faithfully and reli- giously observe what was concluded amongst them : In such green palaces the first kings reign’d, Slept in their shades, and angels entertain’d : With such old counsellors they did advise, And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise. Free from th’ impediments of light and noise, — Man thus retir’d, his nobler thoughts employs. WALLER. as our excellent poet has described it. And, amongst other weighty matters, they treated of matches for their children, and the young people made love in the cooler shades, and engraved their mistresses’ names upon the bark, Tviuli ereis literis insculpti, as Pliny speaks of that ancient Vatican Ilex: and Euripides, in Hippolyto, shews us how they made the incision whisper their soft complaints like that of Aristanetus, Tota 08 Se wo dévdpa, &e. and wish that it had but a soul and voice to tell , nt XVi. cap. Cydippe, the fair Cydippe, how she was beloved: and, doubtless, this character was ancienter than that on paper. Let us hear the amorous poet leaving his young couple thus courting each other: Incisze servant 4 te mea nomina Fagi : Et legor Oenone falce notata tua. Et quantum trunci, tantum mea nomina crescunt : Crescite, et in titulos surgite recta meos. ovip. Ep. Each Beech my name yet bears, carv’d out by thee, Paris and his Oenone fill each tree; And as they grew, the letters larger spread ; Grow still a living witness of my wrongs when dead. which doubtless, he learnt of Maro, describing the unfortunate Gallus: Tenerisque meos incidere amores Arboribus: crescent illa, crescetis amores, ECLOG. xX, There on the tender bark to carve my love ; And as they grow, so may my hopes improve. And these pretty monuments of courtship, I find, were much used or 340 A DISCOURSE BOOK Iv. the Cherry-tree, (the wild one I suppose,) which has a very smooth rind, —YvY" as the witty Calphurnius: Dic age: nam Cerasi tua cortice verba notabo, Et decisa feram rutilanti carmina libro. Repeat, thy words on Cherry bark I'll take, And that red skin my table-book will make. Let us add the sweet Propertius : — Ah quoties teneras resonant mea verba sub umbras, Scribitur et vestris Cynthia Corticibus. Lib. i. Eleg. xviii. * Theoerit. And so deep were the incisions made, as that of Helena * on the Platan, ee ere (‘wo rapfwy tio avayvo/7) that one might run and read them. And thus for- saken lovers appeal to Pines, Beeches, and other trees of the forest. But we have dwelt too long on these trifles, omitting also what we might re- late of feasting, banqueting, and other splendid entertainments under trees, nay, sometimes in the very bodies of them. We will now change the scene, as the Egyptians did the mirth of their guests, when they served in a scull to make them more serious: for thus, Amongst other uses of groves, I read that some nations were wont to hang, not malefactors only, but their departed friends, and those whom they most esteemed, upon trees, as so much nearer to heaven, and dedicated to God, believing it far more honourable than to be buried in the earth. And that some affected to repose rather in these woody places, Propertius seems to speak : Di faciant, mea ne terra locet ossa frequenti Qua facit assiduo tramite vulgus iter. Post mortem tumuli sic infamantur amantum, Me tegat arborea devia terra coma, The gods forbid my bones in the high road Should lie, by ev’ry wand’ring vulgar trod. Thus buried lovers are to scorn expos’d : My tomb in some by-arbour be inclos’d. The same is affirmed of other septentrional people, by Chr. Cilicus de Bello Dithmarsico, lib. i. It was upon the trunk of a knotty and sturdy Oak the ancient heroes were wont to hang the arms and weapons taken OF FOREST-TREES. ; 341 from the enemy, as trophies ; as appears in the yet remaining stump of ' Marius at Rome, and the reverses of several medals. Famous for this was the pregnant Oleaster which grew in the forum of Megara, on which the heroes of old left their shields and bucklers, and other warlike har- ness, till in process of time it had covered them with successive coats of bark and timber, as it was afterwards found when Pericles sacked the city, which the oracle predicted should be impregnable, till a tree should bring forth armour *. We have already mentioned Rebekah, and read of kings themselves that honoured such places with their sepulchres : what else should be the meaning of 1 Chron. x. 12, when the valiant men of Jabesh interred the bones of Saul and Jonathan under the Oak ? famous was the Hyrnethian Coemetry where Diaphon lay. Ariadne’s tomb was in the Amathusian grove in Crete, now Candy; for they believed that the spirits and ghosts of men delighted to expatiate and appear in such solemn places, as the learned Grotius notes from Theophylact, speaking of the demons, upon Matth. xvii.18; for which cause Plato gave permission, that trees should be planted over graves, to obumbrate and refresh them. The most ancient conditoria and burying-places were in such nemorous solitudes. The hypogeum, in Machpelah, purchased by the patriarch Abraham of the sons of Heth, Gen. xxiii. for Sarah, his own dormitory, and family sepulchre, was conveyed to him with particular mention of all the trees and groves about it; and this is the very first precedent I ever read of conveying a purchase by a formal deed. Our blessed Saviour, as we shall shew, chose the garden sometimes for his oratory—and dying, for the place of his sepulchre; and we do avouch, for many weighty causes, that there are no places more fit to bury our dead in than our gardens and groves, or airy fields, swb dio, where our beds may be decked and carpeted with verdant and fragrant flowers, trees, and perennial plants, the most natural and instructive hieroglyphies of our expected resurrection and immortality ; besides what they might conduce to the meditation of the living, and the taking off our cogitations from dwelling too intently upon more vain and sensual gbjects; that custom of burying in churches, and near about them, (especially in great BOOK IV. SNe * Diod. Sic. lib. xii. and populous cities,) being a novel presumption, indecent, sordid, and ~ very prejudicial to health ; for which I am sorry it is become so custom- ary. Graves and sepulchres were, of old, made and erected by the sides of the most frequented highways, which being many of them mag- Volume LI. xX x BOOK IV. — * See that passage of the famous __ civi- lian Baldwin, ad leg. xii. Tab. Chrys. Hom. xxvi. Epist. ad Corinth. + Gretser, lib. ii. de Fun. Christ. cap. 8. Onuphr. de Ritu Sepul. 342 A DISCOURSE nificent structures and mausoleums, adorned with statues and inscriptions, (planted about with Cypress and other evergreens, and kept in repair,) were not only graceful, but a nobler and useful entertainment to the tra- vellers, putting them in mind of the virtues and glorious actions of the persons buried ; of which, I think, my lord Verulam has somewhere spoken. However, there was certainly no permission for any to be buried within the walls of Rome, almost from the very foundation of it ; for so was the sanction, XII. Tab. IN URBE NE SEPELITO NEVE URITO, ‘neither to bury or burn the dead in the city.” And when long after they began to violate that law, Antoninus Pius, and the em- peror succeeding, did again prohibit it. All we meet of ancient to the contrary, is the tomb of Cestius, the epulos, which is a thick clumsy pyramid yet standing, nec in urbe, nec in orbe, as it were, but half zn, and half without the wall. If then it were counted a thing so profane to bury in the cities, much less would they have permitted it in their temples; nor was it in use among Christians, who, in the primitive ages, had no particular coemeteria; but when (not long after) it was indulged, it was to martyrs only ad limina, and in the porches, even to the deposita of the apostles * themselves. Princes, indeed, and other illustrious persons, founders of churches, &ec. had sometimes their dormitories near the Basilicee and cathedrals, a little before St. Augustin’s time, as appears by his book de cura pro mortuis, and the concession was not easily ob- tained. Constantine, son to the Great Constantine himself, did not, without leave, inhume his royal father in the church-porch of that august fabric, though built by that famous emperor: and yet after this, other great persons placed their sepulchres no nearer than towards the church-walls, whilst, in the body of the church, they presumed no farther for a long time after, as may be proved from the Capitula of Charlemagne: nor hardly in the city, till the time of Gregory the great : and when connived at, it was complained of. We find it forbidden (as to churches) by the emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius ; and so in the code, where the sanction runs thus: Nemo apostolorum vel martyrum sedem humanis corporibus eaistimet esse consessam+, &c. And now, after all this, would it not raise our indignation to see so many extortioners, luxurious, profane, and very mean persons, without merit, not only affecting, but permitted to lay their carcasses, not in the nave and body of the church only, but in the very chancel, next the communion-table, ripping up the pavements, removing the seats, Xe. for some little gratification of those who should have more respect to decency at least, if for no other! OF FOREST-TREES. 343 The fields, the mountains, the highway-sides, and gardens, were thought honourable enough for those funeral purposes: Abraham and the patriarchs (as we have shewed) had their caves and crypte in the fields, set about with trees: the kings of Judah had their sepulchres in their palaces, and not in the sanctuary and temple: and our most blessed Saviour’s sepulchre was in a garden : which indeed seems to me to be the most proper and eligible, as we have already shewed; nor even to this day do the Greeks and eastern Christians bury in churches, as is well known. A remarkable instance apposite to this, we have of a worthy person of our own country, Mr. Burton, great grandfather of the learned author who writ the Commentary on Antoninus’s Itinerary ; which, for its laudable singularity, I present my reader the description of. In agro Salopiensi, Longnore, ad Sabrinam ¥\. ad piscinas in horto juata edes patruelis mei francisct Burtoni, proavi mei epitaphium ®. 1558. Quod scelus? an Christi nomen temerare qudd ausus, Huic vetitum sacro condere membra solo ? Di melius—sincera fides, nec tramite veri Devia, causa: illo tempore, grande nefas. Urbibus insultat nostris dum turbida Roma; Rasaque gens sacris dat sua jura locis ; Nec sacri ritus, nec honores funeris, intra Meenia, Christicolis, heu male sancta ! piis. At referens Dominum inculpte munere vite, Ad Domini Exemplar funera nactus erat. Ille ut odorifero tumulatus marmore in horto, Ossa etiam redolens hortus et hujus habet ; Hic ubi et expectat, foelix! solantia verba ; “« Euge age! mercedem jam, bone serve, cape.” s His great grandson has thus recorded his death, which was very remarkable: “ Having been under the persecution for his religion in the days of queen Mary, and obliged to live very retired, in order to escape from her fury, sitting one day in his upper parlour at Long- nor, he heard a general ring of all the bells in Shrewsbury ; his right-divining soul straight told him that it was for the death of queen Mary ; he inquired, and having learned that it was certainly so, through the excess of the joy which he conceived, instantly expired.” The epitaph was written by Sir Andrew Corbet, A. D. 1614, in English, whence Mr. Burton, the commentator on Antoninus, turned it into the Latin exhibited by Mr. Evelyn. Xx 2 BOOK IV. qe ee BAA A DISCOURSE BOOK IV. Thus, with the incomparable Sannazarius, Non mihi fornicibus pa- —Y~ riis—Sculptures and titles, preferable to the proudest mausoleums, I should choose. The late elegant and accomplished Sir W. Temple, though he laid not his whole body in his garden, deposited the better part of it, his heart, there; and if my executors will gratify me in what I have desired, I wish my corpse may be interred as I have bespoken them; not at all out of singularity, or for want of a dormitory, (of which there is an ample one annexed to the parish-church,) but for other reasons, not here necessary to trouble the reader with, what I have said in general being sufficient : however, let them order it as they think fit, so it be not in the church or chancel. Plato, as we noted, permitted trees to be planted over sepulchres, to obumbrate the departed ; but, with better reason, we adorn their groves with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scripture to those fading beauties, whose roots being buried in dishonour, rise again in glory. Of such hortulan instances, Gruter gives us this inscription : V.F. T. VETTIUS. T. L. HERMES SEPLASIARIUS MATER. GENUIT. MATER. RECEPIT HI. HORTI. ITA. UTI. OPT. MAXIMIQ. SUNT -CINERIBUS. SERVIANT. MEIS NAM. CURATORES. SUBSTITUAM QUI. VESCANTUR EX. HORVM HORTORUM REDITU NATALI. MEO ET. PRAEBEANT. ROSAM. IN. PERPETUUM HOS. NEQUE. DIVIDI NEQUE. ALIENARI. VOLO. This sweet flower, borne on a branch full set with thorns, and accom- panied with the lily, are natural hieroglyphics of our fugitive, umbratile, OF FOREST-TREES. 345 anxious, and transitory life, which making so fair a show for a time, is BOOK IV. not yet without its thorns and crosses. Of this kind, and the like antiquity, we could multiply instances ; nor is the custom yet altogether extinct in my own native county of Surry, and near my dwelling, where the maidens yearly plant and deck the graves of their defunct sweethearts with rose-bushes ; of which I have given account in the learned Mr. Gibson’s edition of Camden *; and for the rest, see Mr. Sumner, of Garden Burial, and the learned Dr. Cave’s Primitive Christianity. And now let not what I have said concerning the pious Dr. Ham- mond’s Paraphrase in the Text, of Hortulan Burial, be thought foreign to my subject, since it takes in the custom of it in the groves, and shady h « At Ockley, in Surry, there is a certain custom, observed time out of mind, of planting Rose-trees upon the graves, especially by the young men and maids who have lost their lovers, so that this church-yard is now full of them. It is the more remarkable, because we may observe it to have been anciently used both among the Greeks and Romans, who were so very religious in it, that we find it often annexed as a codicil to their wills, as appears by an old inscription at Ravenna, and another at Milan, by which they ordered roses to be yearly strewed and planted upon their graves. Hence that of Propertius, lib. i. el, 2. im- plying the usage of burying amidst roses, Et tenera poneret ossa Rosa; and old Anacreon, speaking of it, says, that it does vexpas apuver, “« protect the dead.” Camd. Brit. Vol. I. p. 236. It is the universal practice in South Wales to strew roses and all kinds of flowers over the graves of their departed friends. Shakspeare has put the following lines into the mouth of a young prince, who had been educated, under the care of a supposed shepherd, in that part of the island : With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, V’'ll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack The flow’r that’s like thy face, pale Primrose; nor The azur’d Hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf Eglantine ; which not to slander, Out-sweeten’d not thy breath, CYMBELINE. Morestellus cites an epitaph where Publia Cornelia Annia declares, that she would not survive her husband to live in a desolate widowhood, but had therefore voluntarily shut herself up in his sepulchre, to remain with him, with whom she had lived twenty years in peace and happiness ; and then orders her freed-men and freed-women to come every year to their sepulchre, to sacrifice there to Pluto and Proserpine, to adorn the sepulchre with roses, and to feast there upon the remainder of the sacrifice. PP\ a BOOK IV. iy di ah 346 A DISCOURSE and solemn places, as I have already shewed: and thus, like the Yew, planted in our country church-yards, the Cypress, growing so like a shroud as does that sepulchral tree, and other perennial greens, emblems of immortality, and a flourishing state to come, were not less proper to shade our natural bed, would our climate suffer it. Let us return, then, to groves, and for diversion, add a short recital of the most famous groves which we find celebrated in histories; since those, besides many already mentioned, were such as, being consecrated. both to gods and men, bore their names. Amongst these are reckoned such as were sacred to Minerva, Isis, Latona, Cybele, Osiris, Ausculapius, Diana, and especially the Aricinian, in which there was a goodly temple erected, placed in the midst of an island, with a vast lake about it, a mount and a grotto adorned with statues, and irrigated with plentiful streams: and this was that renowned recess of Numa, where he so fre- quently conversed with his A¥¢gerza, as did Minos in the cave of Jupiter ; and by whose pretended inspirations they gained the deceived people, and made them receive what laws they pleased to impose upon them. To these we may join the groves of Vulcan, Venus, and the little youth Cupid; of Mars, Bellona, Bacchus, Silvanus, and that of the Muses near Helicon, dedicated by the same Numa, their great patron; and hence had they their name Camene '. In this was the noble statue of Eupheme, nurse to those poetical ladies: and so the Feranian, and even Mons Parnassus, were thick shaded with trees. Nor may we omit the more impure dupercal groves, sacred, or profaned rather, yet most famous for their affording shelter and foster to Romulus and his brother Remus. That of Vulcan was usually guarded by dogs, like the town of St. Malo, in Bretagne: the pinea silva appertained to the mother of the gods,. as we find in Virgil. Venus had several groves in Egypt, and in the Indian i The learned and ingenious Mr. Bryant is the only person who has given us 4 satisfac- tory derivation of the word camene. He says, the camoene of Latium, who were sup- posed to have shewn the sacred fountain to the vestals, were probably the original priestesses, whose business it was to fetch water for lustrations from that stream. For Cam-ain (in the Amonian language) is the fountain of the sun: and the camene were named from their attendance upon that deity. The hymns in the temples of this god were sung by these women: hence the camcene were made presidents of music. Analysis, Vol. I. OF FOREST-TREES. 347 island, where once stood those famous statues cut by Praxiteles; another BOOK IV. also in Pontus, where, if you believe it, hung up the golden fleece, meed of the bold adventurer. Nor was the watery king Neptune without his groves: the Helicean in Greece was his. So Ceres, and Proserpine, Pluto, Vesta, Castor, and Pollux, had such shady places consecrated to them. Add to these the Lebadian, Arsinoan, Paphian, Senonian, and such as were in general dedicated to all the gods, for Habitarunt di quoque silvas. Gods have dwelt in groves. To the memory of famous men and heroes were consecrated the Achillean, Aglaurin, and those to Bellerophon, Hector, and Alexander ; to others, also, who disdained not to derive their names from trees and fo- rests, as Silvus the posthumous of Auneas, and divers of the Albanian princes and great persons; Stolon, Laura, Daphnis, &e. And a certain custom there was, for the parents to plant a tree at the birth of an heir or son, presaging by the growth and thriving of the tree, the prosperity of the child: thus we read in the life of Virgil, how far his natalitial Poplar had outstripped the rest of its contemporaries. And the reason, doubtless, of all this, was the general repute of the sanctity of those places ; for no sooner does the poet speak of a grove, but immediately some consecration follows, as believing that out of those shady pro- fundities some deity must needs emerge : Quo possis viso dicere numen inest. . So as Tacitus (speaking of the Germans) says, Lucos et nemora conse- crant, deorumque nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia vident: to the same purpose, Pliny, lib. xii. cap. 1. tells us, arbores fuere numinum templa, in which (says he) they did not so much revere the golden and ivory statues, as the goodly trees and awful silence: and the consecration of these nemorous places, together with the express rites thereof, we find in Quintus Curtius, and in what Paulus Diaconus relates of the Longobards, who not being capable of philosophising on the physical causes, which they deemed supernatural, and plainly divine, were allured, as it is likely, by the gloominess of the shade, procerity and 348° A DISCOURSE BOOK IV. altitude of the stem, floridness of the leaves, and other accidents; so as —Y™~" to use the words of Prudentius, Quos penes omne sacrum est, quicquid formido tremendum Suaserit horrificos quos prodigialia cogunt Credere monstra deos Lib. i. Cont. Sym. Here all religion paid ; whose dark recess A sacred awe does on their minds impress, To their wild gods ————— and this deification of their trees, amongst other things, besides their age and perennial viridity, says Diodorus, might spring from the mani- fold use which they afforded, and which haply had been taught them by the gods, or rather by some godlike persons, whom for their worth, and the public benefit, they esteemed so; and it might be a motive to this reverence, that divers of them were voiced to have been metamor- phosed from men into trees, and again out of trees into men, as the Ar- eadians gloried in their birth, when | Gensque virtm, truncis, et rupto Robore nati. Out of the teeming bark of Oaks men burst: which perhaps they fancied, by seeing men creep sometimes out of their cavities, in which they often lodged and secured themselves *. Quippe aliter tunc orbe novo cceloque recenti Vivebant homines, qui rupto Robore nati. JUVEN. lib. ii. For in the earth’s nonage under heay’n’s new frame, They stricter liv’d, who from Oak’s rupture came. « It is highly probable that the inhabitants of all uncivilized, woody countries take up their habitations in the trunks of trees. Captain Cook, in his description of New Holland, says, “many of their largest trees were converted into comfortable habitations. These had their trunks hollowed out by fire, to the height of six or seven feet; and that they take up their abode in them sometimes, was evident from the hearths, made of clay, to contain the fire in the middle, leaving room for four or five persons to sit round it. At the same time, these places of shelter are durable ; for they take care to leave one side of the tree sound, which is sufficient to keep it growing as luxuriantly as those which remain untouched.” OF FOREST-TREES. 349 Or as the sweet Papinius again : Nemorum vos stirpe rigenti Fama satos, cum prima pedum vestigia tellus Admirata tulit, nondum arva, domtsque ferebant Cruda puerperia, ac populos umbrosa creavit Fraxinus, et foeta viridis puer excidit Orno: Hi lucis stupuisse vices, noctisque feruntur Nubila, et occiduum longe Titana secuti Desperasse diem Fame goes, that ye brake forth from the hard rind, When the new earth with the first feet was sign’d ; Fields yet nor houses doleful pangs reliev’d, But shady Ash the num’rous births receiv’d, - And the green babe dropp’d from the pregnant Elm, Whom strange amazement first did overwhelm At break of day, and when the gloomy night, Ravish’d the sun from their pursuing sight, They gave the day for lost Almost like that which Rinaldo saw in the enchanted forest : Quercia gli appar, che per se stessa incisa Apre feconda il cavo ventre, é figlia ; E n’esce fuor vestita in strania guisa Ninfa d’eta cresciuta CANTO 18. A lab’ring Oak a sudden cleft disclos’d, And from its bark a living birth expos’d ; Where (passing all belief) in strange array, A lovely damsel issu’d to the day. And that every great tree included a certain tutelar genius or nymph, living and dying with it, the poets are full; a special instance we have in that prodigious Oak which fell by the fatal stroke of Erisichthon ; but the Hamadryads, it seems, were immortal, and had power to re- move and change their wooden habitations. In the mean while, as the fall of a very aged Oak, giving a crack like thunder, has often been heard at many miles distance, (constrained though I often am to fell them with reluctancy,) I do not at any time remember to have heard the groans of those nymphs (grieving to be dispossessed of Volume IT. Yy BOOK IV. a id BOOK IV. ti Bid * Wocdtown. 350 A DISCOURSE their ancient habitations) without some emotion and pity. Now to shew that many such disasters as that which befel Erisichthon have happened to the owners of places where goodly trees have been felled, I cannot forget one, who giving the first stroke of the axe with his own hand, and doubtless pursuing it with more, killed his own father by the fall of the tree, not without giving the uncautious knight (for so he was) sufficient warning to avoid it. And here I must not pass by the groaning-board which they kept for a while in Southwark, drawing abundance of people to see the wonder; such another plant had been formerly, it seems, ex- posed as a miracle at Caumont, near Thoulouse, in France; and the like sometimes happens in woods and forests, through the inclusion of the air within the cavities of the timber; and something of this kind, perhaps, was heretofore the occasion of the fabulous Dodonean oracle. But how- ever this were, methinks I still hear, sure I am that I still feel, the dismal groans of our forests, when that late dreadful hurricane (happening on the 26th of November, 1703) subverted so many thousands of goodly Oaks ; prostrating the trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole re- giments fallen in battle by the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that grew beneath them. Such was the prospect of many miles in several places, resembling that of Mount Taurus, so naturally described by the poet, speaking of the fall of the minotaurs slain by ‘Theseus : Illa procul radicibus exturbata Prona cadit, late queecumvis obvia frangens. The losses and dreadful stories of this ruin were indeed great, but how much greater the universal devastation through the kingdom! The public accounts reckon no less than 3000 brave Oaks in one part only of the forest of Dean blown down ; in New-Forest in Hampshire, about 4.000 ; and in about 450 parks and groves, from 200 large trees to 1000 of ex- cellent timber, without counting fruit and orchard-trees sans number ; and proportionably the same through all the considerable woods of the nation. Sir Edward Harly had 1300 blown down; myself above 2000 ; several of which, torn up by their fall, raised mounds of earth near twenty feet high, with great stones entangled among the roots and rubbish ; and this almost within sight of my dwelling, (now no longer * Wotton,) sufficient to mortify and change my too great affection and application to this work, OF FOREST-TREES. 351 which, as I contentedly submit to, so I thank God for what are yet left BOOK IV. standing ; nepotibus umbram'. Lactantius reports of a people who worshiped the wind, as some at this day among the Indians do the devil, that he may do them no harm. 1 This dreadfal tempest is most pathetically described by the Rev. Mr. Winter, in an annual sermon, instituted by Mr. Taylor, for the commemoration of that awful visitation. The preacher says, ‘‘ It was in the year 1703, that this great tempest visited Europe, and spent its main force on the British islands. A strong west wind set in about the middle of November. Instead of subsiding, every day, and almost every hour, increased its force. On Wednesday the 24th, it blew furiously, and did some damage. Its violence was still augmented so much, that on Friday the 26th, it became awfully tremendous, and the most dreadful consequences were with reason apprehended. It was not, however, till Saturday the 27th, about six in the morning, that it arose to its greatest height. Those who have written any account of its calamity, agree in their testimony, that it exceeded any storm that had happened in the memory of man, or that could be found in any history. The violence of the wind, the length of its continuance, the prodigious extent to which it spread, and the innumerable calamities produced by it, rendered it one of the most awful events in the history of the world, of which we have any knowledge, the general deluge excepted. Blessed be God that such judgments are indeed “his strange work,” and that the wind is not often excited to such dreadful fury. In this city and its neighbourhood, more than 800 houses were laid in ruins, in most of which the inhabitants were personal sufferers, and some lost their lives. About 2000 stacks of chimneys were blown down in and about London. The lead which covered the roofs of 100 churches was rolled up, and _ hurled in prodigious quantities to great distances. The devastation spread also through the country; stacks of hay and corn innumerable, were thrown down and damaged. Multitudes of cattle were lost. In one level in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Severn, 15000 sheep were drowned. A certain person set himself the task of numbering the trees that were torn up by the roots; but when he had proceeded through but a part of the county of Kent, he counted 250,000, when he relinquished the undertaking. But the greatest calamities were, as might be expected, onthe water. In the river Thames, at least 500 wherries, 300 ship boats, and 200 lighters and barges were entirely lost, besides a much greater number that received considerable damage. The ships destroyed by this tempest were computed at 300. Of the royal navy, 12 ships were sunk wlth most of their crews. The Eddystone light-house, near Plymouth, was precipitated into the sur- rounding ocean, and in it perished Mr. Winstanley, its ingenious architect. Having been frequently told, that the edifice was too slight to withstand the fury of the wind and waves, he was accustomed to reply contemptuously, that he only wished to be in it when a storm should happen. Unfortunately, may we not say, asa warning against presumptuous con- fidence, his desire was gratified. Signals of distress were made, but in so tremendous a sea, no vessel could live, or would venture to put off for their relief.” Yy 2 PV BOOK IV. PN 352 A DISCOURSE What this prince of the air did to Job and his religious family, for the trial of his patience, by God’s permission, the Scripture tells us: and for what cause he still suffers that malicious spirit to exert his fury in these lower regions, the same God only knows; though certainly for our chastisement; and therefore, reformation, submission, and patience, will become our best security. Scaliger the father affirms, he could never convince his learned anta- gonist Erasmus, but that trees feel the first stroke of the axe, and discover a certain resentment ; and indeed they seem to hold the edge of the fatal tool, till a wider gap be made: and so exceedingly apprehensive they are of their destruction, that, as Zoroaster says, if a man come with a sharp bill, intending to fell a barren tree, and a friend importunately depre- cate the angry person, and prevail with him to spare it, the tree will in- fallibly bear plentifully the next year. Such is the superstitious sanc- tity and folly of some credulous people. We might here, indeed, produce the wonderful strange apparitions of spirits interceding for the standing and life of trees, when the axe has been ready for execution, as you may see in the hymn of Callimachus to Apollo, Pausanias, and the famous story of Parebius, related by Apollonius in 2. Argonaut. with the fearful catastrophe of such as cause- lessly and wantonly violated those goodly plantations; (from which fables arose that of the Dodonean and vocal forests, frequent in heathen writers ;) but none so elegantly as in that tale by the witty Ovid, de- scribing the fact of the wicked Erisichthon : As fame reports, his hand an axe sustain’d, Which Ceres’ consecrated grove profan’d ; Which durst the venerable gloom invade, And violate with light the awful shade. An ancient Oak in the dark centre stood, The covert’s glory, and itself a wood : Garlands embrae’d its shaft, and from the boughs, Hung tablets, monuments of prosp’rous vows. In the cool dusk its unpierc’d verdure spread, The Dryads oft their hallow’d dances led ; And oft, when round their gauging arms they cast, Full fifteen ells it measur’d in the waist: Its height all under standards did surpass, As they aspir’d above the humbler grass. OF FOREST-TREES. 353 These motives, which would gentler minds restrain, BOOK IV. Could not make Triope’s bold son abstain ; —y_ He sternly charg’d his slaves with strict decree, To fell with gashing steel the sacred tree. But whilst they, ling’ring, his commands delay’d, He snatch’d an axe, and thus blaspheming said : Was this no Oak, nor Ceres’ favourite care, But Ceres’ self, this arm, unaw’d, should dare Its leafy honours in the dust to spread, And level with the earth its airy head. He spoke, and as he pois’d a slanting stroke, Sighs heav’d, and tremblings shook the frighted Oak : Its leaves look’d sickly, pale its acorns grew, And its long branches sweat a chilly dew. But when his impious hand a wound bestow’d, Blood from the mangled bark in currents flow’d. When a devoted bull of mighty size, A sinning nation’s grand atonement, dies ; With such a plenty from the spouting veins, A crimson stream the turfy altar stains. The wonder all amaz’d ; yet one more bold, The fact dissuading, strove his axe to hold: But the Thessalian, obstinately bent, Too proud to change, too harden’d to repent, On his kind monitor, his eyes, which burn’d ; With rage, and with his eyes his weapon turn’d ; Take the reward, says he, of pious dread : Then with a blow lopp’d off his parted head. No longer check’d, the wretch his crime pursu’d, Doubled his strokes, and sacrilege renew’d ; When from the groaning trunk a voice was heard,, A Dryad I, by Ceres’ love preferr’d, Within the circle of his clasping rind Coéval grew, and now in ruin join’d ; But instant vengeance shall thy sin pursue, And death is cheer’d with his prophetic view. At last the Oak with cords enfore’d to bow, Strain’d from the top, and sapp’d with wounds below, The humbler wood, partaker of its fate, Crush’d with its fall, and shiver’d with its weight. DRYDEN. But a sad revenge follows it, as the poet will tell you: and one might fill a just volume with the histories of groves that were violated by wicked men who came to fatal periods, especially those upon which the BOOK IV. I~, B54 A DISCOURSE Mistletoe grew, than which nothing was reputed more sacred, for amongst such Oaks the Druids usually dwelt, Nemora alta remotis Incolitis lucis LUCAN. and with whose leaves they adorned and celebrated their religious rites. “'The Druids,” says Pliny, lib. xvi. cap. xliv. “for so they call their divines, esteem nothing more venerable than Mistletoe, and the Oak upon which it grows.” Indeed they did nothing of importance without some leaves or branches of this tree, and they esteemed its very eacrescence as sent from heaven. The Mistletoe was not to be gathered, but cut by the priest with a golden axe, praying for a blessing upon the divine gift ; after this two white bulls were offered up as a sacrifice. But for this consult (besides Pliny) Mela, Lactantius, Eusebius de preparat. Evan- gel. and the Aulularia of Pseudo-Plautus, Camden, and others; whilst as to that excrescence, I relate the disasters which happened to two men who, not long since, felled a goodly tree, called the vicar’s Oak, standing at Norwood, (not far from Croydon,) partly belonging to the archbishop, and was limit to four parishes which met in a point; on this Oak grewan extraordinary branch of Mistletoe, which, in the time of the sacrilegious usurpers, they were wont to cut and sell to an apothecary of London ; and though warned of the misfortunes observed to befall those who injured this plant, proceeded not only to cut it quite off, without leaving a sprig remaining, but to demolish and fell the Oak itself also. The first soon after lost his eye, and the other broke his leg, as if the Hamadryads had revenged the indignity. It is reported that the Minturnensian grove was esteemec so venerable, that astranger might not be admitted into it ; and the great Xerxes him- self, when he passed through Achaia, would not touch a grove which was dedicated to Jupiter, commanding his army to do it no violence ; and the honours he did to one single (but a goodly) Platanus, we have already mentioned. The like to this we find when the Persians were put to flight by Pausanias; though they might have saved their lives by it, as appears in the story. 'The same reverence made Hercules not so much as taste the waters of the Agerian groves, after he slew Cacus, though extremely thirsty. OF FOREST-TREES. At talibus alma sacerdos Puniceo canas stamine vincta comas: Parce oculis, hospes, lucoque abscede verendo, Cede agedum, et tuta limina linque fuga. Interdicta viris metuenda lege piatur, Quze se summota vindicat ara casa. Di tibi dent alios fontes PRvPERT. |, iv. The priestess said, (A purple fillet bound her hoary head,) Stranger, pry not, but quit this shady seat : Avant, and while thou safely mayst, retreat. To men forbid, and by hard sanction bound : Far better other springs were by thee found. Nor, indeed, was it lawful to hunt in such places, unless it were to kill for sacrifice, as we read in Arrianus ; whence it is reported by Strabo, that in the A‘tolian groves, sacred to Diana, the beasts were so tame, that the very wolves and stags fed together like lambs, and would follow a man licking his hands, and fawning on him.” Such a grove was the Crotonian, in which Livy writes, there was a spacious field stored with all sorts of game. Therewere many forests consecrated to Jupiter, Juno, and Apollo; especially the famous Mpidaphne, near the Syrian Antioch, which was most incomparably pleasant, and adorned with fountains and rare statues. * There was to be seen the Laurel which had been his chaste mistress, and in the centre of it his temple, an asylum: here it was that Cosroes and Julian did sacrifice upon several occasions, as Musebius relates, but could not with all their impious arts obtain an answer, because the holy Babylas had been interred near that oracle ; for which it was reputed so venerable, that there remained an express title in the code, de Cupressis ex luco Daphnes non excidendis vel venundandis, “ that none should either fell or sell any of the trees about it;” which may serve for another instance of their burying in such places. The truth is, so exceedingly superstitious they were, and tender, that there was almost no meddling with these de- voted trees; and even before they did but conducare or prune one of them, they were first to sacrifice, lest they might offend insomething ignorantly; but to cut down was capital, and never to be done away with any offering whatsoever ; and therefore, conlucare in authors is not (as some pretend) suceidere, but to prune the branches only ; and yet even this gentle ton- sure of superfluities was reputed a kind of contamination, unless in the ease of Lightning, when ceelo tacta, a whole tree might quite be felled, BOOK IV. ea ¥ See this de- licious _ place elegantly de- scribed by S. Chrysostom, lib. de S. Ba- by]. tom. vi. p- 671. Sozom. lib, vi. cap. xix. Niceph, lib. x. cap. xxviii. Salmas. Exer- cit. Plin. BOOK IV. ye, 356 A DISCOURSE as marked by heaven for the fire: but of this sufficient. We could, indeed, fill many sheets with the catastrophe of such as maliciously destroyed groves, to feed either their revenge or avarice; see Plutarch in Pericles, and the saying of Pompeius. Cicero sharply reproves C. Gabinius for his prodigious spoil in Greece ; and it was of late days held a piece of inhumanity in Charles the French king, when he entered the Grisons, after he had slain their leader, to cut down their woods ; a pu- nishment never inflicted by sober princes, but to prevent idolatry in the old law ; and to shew the heinousness of disloyalty and treason by latter sanctions; in which ease, and for terror, even a traitor’s woods have become anathema, as were easy to instance out of histories. But what shall we say, then, of our late prodigious sporlers, whose fu- rious devastation of so many goodly woods and forests have bequeathed an tzfamy on their names and memories, not quickly to be forgotten! I mean our unhappy wsurpers and injurious sequestrators ; not here to mention the deplorable necessities of a gallant and loyal gentry, who, for their compositions, were many of them compelled to add yet to this waste, by an inhuman and unparalleled tyranny over them, to preserve the poor remainder of their fortunes, and to find them bread. Nor was it here they desisted; for after the fate of that once beautiful grove under Greenwich castle, (of late supplied by his present majesty,) even the royal walk of Elms in St. James’s park, “« That living gallery of aged trees, was once proposed to the late council of state (as they called) to be cut down and sold; that the rest of his majesty’s houses already demo- lished, and marked out for destruction, his trees might likewise undergo the same destiny, and no footsteps of monarchy remain unviolated. It is from hence you may calculate what were the designs of those ex- cellent reformers, and the care these great statesmen took for the preser- vation of their country, when, being partes in the booty themselves, they gave way to so dishonourable and impolitic a waste of that ‘material, which being left entire, or husbanded with discretion, had proved the best support and defence of it. But this (say they) was the effect of war, and in the height of our contentions. No, it was a late and cold deliberation, OF FOREST-TREES. 357 and long after all had been subdued to them; nor could the most im- BOOK IV. placable of enemies have expressed a resolution more barbarous. For, as oo our own incomparable poet describes it, *T was not enough alone to take the spoils Of God’s and the king’s houses ; these unjust And impious men destroy the stately piles : Of ev’ry ruin there’s a wicked lust. In every place the groaning carts are fill’d With beams and stones ; so busy and so loud Are the proud victors, as they meant to build: But they to ruin and destruction crowd. Timber, which had been buried many years Under such royal towers, they invade: Tis sure that hand the living never spares, Which is so wicked to disturb the dead. Then all the woods the barbarous victors seize, (The noble nursery of the fleet and town, The hopes of war and ornaments of peace,) Which once religion did as sacred own. Now public use, and great convenience claims The woods from private hands inviolate ; Which greedy men, to less devouring flames, Do for sweet lucre freely dedicate. No age they spare, the tender Elm and Beech, Infants of thirty years they overthrow ; Nor could old age itself their pity reach, No reverence to hoary barks they know. The unhappy birds, an ever-singing choir, Are driven from their ancient shady seats, And a new grief does Philomel inspire With mournful notes, which she all night repeats. Let them the woods and forests burn and waste, There will be trees to hang the slaves at last ; And God, who such infernal men disclaims, Will root ’em out, and throw ’em into flames, In which he has shewed himself as well a prophet as a poet. Volume IT. Zz 358 A DISCOURSE BOOK Iv. We have spoken of the great Xerxes, that, passing conqueror through —V™’ Achaia, he would not suffer his army to violate so much as a tree of his adversaries ; and have sufficiently observed from the ancients, that the gods did never permit them to escape unpunished who were injurious to groves. What became of Agamemnon’s host after his spoil of the woods at Aulis? histories tell us Cleomenes died mad: the Temesian Genius became proverbial ; and the destructive fact that the enraged Cesar per- petrated on the Massilian trees, went not long unrevenged, thus related by the poet, and an illustrious record of all we have hitherto produced, to assert their veneration. Lucum 4is- eulapio dica- tum succiderat Lucus erat longo nunquam violatus ab vo, &c. Lucan, lib. iii. Turullius; ma- nifestis Numi- nis illius viri- bus, eum in lucum quem violaverat, ille attractus. est, effecitqueDeus, ut ibi potissi- mum occidere- tur. Wide Va- ler. Max. lib. i. Not far away for ages past had stood An old inviolated sacred wood ; Whose gloomy boughs, thick interwoven, made A chilly, cheerless, everlasting shade : There, nor the rustic gods, nor satyrs sport, Nor fawns and sylvans with the nymphs resort : But barb’rous priests some dreadful pow’r adore, And lustrate ev’ry tree with human gore. gseacuites If mysteries in times of old receiv’d, And pious ancientry be yet believ’d, There nor the feather’d songster builds her nest, Nor lonely dens conceal the savage beast : There no tempestuous winds presume to fly, Ev’n lightnings glance aloof, and shoot obliquely by. No wanton breezes toss the dancing Ieaves, But shiv’ring horror in the branches heaves. Black springs with pitchy streams divide the ground, And bubbling tumble with a sullen sound. Old images of forms mis-shapen stand, Rude and unknowing of the artist’s hand ; With hoary filth begrim’d, each ghastly head Strikes the astonish’d gazer’s soul with dread. No gods, who long in common shapes appear’d, Were e’er with such religious awe rever’d: But zealous crowds in ignorance adore, And still the less they know, they fear the more. Oft (as Fame tells) the earth in sounds of wo Is heard to groan from hollow depths below : The baleful Yew, tho’ dead, has oft been seen To rise from earth, and spring with dusky green : With sparkling flames the trees unburning shine, And round their boles prodigious serpents twine. OF FOREST-TREES. 359 The pious worshipers approach not near, But shun their gods, and kneel with distant fear : The priest himself, when, or the day, or night, Rolling have reach’d their full meridian height, Refrains the gloomy paths with wary feet, Dreading the demon of the grove to meet ; Who, terrible to sight, at that fix’d hour, Still treads the round about his dreary bow’r. / This wood, near neighb’ring to th’ encompass’d town, Untouch’d by former wars remain’d alone ; And since the country round it naked stands, From hence the Latian chief supplies demands. But lo! the bolder hands that should have struck, With some unusual horror trembling shook ; With silent dread and rev’rence they survey’d The gloom majestic of the sacred shade : None dares with impious steel the bark to rend, Lest on himself the destin’d stroke descend. Cesar perceiv’d the spreading fear to grow, Then, eager, caught an axe, and aim’d a blow. Deep sunk within a violated Oak The wounding edge, and thus the warrior spoke: Now let no doubting hand the task decline ; Cut you the wood, and let the guilt be mine. And so it was, as he carried (it is thought) the maledictions of the incensed Gauls to his funeral pile: Quis enim lzsos impune putaret Esse deos ? For who, The gods thus injur’d, unreveng’d does go? But, lest this be charged with superstition, because the instances are heathen ; it was a more noble and remarkable, as well as recent example, when, at the siege of Breda, the late famous general Spinola commanded his army not to violate a tree of a certain wood belonging to the prince of Orange there, though a reputed traitor, and in open defiance with his master. In sum, we read, that when Mithridates but deliberated about the cutting down of some stately trees which grew near Patara, a city of Lycia, though necessitated to it for the building of warlike engines with them, being terrified in a vision, he desisted from his pur- pose. It were to be wished that these, or the like examples, might have L2Z2 BOOK IV. w\yr BOOK IV. i ain Que tibi fac- torum pcenas instare tuorum Vaticinor— Vide Met. 1. 8. Apollon. 1. 2. Argonaut. prosternit quer- cum funestam quam sibi nym- pha pignoribus- que suis fecit— * At Wotton, in Surry. 360 A DISCOURSE wrought some effects upon the sacrilegious purchasers and disloyal in- vaders in this iron age amongst us, who, to gratify an impious and un- worthy avarice, have lately made so prodigious a spoil of those goodly forests, woods, and trees, which, being once the treasure and ornament of this nation, were doubtless reserved by our more prudent ancestors for the repairs of our floating castles, the safeguard and boast of this re- nowned island, when necessity, or some imminent peril should threaten it, or call for their assistance, and not transmitted to be devoured by these improvident wretches, who, to their eternal reproach, did, together with the royal patrimony, swallow likewise God’s own inheritance. But their sons and grand-children we have lived to see as hastily disgorge them again, and with them all the rest of their holy purchases, which otherwise they might securely have enjoyed. But this, zx terrorem only, and for caution to posterity, while we leave the guilty, and those who have done the mischiefs, to their proper scorpions, and to their Erisich- thonian fate, or to that of the inexorable Parebius, the vengeance of the Dryads; and to their tutelar better genius, if any yet remain, who love the solid honour and ornament of their country : for, wood-born * as I am, what could I say less in behalf of those sacred shades, which both grace our habitations, and protect our nation! One thing more I think not impertinent to hint, before I take my leave of this book, concerning the use of standing groves: that in some places of the world they have no other water to drink than what their trees afford them; not only of their proper juice, (as we have noted,) but from their attraction of the evening moisture, which impends in the shape of a cloud over them: such a tuft of trees is in the island of Ferro; of which consult the learned Isaac Vossius upon Pomponius Mela, and Magnenus de Manna: the same likewise happeneth in the Indies: so that if their woods were once destroyed, they might perish for want of rains; upon which account Barbadoes grows every year more torrid, and has not near the rain it formerly enjoyed when it was better furnished with trees; and so in Jamaica, at Gunaboa, the rains are observed to diminish as their plantations extend: the like I could tell you of some parts of England not far from hence. And now, lastly, to encourage those to plant that have opportunity, and those who innocently and with reluctancy are forced to cut down, and OF FOREST-TREES. 361 endeavour to supply the waste with their utmost industry: it is observed, BOOK IV. that such planters are often blessed with health and old age, according to “” Y ~~ that of the prophet Isaiah, lx. 22, “'The days of a tree are the days of my people.” Of their extraordinary longevity we have given abundant instances in this Discourse ; and it seems to be so universally remarked, that as Paulus Venetus (that great traveller) reports, the Tartarian astro- logers affirm, nothing contributes more to men’s long lives, than the planting of many trees. HAC SCRIPSI OCTOGENARIUS, and shall, if God protract my years, and continue my health, be continually planting, till it shall please him to ¢ransplant me into those glorious regions above, the celestial paradise, planted with perennial groves and trees, bearing immortal fruit; for such is the tree of life, which they who do his commandments have right to, Apoc. xxii. 2, 14, 20. Na} Zoyouar cays “apy vad toys, Kupre “Inc, “Api. Thus my reader sees, and I acknowledge, how easy it is to be lost in the wood, and that I have hardly power to take off my pen whilst I am on this delightful subject ; for what more august, more charming and useful, than the culture and preservation of such goodly plantations That shade to our grand-children give. VIRGIL. What affords so sweet and so agreeable refreshment to our industrious woodman, When he his wearied limbs has laid Under a florid Platan’s shade, CLAUDIAN. or some other goodly-spreading tree, such as we told you stopt the legions of a proud conqueror, and that the wise Socrates sware by ? But whilst we condemn this excess in them, Christians and true philosophers may be instructed to make use of their enjoyments to better purposes, by contemplating the miracles of their production and struc- ture™. And what mortal is there so perfect an atomist, who will under- ne m When the enlarged philosopher takes a survey of the structure of the heavens, his mind is impressed with an awful idea of the power and majesty of the Deity, and he bends BOOK IV. ee Epist, 53. 362 A DISCOURSE take to detect the thousandth part, or point, of so exile a grain, as that insensible rudiment, or rather halituous spirit, which brings forth the lofty Fir-tree, and the spreading Oak ? that trees of so enormous an height and magnitude, as we find some Elms, Planes, and Cypresses ; that others hard as iron, and solid as marble, (for such the Indies fur- nish,) should be swaddled and involved within so small a dimension, (if a point may be said to have any,) and in so weak and feeble a sub- stance, without the least laxation, confusion, or disorder of parts ! That when they are buried in the moist womb of the earth, which so easily dissolves and corrupts substances so much harder, yet this, which is at first but a kind of tender mucilage, or rather rottenness, should be able in time, to displace and rend asunder whole rocks of stone, and some- times to cleave them beyond the force of iron wedges, so as even to re- move mountains! That our tree, like man, (whose inverted symbol he is,) being sown in corruption, rises in glory, and by little and little as- cending into an hard erect stem of comely dimensions, becometh a solid tower, as it were! And that this, which but lately a single ant would easily have borne to his little cavern, should now become capable of re- sisting the fury, and braving the rage of the most impetuous storms, magni mehercule artificis est, clausisse totum in tam exiguo (to use Seneca’s expression) et horror est consideranti. For is it not plainly astonishing, how these minute atoms, rather than visible eggs, should contain the foetus exquisitely formed, (even while yet wrapped in their secundines, like infants in the animal womb,) till grow- ing too big for their dark confinements, they break forth, and after in silent reverence: but the man who views him through the medium of his lesser works, forms to himself a closer, and more pleasing connexion : —— The men Whom nature’s works can charm, with God himself AKENSIDE. Hold converse A mind brought to such a state of harmony, has only to embrace REVELATION with zeal and fervency, in order to render the Christian character complete. Some there are who look upon this conjunction as unnecessary. My answer to them shall be in the words of Seneca: Quocunque te flexeris, ibi Deum videbis occurrentem tibi: OF FOREST-TREES. 363 a while more distinctly display every limb and member completely per- fect, with all their apparel, tire, and trim of beautiful and flourishing vegetables, endowed with all the qualities of the species ? _ Contemplate we again what it is which begins the motion, and kindles the flame of these automata, causing them first to radiate in the earth, and then to display their top in the air, so different poles (as I may call them) in such different mediums. What it is which imparts this elastic, peristaltic, and other motions, so very like to the sensible and perfectest animal. How they elect, and then introsume their proper food, and give suck, as it were, to the yet tender infant, till it have strength and force to prey on, and digest the more solid juices of the earth; for then, and not till then, do the roots begin to harden*®. Consider how they assi- milate, separate, and distribute these several supplies ; how they con- coct, transmute, augment, produce, and nourish without separation of excrements, (at least to us visible,) and how without violation of vir- ginity they generate their like. For their preservation, nature has invested the whole tribe and nation (as we may say) of vegetables, with garments suitable to their naked and exposed bodies, temper, and climate: thus some are clad with a coarser, and resist all extremes of weather; others with more tender and delicate skins and scarfs, as it were, and thinner raiment. Quid foliorum de- scribam diversitates ? what shall we say of the mysterious forms, variety, and variegation of the leaves and flowers, contrived with such art, yet without art; some round, others long, oval, multangular, indented, crisped, rough, smooth, and polished, soft and flexible at every tremulous blast, as if it would drop in a moment, and yet so obstinately adhering, as to be able to contest against the fiercest winds that prostrate mighty structures !—There it abides till God bids it fall: for so the wise Dis- poser of things has placed it, not only for ornament, but use and pro- tection both of body and fruit ; from the excessive heat of summer, and ® In the corn tribe, the flour of the grain is converted into a milky juice, which nourishes the infant germ till its roots become sufficiently strong to extract nourishment from the earth. At this early period, there is a manifest analogy between the animal and vegetable worlds ; and if no other proof could be brought of the existence and wisdom of a Supreme Being, this alone would, in my opinion, be conclusive. See this beautiful subject treated of at large in Vol. I. p. 33. ~ BOOK IV. wry ea BOOK IV. eer 364 A. DISCOURSE colds of the sharpest winters, and their immediate impressions ; as we find it in all such places and trees, as, like the blessed and good man, have always fruit upon them, ripe, or preparing to mature; such as the Pine, Fir, Arbutus, Orange, and most of those which the Indies and more southern tracts plentifully abound in, where Nature provides this continual shelter, and clothes them with perennial garments. Let us examine with what care the seeds, (in which the whole and complete tree, though invisible to our dull sense, is yet perfectly and en- tirely wrapped up,) exposed, as they seem to be, to all those accidents of weather, storms, and rapacious birds, are yet preserved from avolation, diminution, and detriment, within their spiny, armed, and compacted re- ceptacles ; where they sleep as in their causes, till their prisons let them gently fall into the embraces of the earth, now made pregnant with the season®, and ready for another burden: for at the time of year she fails not to bring them forth. With what delight have I beheld this tender and innumerable offspring repullulating at the feet of an aged tree! from whence the suckers are drawn, transplanted, and educated by hu- man industry, and, forgetting the ferity of their nature, become civi- lized to all his employments. Can we look on the prodigious quantity of liquor, which one poor wounded Birch will produce in a few hours, and not be astonished? is it not wonderful that some trees should,in a short space of time, weep more than they weigh? and that so dry, so feeble, and wretched a branch, as that which bears the grape, should yield a juice that cheers the heart of man ? that the Pine, Fir, Larch, and other resinous trees, planted in such rude and uncultivated places, amongst rocks and dry pumices, should transude into turpentine, and pearl out into gums and precious balms ? In a word, so astonishing and wonderful is the organism, parts, and functions of plants and trees, that some have, as we said, attributed animal life to them, and conceived that they were living creatures ; for so did Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and even Plato himself. ee ue Virgil beautifully marks this season : Vere tument terre, et genitalia semina poscunt. GEORG. li. OF FOREST-TREES. 365 I am sure plants and trees afford more matter for medicine, and the use of man, than either animals or minerals; are more familiar at hand and safe; and within this late age being wonderfully improved, increased, and searched into, they seem, by the Divine Wisdom, an inexhaustible subject for our disquisition and admiration. There are ten thousand considerations more, besides that of their medicinal and sanative properties, and the mechanical uses mentioned in this Treatise, which a contemplative person may derive from the groves and woods; all of them the subject of wonder. And though he had only the Palm? (which Strabo affirms is fit for three hundred and sixty uses) or the Coco, (which yields wine, bread, milk, oil, sugar, vinegar, P For the enumeration of the virtues of the Palm-tree, Mr. Evelyn was indebted to a Portuguese missionary of the name of Jeronymo, whose manuscript was translated into English by Sir Peter Wyche, at the request of the Royal Society, in 1668. The account being extremely curious, I here transcribe it. « Of all the trees created by Almighty God for the ornament of the eatth and service of man, the Palm-tree is the most useful and profitable to human society ; though for this end the Author of Nature created all plants, all which, with all their virtues, are at man’s devotion, yet none serves so munificently, and for so many uses as the Palm-tree. For, from her deepest roots, which take first possession of the earth in vegetation, to the highest leaf of her adorned head, with the variety, propriety, and excellency of her fruit; in fine, with all her virtue, is man substantially served, and paid his due tribute. What I shall say in this tract will fully unfold the truth. «« The Palm-tree is advanced by one peculiar excellency, by which, without any second, she hath the advantage of all. Other trees, well satisfied in paying man once a-year their tribute, rest from their labour ; the Palm-tree takes no repose, but every month in the year presents new fruit. A beautiful cluster of thirty, forty, and sometimes more, Cocoas, or nuts, monthly appearing ; and though not above seven, twelve at the most, come to be ripe, and attain the last perfection, (there not being strength and nourishment for so many,) yet is it questionless, that the Palm-tree by her fruitfulness, was by God peculiarly created for the advantage of mankind: if vigour to perform her natural propensity be wanting, yet is her generous inclination apparent. The most favourable climate or soil, and which with greatest propriety and in most abundance, produceth this famous tree, (which strangers, divine and human writings, and the natives, call the Palm-tree,) is Asia, particu- larly that part of it called India, containing the kingdoms and provinces, which lie betwixt and are bounded by the two famous rivers Indus and Ganges, both so well known in history. The land nearest the sea-side produceth the fairest; the air from the sea, being very favourable and benign to them. Though strangers give the same name of Palm-tree to divers sorts of this tree, all cannot challenge it, neither enjoy the excellences proper to Volume II. CVs BOOK IV. yy, Vide Petri Magnol. Bot. Monspel. Vide Mons. Dodart’s Hist. de 1’Academ. des Sciences. 366 A DISCOURSE BOOK IV. thread, cloth, cups, dishes, spoons, and other vessels and utensils ; “——~Y““_ baskets, mats, umbrellas, paper, brooms, ropes, sails, and almost all that the Palm-tree called Coco: the natives distinguish them by particular names, and reckon up eight sorts, all different in their trunks, leaves, fruit, profit, and appearance, yet enjoy the general name of Palm-trees, having I know not what likeness, by which they lay claim to it, besides the proper name of each species. «‘ The chiefest and most famous, and which best retains the property of the Palm-tree, is that which bears Cocoas ; of these some are wild, some cultivated, some, but few, called Barcas, which amongst them, signify excellent ; and when they knavishly put off any thing for excellent, they say it is Barca. The nut Barca is savoury, wholesome, not to be sur- feited on, though eaten in never so great a quantity; but as all trees are not Barcas, so not all the nuts ; and the same tree bears Barcas and others: the natives distinguish and very much value them. The nut Barca, when crude and unripe, is called lanha taugi (i. e.) excellent and sweet ; is refreshing, wholesome, and of great use in fevers. If the roots of this tree touch the sea, or any brackish water, the bearing is very much improved. Of the other seven sorts, some are esteemed wild, from their fruit, soil, and the little manuring they require. The tree called Cajura, is the peculiar one which bears dates ; though in India this tree yields none, but affords a certain liquor which they distil, and of it make wine. Another sort named Trefulim, from her fruit of the same name, arequeira, of whose leaves are made great umbrellas, large enough to shelter one or two men from the rigour of the sun or rain, without which none could travel: there are less, for the same use, like our umbrellas, which also keep off the rain. This tree yields no fruit. There is another tree (the name not much in use) which by the leaf, trunk, and make, is of the race of Palm-trees; the fruit is called the raposa, (i. e.) the foxes’ fruit; eaten, of no good taste, such a crab as never ripens, and if brought to maturity, would prove a wild date, being so in the form, colour, bunch, or cluster. The tree-called Berlim, bears no fruit, only used for adorning churches; the boughs of so fit a size and proportion for this use, as if solely created by God Almighty for his service, not of less esteem and value, be- cause serviceable to divine worship ; this dedication supplies the defect of fruit for the service of man, and may reasonably rank the tree above the fruitful. The last the earth produceth, called Macomeira, is, without doubt, a species of the Palm-tree; her fruit in clusters of thirty or more, every one as big as an ordinary apple; when ripe, of a date- colour, and very grateful, the rind as hard as tow, oftener sucked than eaten ; if swallowed, of very hard digestion; in scent, exceeding the camoesa*: the stone, called coquinho, very hard, though green, is sovereign against many diseases. “«< These are the Palm-trees the earth produceth, which challenge a right in that name. The sea affords one, which, though at the bottom of the deep, and so undiscovered, the fruit called Coco, and surnamed Maldiva, (because the sea about those islands affords that plant in greatest abundance,) gives us the information. The Maldives are a ridge of great and small islands, reaching near two hundred leagues, are counted from north to south distant from the shore, thirty or forty leagues; the natives affirm them to be eleven thou- * Esteemed the best apple in Portugal. OF FOREST-TREES. 367 belongs to the rigging of ships; in short, this single tree furnishing Book Iv. a great part of the world with all that even a voluptuous man can need, “~*~” sand. He was at leisure, and of no small curiosity, who counted them. But not to inquire too strictly and minutely into their number, the ocean about these islands most abounds with these nuts, which are rare ; the sea casts them upon the shore, or they float upon the water, yet I have seen them from the coast of Melinde to the Cape of Guardafuy, for above two hundred leagues: they are little less than a man’s head, grow two together, joined one to the other, not all along, but near two-thirds, the colour of the rifd (which is hard, though thin) black. The Europeans make of it bodies of birds, e. g. of a peacock, adding to it feet, neck, head, and wings, and that perfection of parts the bird designed requires. The pulp or kernel of this fruit is very firm, as in those that grow at land; of very great esteem with the natives. I have seen it sold for its weight in. silver, being esteemed a singular remedy against all diseases, particularly against poison, pounded in a mortar (made for that purpose) with a little water, till it grows white, and so drank.— In India they make frequent use of this remedy, having it in abundance. So much of’ the Palm-tree and the nut Maldiva*. I am now to discourse of the inestimable profit of the other sorts. / « Palm-trees, of what species soever, have neither a thick trunk, nor boughs like other trees. As they grow in height, their boughs come out at the top, and open to make room for others; as the old ones fall, they leave an impression in the tree where they were. If any have two trunks, the thing is very peculiar, and shewn as notorious: I have only seen one or two such, in all the time and places I was in India: one of them near the coast of Melinde, whence I embarked for the island Pate, to see a thing so remarkable. The tree called Macomeira (from the fruit named macoma) is the only one, that grown to the height of a man, divides herself into two trunks, each of which, at the same distance, is divided into other two, so grows on, each trunk producing two, till she arrives to that height, the natives allow proportionable to the species. The tree called Trefulim, grows the tallest, and for height, were the thickness proportionable, (loftiness is more considerable in this, than any other of the sorts,) and the nature of the wood solid and strong, might make a mast for a great vessel, but it wants sufficient substance, neither are those trees which yield Cocoas, proper for that use ; in little vessels they serve, as will be immediately . related. That the most favourable situation for the growth and fertility of these trees, is the ground nearest the sea, has been said before: and if the roots reach the mud of salt- water, they thrive best with that watering. Experience hath found, that those Palm-trees which grow nearest houses inhabited, are the most fruitful ; therefore, the natives, if possible, contrive to dwell in the Palm-orchards, having there their goods and estates, (as will presently be said,) their pleasure and recreation: these are the real estates in India, as vineyards and oliveyards in Europe: amongst these is arable land, which they sow, and * The Sea Coco-nut which has long been considered as a marine production, and been so extremely scarce and valuable, is now discovered to be the fruit of a Palm with flabelliform leaves, which grows abundantly on the small islands to the eastward of Madagascar, called in our charts Mahi, &c. and by the French, Les Isles de Sechelles.—A. H. 8A 2 BOOK IV. Pay, 368 A DISCOURSE or almost desire,) it were sufficient to employ his meditations and his hands, as long as he were to live, though his years were as many as the have a crop of rice, wheat, and other grain; 1 have seen fair and beautiful Palm-trees in the inland, remote from the sea, always in plains, never upon hills, where: they come to no maturity, either because in low grounds they shelter one the other, or that on the hills the winds shake them too violently, to the no little detriment of their fruit ; being tall and ten- der with all their boughs and fruit on the top, they are obnoxious to the wind, the whole weight being at the head, the body high, tender, and fragile: they may be fitly compared to the mast of a ship with round top and top-mast, without the help of shrouds to support it. These trees are planted, by sowing the Cocoas or nuts in a bed, and covering them with earth: a little time will put forth a shoot, the ordinary product of seed ; arrived at some growth, they are transplanted into a place designed for that purpose; there ranked in fit distance, order, and proportion, they remain till arrived to perfection, and being planted in a line, make a fair show in the field, so pleasant to the natives, that no garden in Europe is with more care manured, or of greater, if of equal satisfaction. This hath been experienced by presenting them with our rarities, who neglect them, and sigh after the Palm-trees of their own country ; though there is not a more melancholy and unpleasant sight to Europeans, than to be in a Palm-orchard, where nothing is to be seen but trunks of trees set in order, which appear withered without any foliage ; all the greenness being above the sight, there is little enjoyed: beheld at a distance, no prospect is more grateful. Being young plants, their mortal enemies are the cattle, which rifle their beauty, and with their teeth do them no little damage ; that begets a necessity to encompass them with fences. These plants are manured at small expense ; ordinarily they require not much watering: grown to some bigness, they lay ashes to their roots, all sorts of shell-fish, particularly little fish, called by the natives cuta, putrified at the foot of the tree, are of admirable effect ; but all trees cannot be so indulged ; this is supplied by mud taken out of salt marshes, by which their fruitfulness is very much advanced. They bear fruit at five years if planted in soft artificial beds, so taking root sooner and with greater ease; at seven, if the earth be firm and hard, spreading their roots leisurely and with more difficulty. I only know one spot of ground in the island of Ceylon so fruitful and proper for these trees, that in two years they come to their growth, get strength, and are laden with fruit. The fruit of this tree, (whatsoever the species is,) comes forth thus: from the stem of the Palm, shoots out a twig, made like a man’s arm, not unlike a Moorish scimitar, which the natives call poyo. ‘This opens and puts forth a cluster of thirty, fifty, eighty, sometimes an hundred coquinhos or nuts, about the bigness of a hazel-nut; should all come to perfection, the quantity were stupendous, but the parent wanting sap and nourishment for so many young ones, the greatest part fall off and come to nothing ; few remain: of the first »ppearing multitude, twelve or fourteen in every cluster may come to maturity, sccording to the goodness of the ground, or the soiling employed: nature supplies the lost ones, by putting forth immediately another cluster before the first is ripe or cleared of the flower ; the same happens to the latter fruit, and so to more, every month a bunch appearing, and all the trees having four or five clusters of different ages, some in the blossom, others newly cleared of the flower, as big as ordinary nuts, others larger, some come to perfection : OF FOREST-TREES. 369 most aged Oak: so as Hr. Hernandes, Garcilasso de la Vega, and Boox 1Vv. other travellers* speaking of the Coco, Aloes, and Wild Pine of the Palm-tree resembles an indulgent mother, environed with greater and smaller children, at the same time feeding these and bearing others, a rarity not experienced in other trees. “« The emolument of the fruit Coco is very extraordinary, for divers ways it proves good meat ; while the kernel is yet in water, and full of liquor, the nut green, and not come to maturity, the natives drink it as an exquisite regallo, being sweet and recreative, afford- ing a good cup of wholesome water called lanha; arrived to a greater consistence, like that of cream, they eat it with spoons, then called cocanha: come to the last perfection, it is eaten, is savoury and well-tasted ; but being extremely hot, and of hard digestion, much of it is unwholesome, the nut Barca excepted, which is savoury and harmless. The thin rind which covers the kernel, black and good in medicine. This nut grated, and put into the hollow joints of canes, called bambus, is boiled, and of it is made cuscust. The gratings steeped in watér and squeezed, the milk they yield makes a kind of broth, frequent amongst them, called cerul, which is very delicious: the nut Coco is eaten other, different ways, which deservedly advance the esteem of this provision. The two rinds taken off, the kernel divided into two parts, and exposed to dry in the sun, when dried is called copra; of this, great quantities go for the inland country, and where no Olive-trees grow ; oil made of which is toothsome, wholesome, and good for wounds and sores, This copra eaten with igra, (a sort of coarse Muscovadoes sugar, made of the sweet of the Paim-tree, as shall immediately be related,) is a great dainty with the Indians. And that no part of the Coco may seem not valuable, and declaring the obligation human life hath to the Palm-tree, the outmost rind, called cayro, not unlike tow, well macerated, and drawn into threads, affords all sorts of fine thread, and ropes big enough for the greatest vessels and ships, which are in great esteem for good and secure cables; they will endure stretching, and rot not in salt-water; these advantages have they above cables made of hemp. - The second rind, the immediate cover of the Coco, when green, is eaten like chardons, is tender, crackles in the mouth, and of the same effect in the stomach, blacks the lips and fingers like chardons; when ripe is very hard and thin, called charetta, and made up for divers uses ; charked, it admirably tempers iron, and is accord- ingly esteemed by artificers. Besides the related, divers other emoluments accrue from the Palm-tree and her fruits ; the Palm-tree alone being sufficient to build, rig, and freight a ship with bread, wine, water, oil, vinegar, sugar, and other commodities. I have sailed in vessels where the bottom and the whole cargo hath been from the munificence of the Palm-tree; I will take upon me to make good what I have asserted. The vessels are by the natives called pangayos, on which I have coasted the land of Melinde, and gone into the Red Sea: they venture not far from shore, being weak, without any binding of iron, unable to endure any stress of weather or beating of the waves, therefore launch not out into the main ocean. The Palm-tree yields plank, though weak and spongy, as if made of tow: the planks are sewed together with fine thread, made of the outmost rind of the + A paste like the Italian vermicelli, * Vide Raii. 8) JAG ab cap. Vil. xxi. BOOK IV. aye 370 A DISCOURSE Jamaica, affirm there is nothing necessary for life (st esset rebus humanis modus) which these polychrests afford not. nut (as hath been said) ; the seams are caulked with oakum of cayro, after laid over (as is usual) with the fat of fish, serving instead of hot pitch; where there is any use of nails, that is supplied by wooden pins, made of a certain species of the Palm-tree; the mast is provided by the same tree, and requires not much pains to fashion it: ropes of all sizes are made of cayro, i.e. the rind of the Coco. Sails are woven of the leaves of the Palm-tree, called cajuris, of which are also made sacks, (called mecondas,) in which ‘they carry millet, or any other thing at pleasure. Bread (before-mentioned) the same nut supplies, either dry, then called copra, or green, when named puta; which grated and. put into hollow canes, is cuscus: water proceeds from the same nuts being green, before the kernel arrives to a due consistency, clear as rock-water, fresher and better. Oil is made of copra (i. e. the nut dried in the sun) in great quantity, used by all people in India, having no other of their own growth, besides what is drawn from a seed called Gergelim, of small value, used only by the poor. The wine requires more pains and assiduity. When the Palm-tree puts forth her shoot or poyo (shaped like a Moorish scimitar) before the cluster appears, they cut three fingers-breadth from the point, and tying it near the incision witha reed to prevent slitting, put the end of the shoot into a pitcher made for that purpose, called gorgo; leaving it there, the shoot, like vines pruned, but in greater abundance, weep that juice, which should have produced Cocoas. This liquor is twice drawn in the natural day; in the morning, that which was wept by night, and in the evening, the distillation of the day: at these times, aman, deputed to that business, and of a certain extraction, called Bandarins, with a gourd hung at his girdle, and with a pruning-hook in his hand, climbs the tallest Palm-tree ; some of which, peculiarly those called cajuris, are of a prodigious height, they climb, as on a ladder, by notches made in the trunk of the tree, and with as much security as seamen run up to the nain-top. In other less Palm-trees, (seeming to be of that class which yields dates,) they make a hole in the trunk, there lodging a cane, through which the liquor distils, which when the tree affords, she bears no Cocoas. This liquor is sweet, medicinal, clears the body from humours, is drunk for a regallo, and called sura; set to the fire in great vessels, is distilled as in a limbeck, but with this caution, that they continually cast cold water upon the vessel, lest, as strong water, it should take fire. This is the wine made of the Palm- tree called by the natives Urraca ; it intoxicates in little quantity, flies to the head, and is of a strange effect ; much more powerful if distilled over again, when it becomes a quint- essence. Of this Urraca is made excellent vinegar, by putting into it two or three fired sticks, or a great stone well heated. Sugar is made of the sweet sura coming fresh from the tree, which boiled till it coagulates, becomes good sugar, perfect in taste and colour.— The merchandize afforded by the Palm-tree, and laden on vessels, are dried Cocoas, or nuts, the rind, and many other commodities before mentioned: this justifies the Palm- tree’s building, rigging, and lading a vessel with goods, and ship-provisions for the mariners, all her own product. “ The Palm-tree being so beneficial and advantageous to human life, doubtless no tree in any known part of the world may come into competition with it ; and amongst all her OF FOREST-TREES. 371 What may we say, then, of innumerable other trees, fitted for the uses BOOK 1V. nature has designed them, especially for timber, and all other fabrile em- advantages, no other so well satisfies the sight when laden with great and smaller clusters, some ripe, others colouring ; some in the blossoms, others forwarder ; the grateful appear- ance of her fruit is no less pleasant than her admirable fecundity: her tallness not inferior to a high Cypress-tree, her trunk slender, without the help of boughs to climb by, her nuts retired at the top, amongst her leaves and branches, makes her resemble a fond mother, bringing her children about her, the better to preserve them, and cutting off all intercourse tending to their destruction. All places produce not Cocoas of the same bigness, which are great or small, according to the nature of the climate, and quality of the soil fitted for the production of that fruit. The coast of Malabar being cool, and abounding with rivers, (which spring in the mountains of Gate, to whose foot this coast extends,) affords such large and fair Cocoas, that the lanhas (i. e.) young and imperfect nuts of Cochin and those territories, are every one sufficient to quench the thirst of two persons. After these, are cried up those of Ceylon, where the ground is very rank and luxuriant, yet inferior to the soil of Malacca, and the places adjoining, where the Cocoas are the greatest. Those of Arabia the Happy are fairer than any yet spoken of; the goodness of the soil, and nature of the climate, being proportionably advantageous, the. name of Happy proves it. Ofall these places and sorts of fruit, 1am an eye-witness. Two pecu- liar virtues of these Cocoas, are not to be passed over in silence: the first, that when the cluster begins to appear, being yet covered with the flower, gathered, pounded, boiled in three pints of cow’s milk, it is an infallible cure for the yellow jaundice; besides the opinion had of this remedy, I speak by experience, having with it in a few days cured one troubled with this disease. The second is, that in the opinion of the woman, (where fancy most domineers,) the water of lanhas makes a wash for the face, which eminently betters the complexion, either by creating it where nature bestowed it not, or advancing it where nature is deficient, or preserving it where it was naturally allowed. From what hath been said, is evidently concluded, that if the Author of Nature created all trees for the service of man, the Palm-tree of all those doth most industriously serve and advantage him, by so many ways, and so considerable productions ; and because that which bears dates is of the true race of Palm-trees, something is to be said of that and her fruit.— Those trees which bear dates, yield them not in India; there only affording the sura before mentioned, of which wine is made. Northward, those trees grow in the greatest quantity ; some have dates, which appear in fair clusters, but come not to maturity: the reason’ must be in the climate, which favours them not. In Africa they attain the highest perfection, dates being the natural fruit of that part of the world; those of Arabia, where they grow in great quantities, are excellent, pleasant to the sight, in beautiful clusters, (which beginning to ripen, appear in various colours, consisting of a faint vermillion, and pale whiteness, called the date colour,) and more acceptable to the taste. Arabia pro- duceth divers sorts, particularly the Happy ; (Petrea is not without them.) A baser sort there is, which serves for common sustenance, given to horses for provender: others there are of a more exquisite taste and value, amongst them those called muxanas, which are the least, but naturally recompensed by an excellent flavour ; few of them exported out BOOK IV. Se 372 A DISCOURSE Let the farther curious, or those who may take these wonders for a florid epiphonema only of this work, add to the most an- cient naturalists, what they will find improved, on this ample subject, in the late excellently learned and judicious Malpighius, Grew, Ray, Senertus, Faber, and others, who have defined these astonishing by an attractive virtue sucks in, with the moisture that nourisheth it, and conveys throughout from root to head) is discovered by a reddish, minute sand appearing in the earth ; the disease dilates not only in the body, but outwardly on the trunk of the tree ; when the bandarin perceives this, he is forced to make a great hole through the sound part of the tree, to hinder the contagion from creeping further, as is practised in gan- grenes, where the sound part is cut off: the parts affected without, are unbarked, and where the sand appears they run in hot irons. These cures not timely applied, the pro- fitable tree perisheth. These disasters are accompanied with a secret of nature, worth reflection. Two or three years before this untimely death, these trees are said to be laden with Cocoas or nuts, so beyond custom, that this unusual excess is suspicious to the natives, and awakens them to watch the diseases incident to the Palm-tree, so to hinder them by a timely prevention; nature by this overplus, seems to supply the absence and loss of this tree; and the beneficial Palm, foreseeing the end of her munificence, strives to recompense her owner. There is yet in the Palm-tree a thing more excellent, delicious, and more grateful to the palate, than hath been mentioned; a morsel to be compared with whatsoever is esteemed most delicate, is that they call Palmito, the inner- most eye of the tree ; which being cut out and stript of the boughs, may pass for the centre of all the branches, which in the heart of the tree, before they shoot forth, are so joined and united, as to appear the same thing. The substance of this Palmito is white like milk, delicious in extremity, coagulated, tender, of a taste above milk, more delightful, and of a better confection ; 2 _jine, a bocone pleasing in the highest, and free from all fulsome- ness. What I have said, is without exaggeration; the reader, I am sure, would, if he tasted it, be of my opinion, who am able to give a sufficient account of this Palmito; for besides my experience of it in India, where other provision was not wanted, at the Cape of Good Hope, (where the vessel we came in from Portugal suffered shipwreck, at the land called Terra de Natal, and where we spent eight months on shore, in the place we were first cast upon, to build two barks to save our company,) I had leisure enough to be convinced of its exquisiteness ; there, scarcity of provision, obliged us to make use of what we found; it was our good fortune to light on great store of Palm-trees, not of those which yield Cocoas or nuts, but of that species which bear dates; there, having known in India what the Palmito was, we in a short time furnished ourselves with as many as grew in a league’s compass ; the Palmito served us for food and dainty, neither was its gratefulness heightened by our hunger. “ The fruitfulness and profit of the Palm-tree, last many years ; there are signs for a near guess at her precise duration. This tree puts forth every year four branches, which leisurely display themselves in the form of a cross, and aftér three or four years decay ; these the Palm-tree of herself casts off, or they are lopt off by the bandarins, every one leaving a mark where it grew: by these is given a probable conjecture at the age of the tree. OF FOREST-TREES. 373 operations of nature, causes, and effects, with the greatest and exactest BOOK IV: axpGex imaginable. But a wise and a thinking man can need none of ~~ these topics; in every hedge, and every field, they are before him ; and yet we do not admire them, because they are common and obvious: thus Cic. de Nat. Deor. |. ii» we fall into the just reproach given by one of the philosophers (intro- That it may appear how the whole Palm-tree is serviceable to human life, nothing is super- fluous, but all substantially profitable, from the deepest root to the highest leaves: the root (as hath been said before, where we spoke of the virtues of the other parts) charked, gives an excellent temper to iron; the boughs and leaves, made up with a wick, serve for a torch ; (called by them chuli ;) with this, travellers are secure from all danger of ser- pents, which abound in India; these are of exquisite poison, and their multitude makes them frequent the roads, and assault passengers. They fly from the light of this chuli; of another service when they fish in the rivers, instead of a candle, as is usual in Portugal. Of the leaves besides, are made great parasols, capable to shelter two persons from the sun or rain; these require a man to carry them, (there are persons deputed for that office, ) and are called boy de sombrero ; small portable ones there are for the same use, none walking in the street, winter or summer, without great or little parasols. The leaves have another use; of them are made coverings for their palanquins or litters, in which one per- son is commodiously carried, and defended from the rain and sun. Some Palm-trees afford leaves called olhas, which serve for books and paper; with a small iron pencil instead of a pen, they open and grave the letters upon the leaf or olha, without the use of ink, as fast and as easily, as the swiftest writer. The leaves of the tree Cajura dried, remain of a lively white colour, which are made into hats, of great account, though cheap, being so becoming, so accurately wrought and light, that every body, the viceroy not excepted, de- sires to wear then: the Indians call them palhate. The bark of the Poyo, or twig on which grow the fair clusters of Cocoas, being of a thicker and stronger substance, furnishes the common people, particularly the bandarins who dress the Palm-trees, with caps made like English ordinary riding-caps. «To end the discourse, I shall observe (what challenges a reflection) the natural fabric of the Palm-trees ; that the trunk being very slender and disproportionable to the tallness, the whole weight of the boughs, (called Palms,) and of the fruit, being at the top, in a manner, at the vertical point of the slim body, the boughs, as they grow displaying them- selves, and amongst them hanging the fair clusters of Cocoas, the shock of winds, should, without doubt, easily break and ruin this disproportioned machine. Provident Nature, against this, hath for every new birth of those boughs, provided swathes, of the same mat- ter and texture of the Palm-tree, not unlike coarse cloth, or canvass: with these the branches and what grows there, are swathed so strongly and securely, as to defy any violence of winds to disjoint them: they are liable to be shaken, yet not where they have this girdle, which to break is a work of iron. By these the Palm-tree, as a tender mother, gathers her children about her, as secure from being lost and scattered, as they are well defended any violence of wind, which would tear and force them from her bosom.” 3B2 374 A DISCOURSE, &c. BOOK IV. duced by the orator) to those who slighted what they saw every day, —Y™"' because they every day saw them: Quasi novitas nos, magis quam mag- nitudo rerum, debeat ad exquirendas causas excitare: As if novelty only should be of more force to engage our inquiry into the causes of things, than the worth and magnitude of the things themselves. THE END. EXPLANATORY TABLE OF THE Paris of FRUCTIFICATION of the different Species of Trees described in the SILVA. Ogzs. The Parts marked with a Capital Letter are magnified. The OAK. Quercus ( Robur.) Monoecita Potyanpria. a. A Male Catkin. b.c. The Calyx. In some Flowers it is divided into four, in other into five segments, B. C. Ditto. d. An entire Flower. D. Ditto, shewing the situation of the Stamina. e. A single Stamen. E. Ditto. J. A Female Flower. F. Ditto. g. The Acorn, or Nut, as it sits in its permanent Calyx. h. Ditto, separated from the Calyx. i. The Cup, or permanent Calyx. The ELM. Ulmus (Campestris. ) PENTANDRIA Dicynta. a. An entire Flower, B. Ditto. ce. The Calyx. C. Ditto. d. The Stamina. D. Ditto. e. The Pointal, or Female part of the Flower. E. Ditto, f. The Seed. g. A Branch, at the time of flowering, which happens before the leaves appear. The BEECH. Fagus (Sylvatica. ) Mownoecta Potyanpria. a. A Catkin of Male Flowers. b. A single Flower. B. Ditto. e. The Calyx. C. Ditto. d. A Female Flower. e. The Calyx. Jf The Germen, or Embryo, Pointals. g. The two Embryos with their Pointals, as they sit in the Calyx. h. The permanent Calyx, become a Capsule, or Seed-vessel. 4. Ditto, as it opens at the top. k. The two Seeds. with its three The HORNBEAM. Carpinus (Vulgaris, ) Monoecia PoLtyannpria. a. A Male Catkin. b. A Male Flower with its Scale, B. Ditto. ce. The Scale. C. Ditto. D. The Stamina. e. The Female Catkin. Jj. The Female Flower with its Scale. F. Ditto. G. The Scale. 376 THE TABLE OF h. The Petals. H. Ditto. i. The two Pointals. I. Ditto. k. The Petals grown larger, containing the two Seeds. t. One of the Seeds. The ASH. Fraxinus (Excelsior.) Potyeami1a Diorcra. a. An entire Hermaphrodite Flower. A. Ditto. The Flowers have neither Calyx nor Petals, and are only furnished with two Stamina. B. The two Stamina. ¢. The Embryo, with its Pointal. C. Ditto. d. An entire Female Flower. D. Ditto. They likewise have neither Calyx, Petals, nor Stamina, bearing only a Pointal. e. A winged Seed. The Seeds of the Herma- phrodite and Female Flowers are alike. J. The Crust opening, to shew where the Seed is lodged. g. The Sced. The CHESTNUT. Fagus (Castanea. ) Monorcta PoLyanpDRria. a. A Male Catkin. 6. A single Flower. B. Ditto. ce. The Calyx. C. Ditto. d. A Female Bud of Flowers: e. A single Flower. Jf. The Calyx. F. Ditto. g. Asingle Embryo, with its Pointals: G. Ditto. H. The two Embryos with their Pointals, set in their permanent Calyx. i. The spinous Capsule. k. The same, opening at the top to emit the Nuts or Seeds. i. A single Nut. The HORSE-CHESTNUT. Zsculus (Hippo-castanum. ) Hertranpria Monocynia. a. An entire Flower. b. The Calyx. c. The five Petals. d. The Stamina. e. The Embryo, with its Pointal. Jf. The spinous Capsule. g. A transverse Section of ditto, shewing the Par- tition and Receptacle. h. Ditto, as it opens in three divisions. i. The Nuts or Seeds. The WALNUT. Juglans ( Regia.) Monorcra Potyanpnria. a. A Male Catkin. b. Ditto, in its natural size. c. A single Male Flower. d. The Petals. e. The Stamina. Ii. A single Stamen. J. A Female Flower. g. Ditto, in its natural size. h. The Calyx. a. The Corolla. k. The iimbryo, with its Pointals. 1. The covering of the Shell. Drupa. m. The Nut, divested of its covering. m. Ditto, split open. o. A Kernel. The WHITE-BEAM. Crategus (Aria. ) IcosAnpDrIA Dicyntia. a. An entire Flower. b. The Calyx. c. The Petals, or Flower-leaves. d. The Stamina. e. The Pointals. f. The Embryo, as it sits within the Calyx, with its Pointals. g. The Fruit, or Berry. h. A transverse Section of ditto: FRUCTIFICATION. 377 «. A Vertical Section of ditto. k. The two Seeds. The WILD SERVICE. Crategus ( Torminalis.) Icosanpria Dicynia. a. An entire Flower. A. Ditto. b. The Calyx. B. Ditto. c. The Petals. C. Ditto. d. The Stamina. D. Ditto. e. The Pointals. E. Ditto. f. The Fruit, or Berry. g. A transverse Section of ditto. h. The Seeds. The WILD BLACK CHERRY. Prunus (Cerasus. ) IcosanpriA Monoeynta. . The Calyx. . An entire Flower. . The Stamina. . A single Stamen. D. Ditto. e. The Embryo, with its Pointal. E. Ditto. J: The Berry. g» A Vertical Section of ditto. h.. The Stone containing the Kernel. Qa fs Ss Aa The MAPLE. Acer (Campestre.) Potycamia Monoecta. d. The Stamina. e. The Embryo, with its Pointal. E. Ditto. g. A Male Flower, without the Stamina, &c. G. Ditto. The Calyx, Petals, and Stamina, are the same as in the Hermaphrodite Flowers. h. The two winged Seeds. i. One Wing cut open, to shew the situation of the Seeds. k. A Seed. The SYCAMORE. Acer ( Pseudo-platanus. ) Potycamia Monoecta. a. The Hermaphrodite Flowers growing on the same bunch with the Male Flowers f. b. The Calyx. ec. The Petals. d. The Stamina. Ki. The Embryo, with its Pointal. Jf. The Male Flowers. ; G. A Male Flower. The Petals and Stamina are the same as in the Hermaphrodite Flowers. H. A Male Flower, without the Stamina, &e. i. The two winged Seeds. k. One of the Wings cut open, to shew the situation of the Seed. i. A Seed. The LIME. Tilia (Europea. ) Potyanpria Monoeynia, a. An entire Flower, bo. The Calyx. ce. The Petals. d. The Stamina. e. The Embryo, with its Pointal, E. Ditto, with one Stamen and one Petal. a, The Hermaphrodite Flowers growing on the /f The Capsule. same bunch with the Male Flowers fi A. An Hermaphrodite Flower. b. The Calyx. c. The Petals. g. A transverse Section of ditto. h. The Capsule, as it opens below. i. The Seed. ; k. A Bractea, or Floral Leaf, 378 The WHITE POPLAR. Populus ( Alba.) Diorcta OcTANDRIA. a. A Male Catkin. b. An entire Male Flower. B. Ditto. e. The Scale, or Squama. d. The Nectarium. D. Ditto. E. A single Stamen. f. The Female Catkin. g- The Female Flower. G. Ditto. h. The Squama, or Scale. I. The Embryo, with its quadrifid Stigma. K. The Stigma. 7. The Capsule, or Seed-vessel. L. Ditto. m. Ditto, discharging its Seed. M. Ditto. nm. The Seeds. N. Ditto. o. The Nectarium of the Female Flower. QO. Ditto. The QUICK-BEAM. Sorbus ( Aucuparia. ) IcoSanDRIA TRIGYNIA. ad. An entire Flower. A. Ditto. b. The Calyx. B. Ditto. c. The five Petals, or Flower-leaves. C. Ditto. d. The Stamina. D. Ditto. e. The Embryo, with its three Stigmata. E. Ditto. f. The Fruit, or Berry. g. A transverse Section of ditto. h. The three Seeds. The HASEL. Corylus ( Avellana. ) Mownoecita Potyannria. a. A Male Catkin. b. A single Male Flower. B. Ditto. THE TABLE OF c. The Stamina. C. Ditto. D. A single Stamen. e. The Female Flowers. E. Ditto. J. Two lacerated Scales, that enclose the Embryo with its two Pointals. ~ F. Ditto. g- The Embryo, as it sits in the two Scales. G. Ditto. h. The Embryo. H. Ditto. i. The Nut. k. A vertical Section of ditto. 1. The Kernel. The BIRCH. Betula ( Alba.) Monoecra TETRANDRIA. a. The Male Catkin. b. The Calyx, consisting of three Scales, containing three Flowers. B. Ditto. C. The three Flowers, with their three Scales. D. A single Flower. K. Its four Segments. F. The Stamina. g- The Female Catkin. h. The Calyx, consisting of three Scales, each Seale containing two Embryos. H. Ditto. %. The Embryo, with its two Pointals. I. Ditto. k. The three Scales, each Scale containing two Seeds. K. Ditto. i. A Seed. L. Ditto. The ALDER. Betula ( Alnus.) Monoecta Terranpnia. a. The Male Catkin. b. The Calyx, consisting of four Scales, which con- tain three Flowers. B. Ditto. C. The three Flowers. D. A single Flower. FRUCTIFICATION. E. The Petals. F. The Stamina. g. A Female Catkin. h. The Calyx, consisting of three Scales, each Scale containing two Embryos. H. Ditto. 3. The Embryo, with its two Pointals. I. Ditto. K. The Cone, or Fruit. L. The three Scales, each containing two Seeds, m. A Seed. M. Ditto. The CRACK WILLOW. Salia (Fragilis. ) DioEecia DIANDRIA. a. The Male Catkin, growing on a different Tree from the Female. b. A Male Flower. B. Ditto, with its Nectarium c, and two Stas mina d. d. E. The Scale and Nectarium. f. The Female Catkin. g. A Female Flower. G. Ditto. H. The Embryo. 7. The Capsule. I. Ditto. K. A transverse Section of ditto. L. As it bursts to emit the Seed. M. A Seed. The SCOTCH FIR. Pinus (Sylvestris. ) Monoecta MonopELPuia.- a. A Male Catkin. b: The Gem, or Winter-lodge (Hibernaculum. ) e, The Scale, or Squama. d. A Cluster of Stamina. D. Ditto. e. A single Stamen. E. Ditto, with its Scale c. f- The future Cone. g- A single Scale of the Cone, with its two Embryos. G. Ditto. Volume I. 379 H. A single Embryo. 2. The Cone. k. The same opened, to shew where the Seeds are lodged. i. The inner Side of a Scale. m. The two winged Seeds. The WEYMOUTH PINE. Pinus (Strobus. ) Monorcia MonopeLPuia. a. The Gem, or Winter-lodge (Hibernaculum. ) b. The Male Catkin. C. A single Stamen, with its Scale. D. The Scale. E. A single Stamen. JS. The immature Cone. g- A single Scale of ditto, with its two Embryos. G. Ditto. H. A single Embryo, with its Pointal. i. A Cone. k. A single Scale, with its two winged Seeds. d. A Seed. The SILVER FIR. Pinus ( Picea.) Monorcta MonopeELpuia. a. The Gem, or Winter-lodge (Hibernaculum.) b. A Male Catkin. C. A single Stamen, with its Scale. D. The Scale. E. A Stamen. J. The Female Catkin, or future Cone. g. A single Scale, with its two Embryos. G. Ditto. H. A single Embryo, with its Pointal. i. The Cone. k. A single Scale, with its two winged Seeds. i. A single Seed. The SPRUCE FIR. Pinus (Abies.) Monorcia Monopetruta. a. A Catkin of Male Flowers. b. A single Stamen. B. Ditto. ce. The future Cone: 3C 380 d. A single Scale, with its two Embryos. D. Ditto. e. The Embryo, with its Pointal. E. Ditto. f. The Cone. g. A single Scale, with its two winged Seeds. h. A Seed. The LARCH. Pinus (Lariz.) Monoecta MonopDeELrPuta. a. A Male Flower. b. The Calyx. ce. The Calyx, shewing the situation of the Stamina. C. A single Stamen. d. The Female Flowers, or immature Cone. e. A single Scale, with its two Embryos. E. Ditto. f. A single Embryo, with its Pointal. F. Ditto. g- A Cone. h. A single Scale, with its two winged Seeds. H. Ditto. N. B. This figure is the American Larch. The MULBERRY. Morus (Nigra.) Monoecia TETRANDRIA. a. A Male Catkin. B. The Calyx. c. A Male Flower. C. Ditto. D. One Stamen. e. A Female Catkin. f. A Female Flower. F. Ditto. G. The Calyx. H. The Embryo, with its two Stigmata. i. The Fruit, consisting of many Berries. k. A single Berry. i. A Seed. L. Ditto. The CEDAR. Pinus (Cedrus. ) Monoecita MonopetpnHia. a. A Male Catkin. b. A single Scale, with its Stamen. THE TABLE OF B. A single Scale, with its Stamen. e. The future Cone. d. A single Scale of the Cone, with its two Embryos. D. Ditto. e. A single Embryo, with its Pointal. E. Ditto. J. The Cone. g- A single Scale, with its two winged Seeds. h. A single Seed. The ORIENTAL PLANE. Platanus ( Orientalis. ) Monoecita Potyanpria. a. A globular Catkin of Male Flowers. b. The Calyx. B. Ditto. c. The entire Flower. C. Ditto. d. The Petals. D. Ditto. E. The Stamina. F. A single Stamen. g. A globular Bunch of Female Flowers. h. The Calyx. H. Ditto. i. An entire Flower. I. Ditto. k. The Petals. K. Ditto. L. The Embryo, with its Pointal. m. The globular Cluster of Seeds. a. The Receptacle, to which the Seeds are affixed. O. A Seed. The OCCIDENTAL PLANE. Platanus ( Occidentalis. ) Monoecta Potyanprta. a. A globular Cluster of Male Flowers. b. The Calyx. B. Ditto. c. An entire Flower. C. Ditto. d. The Petals. D. Ditto. FRUCTIFICATION. E. The Stamina. F. A single Stamen. g. A globular Bunch of Female Flowers. h. The Calyx. H. Ditto. i. An entire Female Flower. I. Ditto. | k. The Petals. K. Ditto. L. The Embryo, with its Pointal. m. The globular Cluster of Seeds. nm. The Receptacle to which the Seeds are affixed. O. A Seed. The CORK-TREE. Quercus ( Suber.) Monoecita PoLyaAnpDRIA. a. A Male Catkin. b. c. The Calyx, in some quadrifid, and in some quinquefid, in the Male Flowers. B. C. Ditto. d. An entire Flower. - D. Ditto. e. A single Stamen. EK. Ditto. f. The Female Flowers. g. A single Flower. G. Ditto. H. A vertical Section of ditto. i. The young Acorn, or Fruit. I. Ditto. K. A vertical Section of ditto. The STRAWBERRY-TREE. Arbutus (Unedo. ) Decanpria Monoecynia. a. The Calyx. A. Ditto. b. The Corolla. ce. The same cut open, to shew the situation of the ten Stamina. C. A single Stamen. d. The Embryo with its Pointal, situated within the Corolla. D. Ditto. é. The Fruit. 381 J. A transverse Section of ditto. g. A vertical Section of ditto. h. The Seeds. The YEW. Taaus (Baccata. ) Diorcita MonopveE.truia. a. A Male Flower. A. Ditto. B. The Calyx. D. The Stamina. E. Two Stamina, one viewed in front, the other on the under side. J. The Female Flower. F. Ditto. G. The Calyx. I. The Embryo, with its Pointal. k. The Fruit, or Berry. Z. A vertical Section of ditto. m. The Seed. The HOLLY. Ilex ( Aquifolium.) TETRANDRIA TETRAGYNIA. a. An entire Flower. b. The Calyx. c. The Petals. _d. The Stamina. e. The Embryo. E. Ditto. Jf: The Berry. g- A transyerse Section of ditto, shewing the Con- ceptacle. h. The Seeds. H. A Seed. The HAWTHORN. Crataegus (Oxya- cantha. ) IcosanpriA Dicynia. a. An entire Flower. b. The Calyx. c. The Petals. d. The Stamina. D. One Stamen, e. The Embryo with its Pointal. J. The three Pointals. g- The Berry, or Fruit. - h. The Stone, containing the Kernel. 3C 2 IN D E X. The Roman character denotes the volume, the Arabic number the page. A AvetE, its proper soil, i. 209. How propagated, 210. Uses of its leaves and timber, 212. Acacia, a description of, ii. 66. Its proper soil, 67. Acorns, how to sow, i. 39. The Roman law concerning them, il, 24rd, AGE of trees, ii. 185. AIR, its effects upon trees, ii. 35. AALATERNUS, proper for hedges, ui. 78. ALDER, its soil and manner of pro- pagation, 1. 240. APHORISMS concerning seeds, plants, trees, woods, and timber, ii. 264. ArButTus, how propagated, ii. 86. Its uses, 88. Asu, how to raise from keys, i. 146. Spanish keys the best, ib. Its proper soil, 149. Uses of the wood, 150. ASPECT, to be observed in trans- _ planting large trees, i. 99. ASPEN, described, i. 214. Uses. of the wood, 217. A ABELE, a species of Poplar, i. 208. Apraxas, amulets used by the Basilidians, ii. 329. Acacia, the triple-thorned, called Gleditsia, ii. 66. Class and Order, ib. The false, called Robinia, 67. Class and Order, ib. Acorns, how to sow in the seminary, i. 41. 76, 88. How to dibble in large fields, 78. How to preserve during winter, 24. Were formerly the food of mankind, 96. AGRICULTURE, its importance to the state, i. 170. . Arr, necessary both for vegetable and ani- mal life, ii. 127. Is either active or fixed, 130. In both states it enters the leaves and roots of plants, ib. When putrid, it becomes the food of vegetables, i. 18. The priority of this discovery claimed by the editor, 18. Experiments made on putrid air, 20. ALATERNUS, its Class and Order, ii. 77. ALDER, a species of Birch, i. 226. Class and Order, ib. Its varieties, 241. Is excellent for piles to support buildings erected in moist and boggy places, 241. It may be raised from seed, ib. How to cultivate, 240.. Arsor VIT#, its species, ii. 40. Class and Order, 41. How to propagate, ib. Its uses, ib. Arsutus, how raised from seed, i. 88. Its species, ii. 86. Class and Order, 88. How to propagate, ib. Called Unedo by Pliny, and why, 89. Asu, the seeds of, how to sow, i. 42. _ Its species, 145. Class and Order, 146. How to propagate, ib. Caution in giving it a station, ib. Makes a profitable spring wood, 147. How pollarded, ib. One of an extra- ordinary size, 11. 200. Aspect, to be observed in transplanting large trees, i. 100. AsPEN, a species of Poplar, i. 208. INDEX. B Bark of trees, ii. 215. Bark-BounD TREES, how to treat, 11. 133. Bay-TREE, its history and culti- vation, 11.93. Was esteemed an ominous tree,96. Its efluvium thought wholesome, ib. Sprigs of it carried in the hands of common soldiers at triumphal entries, 97. BeExrcH, its kinds, 1. 132. How propagated,135. Said by Cesar not to be a native of Britain, ib. Uses of its timber and mast, 136, 137. BitLeT, measure of, by statute, li. 171, 254. Bircu, its proper soil, qualities, and uses, 1. 225. Its juice, how obtained, 232. The quantity produced, 233. How made into wine, 238. BLASTED PARTS OF TREES, to be removed, 11. 160. Boanrps, how to make of the best quality, 11. 226. Box-TRreEE, its soi}, culture, and uses, 1. 278, 279. Broom, Spanish, recommended, 11. 113. Buns of trees, what, 1. 215. B BasILipians, the sect of, 11. 308. Bay-TREB, its species, ii. 93. Class and Order, ib. How to propagate, ib. Is the Laurus of the ancients, 94. Its leaves were chewed by the Pythian priestess, previous to the delivery of her oracles, ib. Was called the Prophetic Tree, and why, ib. Beautifully de- scribed by Chaucer, 95. Beecu, the seeds of, how to sow, i. 42. Its species, 132, Class and Order, ib. 383 Its natural soil, 133. How propagated, ib. Was much admired by the ancient Shepherds, 134. Bircu, the seeds of, how to sow, 1. 48. Its species, 225. Class and Order, 226. How to propagate, 227. Used in Swe- den as a directory for sowing barley, 229. Make good nurses for young Oaks, 93. The young bark of the Canada’ kind used by the natives of Kampt- schatka for food, 226. Box-Tres, i. 278. Class and Order, ib. Varieties, ib. Was used by the ancients for making combs, 279. Was clipped into various shapes in the Roman gar- dens, ib. Broom, its Class and Order, ii. 113. Burn-Baxine, the good effects of, ac- counted for, i. 32. Cc CANDLEBERRY-IREE, its uses, il. 81. CANKER in trees, how cured, ii. 158, CATERPILLARS, how to destroy, ii. 161. CEDAR, its excellence and readi- ness to grow in any soil, ii. 5. The different kinds, 7. How to cultivate, 9. Its uses, 10. Its magnitude, 11. CELASTRUS, its use, li. 78. CHARCOAL, its different sorts, 11, 256. How to mix with loam for firing, 252. How made for the powder-mills, 259. How made for ordinary uses, 260. CHERRY-TREE, black, how to raise, 1. 181. CHESTNUT-TREE, how to raise from the nut,1.153. Its natural soil, 156. Isa native of Bri- tain, 160. Should not be re. moved, 158. Uses of its wood, 384 160. Its flour makes a strong food, 162. Circles, or rings of trees, a dis- sertation on, 11. 213. CoaTtiInc oF TrmBer, how to perform, ii. 234. Coprices, how to make, ii. 167. To take care of, 168. The number of scantlings to be left upon each acre per statute, 169. Cork-TREE, its sorts and uses, 1 firey CorNEL, recommended for its hardness, 1. 276. CrookED TREES, how to reform, i. 145. CyprREss, its sorts, 11.25. How to raise, 31. May be formed into hedges, 30. Should not be clip- ped late in autumn, 31. Will become astandard,ib. Its uses, 32. The wood supposed to be incorruptible, 34. Improves the air when growing, 35. C Cama@na&, whence derived, ii. 346. CANDLEBERRY-TREE, its Class and Order, ii. 81. A wax obtained from it, with which the Americans make candles, ib. CapriFIcaTION, how performed, ii. 145. Cepar of Lebanon, a species of Pine, ii. 5. How to sow the seeds, ib. To trans- plant, 6. A few only of these trees re- maining upon mount Libanus, 8. This species grows luxuriantly at Welbeck, i. 90. Sweet Cedar, a species of Juni- per, li. 15. CELASTRUS, its Class and Order, ii, 78. ‘CeLtis, its species, ii. 62. Class and Or- der, 64. How to propagate it, ib. Not the Lotus feasted on by the companions of Ulysses, 65. CuarcoaL, an incorruptible body, ii. 233. TAN D EOS Cuerry, Black, i. 181. Its Class and Order, ib. Cuerry, Canada, i. 182. CuEstNnuT-TREE, the nuts of, how to sow, i. 44. Its species, 153. Class and Order, 155. How to cultivate, 155. Its proper soil, 158. Supposed not to be a native of this island, 161. Those on Mount tna, described, ii. 193. Curistian, the charaeter of, incomplete, without an acquaintance with the history of the works of God. ii. 362. Coxsert, mistaken in his idea of agricul- ture, i. 170. ComposiTIon for removing the defects of trees, ii. 159. Cork-TREE, a species of Oak, ii.'73. Class and Order, ib. How to peel, ib. The oldest trees have the best bark, ib. CorRNELIAN CHERRY-TREE, i. 276. Its Class and Order, 277. How to pro- pagate, ib. CRaT&XGUS, its species, i. 175. How to pro- pagate, 179. Class and Order, ib. Crowns, Civic, of what made, i. 68. Crowns of roses worn by the Romans at their convivial entertainments, i. 203. Cypress, its species, ii. 25. Class and Order, 26. How to propagate, ib. Branches of this tree were placed before the doors of deceased persons, and why, 28. D DisBRANCHING of trees, when to be performed, 11. 225. , Distances, how to assign, for transplanted trees, 1. 56. DiviNING-Rop, not to be de- pended on, i. 223. Doewoop, its uses, ii. 115. Driv AND SHADE, to be removed from trees, ii. 123. Druvips, their origin and anti- quity, 11. 322. D Diseasrs, a proof of the life of plants, li. 157. DivINING-ROD, an imposition, i. 223. Dogwoop, its Class and Order, ii. 115. INDEX. Druips, their manner of gathering the Mistletoe, i. 10. Dupaim, rightly translated Mandrake, ii. 65. E EartH, what is meant by the term, 1. 14. Earwics, how to destroy, ii. 160. ELDER, its uses, il. 114. EM, its different kinds, i. 115, How to raise, 117. How to transplant, 125. Its proper soil, 126. When to fell, 129. Uses of the wood, ib. ‘The leaves given to cattle, 130. EvonyMus, its uses, il. 115. —E Ear of Corn, its mode of parturition, ii. 155. Eppystone light-house, when, and how destroyed, ii. 351. Epucation, the mode of, condemned by Mr. Evelyn, ii. 41. Eee, its state on the fourth day of incu- bation, 11. 135. ELper, its Class and Order, il. 113. Em, the seeds of, how to sow, i. 41. Its various species, 115. Class and Order, 117. Manner of propagation, ib. Proved an indigenous tree from Doomsday-book, 127. The leaves used by the an- cients for feeding of cattle, 130. Vir- gil esteems the flowers pernicious to bees, ib. ERADICATOR, one invented by the hon. John Bentinck, recommended, 1. 104. Evonymus, its Class and Order, ii. 115. Eyre, justices in, cannot sell timber unless it be sedente curia, ii. 278. Have divi- sum imperium with the exchequer, ib. Have no right to windfalls, ib. FEF Faaeors, the statutable measure of, 11. 255. FELLING of treestobedetermined 385 by the growth of the wood, 11. 217. ‘The season of, 218. FENCEs recommended, ii. 98. FERN, how to destroy, ii. 126. F'rr, its two principal species de- scribed, i. 282. How to sow the seeds, 291. How to trans- plant, 293. Uses of the wood, 312. Forests, laws and statutes for their improvement, i. 271.— What was anciently meant bya forest, 274. Orders given to the commander of the Spanish armada to destroy the forest of Dean, 276. Foreign forest laws, 278. Proposals how to improve our forests, 285. Ex- hortation to the nobility and gentry to improve their forests and woods, 301. FuEL, how to fell, 11. 250. How measured by the statute, 254. FurRZE recommended to be sown, li. 112. F— Farms, the king’s on Windsor forest, ii, 287. Fitzert, how cultivated in Kent, i. 221. Fir, Scotch, how to raise from seed, i. 48. Is an indigenous tree, 136. Czesar mis- taken in supposing it not a native of Bri- tain, ib, Classed with the Pines, 281, The inner rind made into flour by some northern nations, ib. White and red Fir the same, 204. FLowenrs, strewed upon the graves of the deceased, ii. 345. FotaTion of trees and shrubs, the order of, in England, i. 230. Should be con. sidered as a directory for sowing grain, 229. Forests in England, enumeration of, ii, 300, 386 Furze, its Class and Order, ii. 111. Re- commended for fodder, 112. G Gnratn, of timber, to be observed, li. 236. ° GraNnatum, or Malus Punica, how to cultivate, ii. 83. Graves, in Surry, decked with roses, ll. 345. Groves, an historical account of their sacredness and use, 11.319. Were early consecrated to holy uses by the patriarchs them- selves,as well as by the Gentiles, 322. The Druids celebrated the mysteries of their religion in groves, 332. Were an em- blem of the Elysium of the an- cients, 336.—W ere frequented by learned men, 334. ‘The an- cients lodged the bodies of great men in groves, and why, 340. Abraham had his burying-place set round with trees, 341. Christ and his apostles fre- quently resorted to such soli- tary places, ib. Sir W. Tem- ple ordered his heart to be bu- ried in a grove or garden, 344. Were consecrated to Minerva, Isis, Latona, Cybele, Osiris, Aesculapius, Diana, Vulcan, Venus, Cupid, Mars, Bellona, Bacchus, Silvanus, and the Muses, 346. Ancient and mo- dern stories concerning groves and trees, 347. (qian 5: Garpen, Roman, very similar to the Eng- lish garden of the last century, i. 271. Generation of plants, ii. 131.—Animal and vegetable generation nearly the IN DES same, 134. Equivocal generation, ab- surd and unphilosophical, i. 8. Was originally invented in Egypt, and for what purpose, ib. Lucretius condemns and ridicules it, ib. GtepitTstiA, il. 66. Class and Order, ib. Varieties, ib. How to cultivate, ib. Goats, thought to be injurious to Vines, li. 162. H HasEt, how to plant, 1.220. Its proper soil, 222. Uses of the wood, 223. HawtuHorn, how to raise, ii. 99. HeEnpGEs, how to make, ii. 101. HoLuownsss of trees, how to re- medy, ii. 158. Ho.ziy makes anexcellent hedge, i. 273. How to sow the berries, ib. Uses of the wood, 275.— Bird-lime made from Holly bark, and how, ib. HorneeEaM, how raised, 1. 139. Its proper soil, ib. Uses of the wood, 140. Makes noble hedges in gardens, 142. Hornets, how to destroy, 11.159. H Hast, its species, i. 220. Class and Or- der, ib. How propagated, ib. No dependence on it as a divining-rod, 293. Uses of the wood, ib. The Fil- bert not a distinct species, 221. How cultivated in Kent, ib. Hawrnorn, how to raise, i. 51. Its va- rieties, 177. Is a species of Crategus, ii. 99. Makes the best fence, 100. Is mentioned by Homer, ib. Herm, the termini of the Latins, an ac- count of, ii. 273. Horse-CuestnuTt, the nuts of, how to sow, i. 46. Is a native of the East, 159. Class and Order, ib. Its natural soil, 161. Its use, ib. Another species, ib- Hornseam, the seeds of, how to sow, i INDEX. 47. Has only two species, 139. Class and Order, 141. Hedges made of it in Westphalia, ib. Such recommended for this country, ib. Ho ty, its species, i. 269. Class and Or- der, 271. How to propagate, ib— Makes an excellent hedge, ib. Hops, when first introduced, ii. 172. The average duty upon, ib. Hot-Beps, best made with leaves and dung, li. 231. Hyssop of Judea, or Azoub, was the reed mentioned by St. Matthew, il. 202. A dissertation on, ib. J JASMINE, the cultivation of, re- commended, ii. 85. ILxEx, thrives well in this country, ii. 75. Was esteemed a de- voted tree, 76. Uses of its wood, ib. INFIRMITIES of trees, 1. 119. Tron Miuuts, their removal re- commended, 11. 279. JUNIPER, its different kinds, 11.12. How to raise from seed, 16. Ivy, how to destroy, ii. 156. A) oo JASMINE, its species, il. 85. Order, ib. ILex, a species of Oak, i. 70. ii. 75. Class and Order, ib. Insects, their eggs deposited on all kinds of trees, i. 110. Tron, no transmutation of into copper, 1, 112, Juniper, its species, ii, 12. Class and Order, 17. How to propagate, ib. Justices 1n Eyre, their power over the king’s woods limited, ii. 278. L Larcu, how to raise, i. 319.— Uses of the wood, 320, Volume II. Class and 387 LavreEt, i. 89. How to propa- gate, 93. Laws for the preservation of woods and forests, ii. 271. Layers, how to produce, ii. 266. LeEntiscus, how to propagate, 11. 82. Its uses, ib. LicustruM, its uses, il. 78. Limer-TREE, its kinds, 1. 201.— How to raise, 204. Its proper soil, ib. May be removed ofa large size, ib. Uses of its wood, 205. Loam, the manner of mixing with charcoal-dust for fuel, ii. 252. Lotus, its:history, 1. 62. Uses of the wood, 63. An immense price offered by Domitian to Crassus for twelve of these trees, ib. i Lanp, its quality known by its produce, 1. 8. Larcu, the seeds of, how to sow, i. 43. Is a species of Pine, 285. How to pro- pagate, 286. Yields the Venice turpen- tine of the shops, ib. Supposed to be the tree into which the Heliades were transformed, 216. Laurkt, a species of Prunus, ii. 89. Class and Order, ib. How to propagate, ib. When first brought into Europe, ib, In Italy, there are entire woods of this tree, 91. At Woburn, the Duke of Bedford has planted a hill solely with Laurels, ib. Laverina, the various methods described, 1. 58. LEarine of trees and shrubs, a sure direc; tory for sowing grain, i. 229. A dis- sertation upon, ib. Leaves of Elm, used by the Roman hus- bandmen for feeding cattle, i. 130, Leaves of Oak better for hot-houses than tanners’ bark, ii. 228. A dissertation on, ib, ~38D 388 Lentiscus, its Class and Order, ii. 82. Licurt, agreeable to plants, i. 37. Licustrem, its Class and Order, ii. 78. Lime-Trekr, the seeds of, how to sow, i. 45. Its species, 201. Class and Order, 202. Grows to a large size, 203. Uses of the wood, ib. Lime, how it promotes vegetation, i. 50. Linnzxus, his system founded upon the certainty that all plants have male and female organs, i. 65. Tournefort, Pon- tedera, and Alston, refuse to assent to this doctrine, ib. Loca Narauia of plants, an account of, li. 264. Locust-Tret, how to propagate, ii. 68. Its uses, ib. Two large trees of this sort growing at Wiseton, in Notting- hamshire, 71. Its leaves, when young, are fed on by cattle, ib. Lorus-Arzor, not the tree feasted on by the companions of Ulysses, ii. 65. Lucomsge, Mr. his account of a new species of Oak, i. 74. Lucus, whence derived, ii. 321. M Marte, how propagated, i. 184. Its uses, 186. Its ancient value, 193. Sugar made from its juice, 199. Mastic-TREE, ii. 82. Mice, how to destroy, ii. 161. MisTLETOE, itsnatureascertained by experiment, 1. 8. Its seeds will grow if inserted into the bark of the White Poplar, 217. Mo tes, hurtful to trees, 11. 160. Moss, how to remove, 11. 156. MuvLserry, howraisedfrom seed, ii. 45. How to transplant, 48. May be increased from layers, 50. Also by grafting and bud- ding, ib. How to prune, ib. Properties of the wood, 51.— How to gather the leaves, 54. IN DIETS Myrt te, how to raise, ii. 79.— Grows best near the sea-shore, 80. Should be often clipped, ib. ee yb Manprakg, supposed to be the Dudaim of the Scriptures, ii. 65. Manna, of the shops, produced from the Ornus, i. 151. Miller mistaken in sup- posing it collected from the Fraxinus Rotundifolia, ib. Map zg, the seeds of, how to sow, i. 46. Its species, 183. Class and Order, 195. How to propagate, ib. Sugar made of its sap, 185. Maronirtes, hold the annual “ Feast of Cedars” under the few remaining Cedars upon Mount Libanus, ii. 8. MistLetoz, how produced, i. 9. Was held in great veneration by the Druids, ib. Grows plentifully upon some dwarf Apple-trees in a garden at Knaresbro’, ib. Druidical ceremonies regarding it, still preserved in Acquitain, 10. The golden bough compared by Virgil to the Mistletoe, ib. Motion, a proof of vegetable life, ii. 119. Mountain Asu,i. 218. Class and Order, ib. Supposed to have the power of driving away witches and evil spirits, 219. Mu serry, the seeds of, how to sow, i. 46. Its species, ii. 48. Class and Or- der, 46. The oldest trees the most fruitful, 47. How to propagate, ib. Its proper soil, 48. Paper made from its bark, 45. The fruit recommended by Horace, 49. Myrica, Cerifera, its Class and Order, ii. 76. Myrt-Ler, its species, li. 79. Class and Order, 80. Held sacred to Venus, and why, ib. Crowns of this tree used at ovations, and why, 81. N NursEry, how to make, i. 38. NUTRIMENT of vegetables what, i. 27. INDEX. hy —— Nursery, how to make, i. 52. Should consist of a rich mould, ib. One raised upon Knaresbro’ Forest for the tenants of the crown, i. 96. NuratTion of plants, what, i. 37. O Oak, its kinds, 1.67. When to transplant, 84. Where it de- lights to grow, 85. Its uses, 106. Mensuration and histo- rical account of Oaks of im- mense size, li. 190. OzieER, its kinds, i. 245. How to cultivate, 252. O Oak, the propagation of, recommended, 1.67. Its species, 67—72. Class and Order, 75. How to raise, 75. How raised at Welbeck, 87. The leaves of this tree preferable to tanners’ bark in the hot-house, ii. 228. Cowthorpe Oak described, 208. Greendale Oak, two elegant views of, with tables of men- suration, 211. The Oak should be barked standing, 220. Was held sacred by the Greeks, Romans, Gauls, and Bri- tons, i. 96. The leaves used by the Ro- man husbandmen to crown their heads before harvest, ib. Dimensions of six large Oaks in Keddleston park, ii. 208, O11, supposed to be the principal food of plants, 1.27. Proofs in support of that opinion, 27—36. Outve, Wild, ii. 82. Class and Order, ib. OreanizatTion of plants, proofs of, ii, 119, Orwnus, a species of Ash, whence manna is collected, 1, 151. Osrricu, vulgar notions concerning this bird, confuted, i, 61. Pp Patiurus, how to propagate, ii. i109, 389 PALM-TREE, its uses, 11. 365. PHILLYREA, its species, uses, and culture, ii. '78. Pines, their several species, soil, culture, and uses, 1. 281. PismrreEs, how to destroy, ii. 61. Prrcu, how made, i. 316. PLANE-TREE, was held in great estimation by the ancients, 11. 58. When first brought into England, ii. 62. How propa- gated, ib. Puianks, the way of making good ones, i. 26. PLANTATIONS, cautions in form- ing, i. 54. Encouragements and directions for raismg plan- tations, 11. 285. PLANTERS generally blessed with health and long life, ii. 361. Popuar, its kinds, i. 208. How propagated, 209. Its shade reckoned wholesome, 212. The Virginian Poplar described,213. PRECEPTS, concerning _ trees, woods, and timber, 11. 264. Proportions of timber, ii. 248. Proposats for appointing per- sons to inspect into the state of planting in England, ii. 316. PRUNING of trees, 11.173. Instru- ments necessary for it,ib. The proper seasons for that opera- tion, 181. Directions and cau- tions concerning it, 182. PyYRACANTHA, proper for hedges, ii, 109. P Paiurus, its Class and Order, ii. 109. Was not the shrub employed in forming 3 D2 390 the crown placed on the head of Christ. ib. The bishop of Rochester’s opinion on that subject, 110. PALM-TREE, its various kinds and uses, ii. 365. PARTURITION of an ear of corn, similar to animal birth, 155. PuILLYREA, its species, il. 78. Order, 80. PINE, its species, i. 281. Classand Order, 287. How to propagate, 288. How raised in Scotland, 293. The various kinds, how raised from seed, 48. PinE-ApPpLes, best raised by Oak leaves, li. 228. Dissertation on, ib. PLANE-TREE, its species, ii. 58. Class and Order, 59. Varieties, ib. How pro- pagated, ib. Planted in the walks of the Academia, 61. One of a large size at Shadwell lodge, ib. Piantations, how raised at Welbeck, i. 87. Priants, the food of, i. 27. Such as bear an oily seed, are impoverishers of the soil, 29. Their anatomy, ii.120. Their perspiration proved, 123. Have no cir- culation of juices, 128. Originate from male and female parents, i. 65. Have a natale solum, ii. 264. Bulbous plants growing in water, no proof that water is the food of vegetables, 1. 28. Purny, his animated address to the hus- bandman, 1. 57. Puiny, the consul, his description of his Tuscan villa and garden, i. 279. Class and POMEGRANATE, its species, il. 83, Va- rieties, 1b. PorLar, its species, i. 208. Class and Order, 209. How propagated, ib. Was held sacred to Hercules, 212. The fall of Simoisius compared by Homer to a Poplar just cut down, ib. Phaéton’s sisters, Heliades, were net transformed into Poplars, 216. PrivET, its Class and Order, ii. 78.—Makes a handsome hedge, ib. Protiric Liquors, are of nu use to the farmer, 1.15. Condemned by Duhamel, ib. Experiments upon, 16. Pyracanrua, its Class and Order, ii. 109. INDEX Q Quvuercus-Marina, how used for fuel, 1. 253. QUICKBEAM, how to raise from seed, 1. 218. Its natural soil, ib. Uses of the wood, 219. QuickseEts, for fences, how to plant, ii. 101. Q— QuickBEAM, how raised from seed, i. 47. Class and Order, 216. Its natural soil, 219. Supposed to have the property of driving away witches and evil spirits, ib. Quickser HepGEs, of great antiquity, 1i. 95. R Rooks, hurtful to trees, ii. 162. aes agp Ren Ran, brings down the putrid and oleagi- nous particles floating in the atmosphere, for the nourishment of plants, i. 27. Rosinta, Class and Order, ii. 67. How to propagate, 68. Rooks are great devourers of new-sown acorns, ii 41. Ross-TreEs, planted inthe church-yards, ii. 345. Were used at the convivial enter- tainments of the Romans, i. 203. Rowan-rreE, i. 218. Explains a passage in Shakspeare’s Macbeth, 219. S SALLOW, its different kinds,i. 252. How to plant, ib. Its uses, 254. SAVINE, how propagated, ii. 38. SEASONING of timber, ii. 230. » SEATS in England famous for plantations, 11. 297. SEA-WRACK, itsuse for fuel, i1. 253. SEEDs of trees, how to sow, i. 38. INDE X. SEMINARY, how to make, i. 38. SERVICE-TREE, how to propagate, 1.175. Uses of the timber, 179. SHADE to be removed from trees, ii. 123. SMOKE, the bad effects of, i. 26. SPINDLE-TREE, its uses, 11. 109. SPINET, a sort of Pine, 1. 302. STATURE of trees, 11. 185. STATUTES for the better preserva- tionof woods and forests, 11.271. STRAWBERRY-TREE, its uses, ii. 87. SUBTERRANEAN TREES, aN ac- count of, 1. 305. SucKERS, how to remove, 1. 122. SUFFRUTICES, what, 1. 64. SycaMorgE, how raised, 1. 200.— Its kinds and uses, ib. Syrinca, how propagated, 11. 84. Se ee SarFrron, English, better than the foreign, li. 55. Sap of plants, has no czrculation, but rises and falls in the same system of vessels, li. 128. SAVINE, a species of Juniper, ii. 16. SEa-worm, an useful instrument in the economy of nature, ii. 235. Seeps of plants are impregnated eggs, ii. 133. The steeping of seeds adds nothing to the powers of vegetation, i. 15. Seminary, how to make, 1. 40. SEMINATION, autumnal, the most natural for tree-seeds, i. 24. SERVICE-TREE, its species, i. 175. How to propagate, 179. Class and Order, ib. SHERWOOD-FOREST, its history and improve- ment, il. 299. Smoke, beneficial in large towns, ii. 254. SoIL, its nature how to know, i. 14. SpartTiumM, 11. 107. Its Class and Order, ib. 391 SportTuLa, an account of, ii. 248. STAFF-TREE, ii. 78. Its Class and Order, ib. STRAWBERRY-TREE, how to raise from seed, i. 50. Its species, ii. 86. Class and Order, 88. How to propagate, ib. Pliny calls it Unedo, and why, 89. Sut.y, his just idea of agriculture, i. 170. SuN-FLOWER, experiments upon, ii. 123. Its affection to the sun, i. 37. Sycamore, the seeds of, how to sow, i. 46. Isaspecies of Maple, 183. How to propagate, ib. Syrinaa, its species, ii. 84. Class and Or- der, 85. How to propagate, ib. T TaMaRISsK, its properties and an- cient use, ii. 38. Tar, how made, i. 316. TEMPEST in 1703, the devastation occasioned by, ii. 350. TEREDO, and other tree-worms, how to remove, ii. 135. THORN, its use in fencing, ii. 99. THUYA, is a native of Canada, ii. 40. Its medicinal use, 41. TIMBER-TREES, how to remove, and when, i. 103. TIMBER, how to season, ii. 230. The goodness of, proved by weight, 235. Is esteemed the best which grows most in the sun, 237. Qualities and uses of the respective kinds, ib. Ex- periments to determine the comparative strength of the different kinds, 240. TREES, young, how to transplant, i. 52. Large trees, how to transplant, 101. Regard to be had to their aspect, 99. When totransplant, 54. Planted trees, 392 how to secure, 56. A tree de- fined, 64. Better raised from seed than suckers, 12. The situation to be observed, 100. Account of subterranean trees, 305. Infirmities of trees and their remedies, ii. 119. Crooked trees, how reformed, 145.— When excorticated, or bark- bared, how to remedy, 146.— Howto preserve from deer, rab- bits, and hares, 155. Mr. Law- son’s remarks concerning pru- ning and dressing of trees, 177. Mr. Brotherton’s observations concerning the same, 183. Age, stature, and felling of trees, 185. Instances of extraordinary large trees, 188. Advice to such as have trees in their gardens in - «London, 226. Ih TAMARISK, its species, ii. 38. Class and Order, 39. How to propagate, ib. Tempest in 1703 described, 11. 351. Terepo Navatis, an useful instrument in the economy of nature, il. 235. TeErRMINI, the hermez of the Greeks, an account of, ii. 273. Terra, Mr. Evelyn’s, when published, i. 14. Tuuya, its species, ii. 40. Class and Order, 41. How to propagate, ib. Its uses, ib. Trimser, standing, a caution concerning the manner of its valuation, i. 108. TRANSMUTATION of iron into copper, a fal- lacious experiment, i. 112. TREE, a definition of, i. 4. Trees differ from herbs, i. 4 From shrubs, ib. Their medicinal virtues oc- casionally mentioned by Virgil, 5. A discourse on their foliation, 229. Their anatomy, ii. 120. Were the habitations of men in their wild state, 348. Subter« yanean trees, an account of, i. 308. IX Dea ‘TREE-sEEDS, how to sow with corn, i. 84. Touvte-rrer, i. 214, Its Class and Order, ib. A description of, ib. Turnips make a good preparation for planting, i. 90. V VEINS of timber, how to distin- guish, il. 236. V VecETABLES, the analogy between them and animals, i. 33. Seek and incline to the light, 37. Some follow the sun, ib. This circumstance beautifully de- scribed by Thomson, ib. Are organized bodies, ii. 119. Their life proved from various circumstances, ib. Their ana- tomical structure, 120. Their genera- tion similar to that of animals, 131.— _Have a natale solum, 264. During in- fancy, have the strongest analogy to ani- mal life, 135. VEGETABLE and animal parturition very similar, il. 155. VIBURNUM, ii. 116. WwW W ALNUT-TREE, its kinds, 1. 164. Its natural soil, 168. Uses of the wood, 172. WATER, its use in vegetation, i. 26. WATERING of seminaries, how performed, i. 42. WAYFARING-TREE, its uses, il. 116. WILLow, its kinds, i. 258. How to plant, ib. WINCHESTER, bishop of, his ex- cellent prayer for blessings upon the seasons, i. 165. Wirny, how to plant. 1. 249.— Its uses, 250. Woop, why upon the extirpation of one kind, another of a diffe- INDEX. rent species succeeds, 11. 227. The qualities of the several kinds, 236. Laws and statutes for the preservation and im- provement of woods, 271. Why the heathens performed their religious rites in woods, 322. We[ Watnut, the nuts of, how to sow, i. 44, Species, 164. Class and Order, 166. How to propagate, ib. Its shade thought unwholesome, 169. The nuts formerly strewed at weddings, and the reason, 167. Waste Lanps, how to sow with tree-seeds, 1. 84. Water, not the food of plants, i. 27. Is only a vehicle, ib. Does not nourish bulbous roots, ib. WavyFARING-TREE, ii. 116. WIziLow, its various species, 1. 245. Class and Order, 249. How to propagate, ib. Used by the ancients in the vineyards, 251. Made into baskets by the ancient Britons, and prized at Rome, ib. 393 Winpsor Forest, how improved, ii. 287. Woop, the comparative strength of, ii. 239. Woops, greatly injured in the reign of Henry VIII. i. 2. Sustained great in- juries during and after the civil war, ib. Want a proper superintendency, ib. X XERXES, the respect paid by him to a Plane-tree, 11. 58. iY, YEw, its uses, i. 264. How to raise, 269. One of an immense size, 11. 205. Yucca, its uses, 11. 116. Y— Yew, i. 264. Class and Order, ib. How to propagate, ib. Its varieties, 266.— One of an immense size described, ii. 205. A description of those growing near Fountain’s Abbey, i. 267. The leaves of, poisonous, ib. Yucca, its Class and Order, ii. 116. Ente ut, 8 ie ; t i, wale A dy 1c ime A a en aver ad pete Tbe a pee : it) ali gehen ee ef Les ff ¥ ba saity! ‘ ane a an ee | TERR A: PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE EAR T H. CULTURE AND IMPROVEMENT OF IT, FOR VEGETATION AND THE PROPAGATION OF PLANTS, AS IT WAS PRESENTED TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. By J. EVELYN, Esq. F.R.S. WITH NOTES, By A. HUNTER, M.D. F.R.S. L.& E. se ! £ 4 OTR ia es ALPS! ehh Pp ETL ASL OE {Shes eM Fiork Banat ihe Uh Ae La aoe Es THE EDITORS PREFACE. Ture TERRA was written by Mr. Evelyn, at the request of the Royal Society, about twelve years after the publication of the SILVA : and as every thing that came from his pen received distinguished marks of public approbation, he had the satisfaction to see it undergo several impressions during his life-time, to each of which he added something. From the extreme veneration that I entertain for the memory of so worthy and good a citizen, I have here attempted a re-publication of that celebrated work ; and I would fain flatter myself that it will be found free from the inaccuracies with which the other editions abound. The occasional Notes are introduced with a design to give the reader a more extensive view of the subject, which has received much improvement since the days of our most excellent Author. It was my intention to have added this Discourse to my first Edition of the Strva; but, when that was ready for the press, I had made but little progress in the examination of this; and indeed it was then uncertain whether I should ever complete it, as such works are with me an amusement, and not a study. A. HUNTER. York, JAN. 1, 1786. 3 E 2 < > * i eae oti pits ; * | - 7 ; spel ot aur vlKon OUND a @ oul bytes itty eon a, age tee oh hes | , had 4s ey | : wh TAR TORE Nu < ; "i ito Wille Re ‘ i , ; ' ty To JOHN EVELYN, Esq. SIR, Tue Council of the Roya Society, considering with themselves the great importance of having the Public Meeting of the said Society constantly provided with entertainments suitable to the design of their Institution, have thought fit to undertake to contribute each of them one; not doubting but that many of the Fellows of the Society will join with them in carrying on such an undertaking: and being well per- suaded of your approbation of this their purpose, (so much tending to the reputation and support of the Society.) they desire that you would be pleased to undertake for one; and to name any Thursday after the fourteenth of January next, such as shall be most convenient for you, when you will present the Society at one of their Public Meetings, by yourself, or some other of the Fellows for you, with such a Discourse, (grounded upon, or leading to, Philosophical Experiments,) on a subject of your own choice. In doing of which you will benefit the Society, and oblige, Sir, Your humble Servant, BROUNCKER, P.R.S. Lonpon, DEc. 28, 1674. A > : bs Mg . Ve ee a * ae ™ ay iat ' oT ¥ * ; = + omy Briel Siniesivzuoirtlye seettedrene ete eeteitb tti evihett Loxit tbo ‘ac ebtecw at ihc mh thse dae ‘ebb, wh i To the Right Honourable LORD VISCOUNT BROUNCKER, PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. My Lorp, I HAVE, in obedience to your Lordship, and the irresistible suffrages of that SociETy over which you preside, resigned these Papers to be disposed. of as you think fit. I hear your Lordship’s sentence is, they should be made public. Why should not a thousand things of infinitely more value, daily enriching their collection, (and which would better justify the laudable progress of that Assembly,) be oftener produced, as some of late have been? This, my Lord, would obviate all unkind objections, and cover the infirmities of the present Discourse, with things indeed worthy our Institution. But, as lam to obey your Lord- ship’s commands, so both your Lordship and the Society, are account- able for publishing the imperfections of, My Lorp, Your Lordship’s and Their most obedient Servant, APRIL 29, 1675. J. EVELYN. yy Wek ' " ’ a oe ‘s A t * > - *4; ; ’ . ; Cis ue hed art Cites uy cine in anynitins atdieicgnt hich sieht Pee ole at 3 \ 4a ie test Cauiteok desk % St f Daiohere iis ataivdy, bly sem ane i hes 2 | tt ini ont ‘ai ino escort coins wi0% 0 ¢ : iM a aN ssa i pos eae we va Aye a as 4 ty dis 4 “sh : ee By +f Bs a : TERRA, &e. I AM called upon by command from your lordship, and the council who direct the progress of the Royal Society, to entertain this illustrious assembly. with something which, being either deduced from, or leading to, philosophical experiment, may be of real use, and suitable to the design of its institution. I am highly sensible as of the honour which is done me, so of the great disadvantages I lie under for want of abilities to carry me through an undertaking of this importance, and before such acute and learned judges; but I hope my obedience to your commands will cover those defects, for which I can make no other apology. There are few here, I presume, who know not upon how innocent and humble a subject I have long since diverted my thoughts ; and, therefore, I hope they will not be displeased, or think it unworthy of their patience, if from their more sublime and noble speculations, (and which do often carry them to converse among the brighter orbs and heavenly bodies,) they descend a while, and fix their eyes upon the earth, which I make the present argument of my Discourse. I had once indeed pitched upon a subject of a somewhat more brisk and lively nature; for what is there in nature so sluggish and dull as earth ? What more spiritual and active than vegetation, and what the earth produces? But this, as a province becoming a more steady hand and penetrating wit than mine to cultivate, (unless where it transitorily comes in my way to speak of salts and fer- ments,) I leave to those of this learned Society, who have already given such admirable essays of what they will be more able to accomplish upon that useful and curious theme; and, therefore, I beg leave that I may con- Volume ITI. 3 F 2 A DISCOURSE tine myself to my more proper element, the earth, which, though the lowest and most inferior of them all, yet is so subservient and necessary to vegetation, as without it there could hardly be any such thing in nature. To begin: I shall, in the first place, describe what I mean by earth : then I shall endeavour to shew you the several sorts and kinds of earth : and lastly, how we may best improve it to the uses of the husbandman, the forester, and the gardener ; which is, indeed, of large and profitable extent, though it be but poor and mean in sound, compared to mines of gold and silver, and other rich ores, which likewise are the treasures of the earth, but less innocent and useful. I intend not here to amuse this noble audience, or myself, with those nice inquiries concerning what the real form of that body or substance is, which we call earth, denudated and stripped of all heterogeneity, and reduced to its principles: as whether it be composed of sandy, central, nitrous, or other salts, atoms, and particles : whether void of all qualities but dryness, and the like, (as they commonly enter into the several de- finitions of philosophers,) nor of what figure and contexture it consists, which causes it to adhere and combine together, so as to affirm any thing dogmatically thereupon; much less shall I contend whether it be a planet. moving about the sun, or be fixed in the centre of the universe; all which have been the curious researches and velitations of our later theorists ; but content myself with that body or mass of glebe which we both dwell on, and every day cultivate for our necessary subsistence, as it affords us corn, trees, plants, and vegetables of all sorts, useful for human life, or the innocent refreshment of it. Those who have written de Arte Combinatoria, reckon up no fewer than one hundred and seventy-nine millions, one thousand, and sixty dif- ferent sorts of earths ; but of all this enormous number, as of all other good things, it seems they do not acquaint us with above eight or nine eminently useful to our purpose; and truly I can hardly yet arrive at somany. Such as I find naturally and usually to rise from the pit, I shall here spread before you in their order. The most beneficial sort of mould or earth, appearing on the surface, (for we shall not at present penetrate lower than is necessary for the plant- OF EARTH. 3 ing and propagation of vegetables,) is the natural under-turf earth; but for a description of the rest which succeed it in strata, or layers, till we arrive at the barren and impenetrable rock, I shall refer the critical reader to the old geoponic authors. Most, or all, of these strata lying in beds one upon another, from softer to harder, better to worse, usually determine in sand, gravel, stone, rock, or shell; which last we frequently meet with in marshes and fenny delves, and sometimes even at the foot of high mountains, and sometimes on their very tops, after divers successions of different moulds, and at the bottom of the profoundest pits, as im that deep perforation made at Am- sterdam, in order to the building of the Stadt-house*. All which, and the cause of the successions of the several strata of fossils, &c. so bedded @ Varenius informs us, that in a well which was dug at Amsterdam to the depth of two hundred and thirty-two feet, the following substances were found in succession: seven feet of vegetable earth ; nine of turf; nine of soft clay ; eight of sand; four of earth; ten of clay ; four of earth ; ten of sand ; two of clay ; four of white sand; five of dry earth ; one of soft earth; fourteen of gravel; eight of clay mixed with sand; four of gravel mixed with shells; an hundred and two feet of clay, and then thirty-one feet of sand.— Mr. Buffon, in the first volume of his Natural History, gives us still a more exact enu- meration of the different beds of earth found at Marly-la-Ville, to the depth of one hundred and one feet. 1. A free reddish earth, with much vegetable mould, a very small quantity ae of vitrifiable sand, and somewhat more calcinable sand or gravel .........:.. 13 0 2. A free earth, mixed with more gravel, and a little more vitrifiable sand ...... 2 6 3. Earth, mixed with vitrifiable sand in a very great quantity, and which made but very little effervescence with aqua fortis ...... peeeceres MasMiieweeabtvuaves ve 3 ~O 4, Hard marble, which made a great effervescence with aqua fortis ©............... 2 0 5. Very hard marly stone ......../..0..006. bideiataecncesacaecerse tapas tae remestistiis svt et we 4 0 6. Marl in powder, mixed with vitrifiable sand -s.issiveveessercvestecsesssssvcsccessere OF O 7. Very fine vitrifiable sand ........../6044 PESEISSLSe Acces Weaver ousvoensvecdesesees £6 8. Earthy marl, mixed with a little vitriflable aud aerate SOBER CONC OTI SC USCC Hee Umea 64 9. Hard mar], in which was real flint . FN sr OM GOB COO SOD OCCHOODNCOSOT ERROR EE Ac Btn Rac seuul O} 10. Gravel, or powdered marl vidalon, ail Lodlila vested bry \cichbepsoscaecatin done cit bey TAO 11. Eglantine, a stone of the grain and hardness of marble, and sonorous ......... 1 6 Loe Marly Moravelt aaccessterdsees co .cc tue Saks sense no eae Rows Scent eaital Soe AOe esta sodacecse 1 6 13. Marl in the form of hard stone, whose grain was very fine .....6..0606 sscoseeeeee 1) OG 14. Marl like stone, with a graitt! not’so fine ....ccccessesseseccssssnccesvers vevseeseenes 1 6 Carried over 45 0 3 F2 4 A DISCOURSE through the whole terrestrial globe, the ingenious Dr. Woodward attri- butes to a total dissolution of the materials which constituted the original fabric of the antediluvian world, When the commotion of the waters be- ginning to calm and relax, the disunited floating particles promiscuously blended, sunk down, and subsiding according to their specific gravities, settled in the beds and strata we now every where find. But of this, and other effects of the deluge, see the learned doctor’s Essay °. I begin with what commonly first presents itself under the removed turf, and which, for having never been violated by the spade, or received any foreign mixture, we will call virgin-earth ; not that of the chemists, and the searchers after the philosopher’s stone, but what is found lying Fe. In. Brongnerover: sees ssenssasmesterncey 400 15. Marl, still more gross .......s0s00e20. ener a dels ae uk coin ee Pate en neala ss nsialas eae alan) Tao) nS 16. Very fine vitrifiable sand, mixed “Ath fossil as Petes. ited had noad- herence with the sand, and whose colours and polish were perfect .......... 1 6 17. Very small gravel, or fine marl powder ....0..cs04-es-coeressoeseccoscsesessecencerere 2 O 18.. Marl) in, the, form, of hard: stone |. «a okesers-+sa sup In the year 1695, Dr. Woodward published his celebrated work, entitled, “An Essay towards a Natural History of the Earth,” of which Mr. Evelyn has given us a very just and concise account... The doctor’s theory met with many warm opponents, which obliged him to engage deeply in the defence of it; and so fondly was he attached to his doctrine, that he founded a lecture in the university of Cambridge to be read there in defence of it, which he endowed with a salary of one hundred pounds per annum. The ingenious and learned Dr. Middleton was appointed the first lecturer. OF EARTH. 5 about a foot deep, more or less, in our fields, before we come to any manifest alteration of colour or perfection. This surface-mould is the best and sweetest, being enriched with all that the air, dews, showers, and celestial influences can contribute to it: for it is with good earth as with excellent water, that is the best which with least difficulty receives all external qualities; for the fatness of this under-turf mould, being drawn up by the kindly warmth of the sun to the superficies, spends but little of its vigour in the grass and tender verdure which it produces, and easily nourishes without dissipating its virtue, provided no rank weeds or predatious plants (consummating their seeds) be suffered to grow and exhaust it, but maintains its natural force, and is, therefore, of all other uncultivated moulds, the most grateful to the husbandman *. Now as the rest of incumbent and subjacent earths approach this in- virtue, so they are to be valued ; and of these there are several kinds, dis- tinguishable by their several constitutions; the best of which is black, fat, yet porous, light, and sufficiently tenacious, without any mixture of sand or gravel ; rising in pretty gross clods at the first breaking up of the plough ; but with little labour and exposure falling to pieces, but not crumbling altogether into dust, which is the defect of a more vicious sort. Of this excellent black mould, fit almost for any thing without much manure, there are three kinds, which differ in hue and goodness. The next layer in series to this, is usually mixed with a sprinkling of stones, somewhat hard, yet friable, and when well aired and stirred, is ¢ With this loose covering, the earth is every where invested, unless it be washed off “Itis the earth that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born, It is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy to man. The body of waters deluge by rains, or removed by some other external violence. him with rains, oppress him with hail, and drown him with inundations ; the air rushes in storms, prepares the tempest, or lights up the volcano; but the earth, gentle and indul. gent, ever subservient to the wants of man, spreads his walks with flowers, and his table with plenty ; returns with interest every good committed to her care; and though she pro- duces the poison, she still supplies the antidote; though constantly teased more to furnish the luxuries of man than his necessities, yet, even to the last, she continues her kind in- dulgence, and when life is over, she piously hides his remains in her -bosom.” Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. i. 6 A. DISCOURSE not to be rejected ; the looseness of it admitting the refreshment of showers, renders it not improper for trees and plants which require more than ordinary moisture. Declining from this in perfection, is the darkish gray or tawny, which, the deeper your mine, rises veined with yellow, and sometimes reddish, till it end in pale; and if you penetrate yet farther, commonly in sand or gritty stone. Of a second class, is mould of an obscure colour, also, more delicate grain, tender, chessom, and mellow ; clear of stones and grittiness, with an eye of loam and sand, which renders it light enough, yet moist; of all other the most desirable for flowers and the coronary garden. To this we add a yet more obscure and sandy mould, accompanied with a natural fatness; and this, though rarer, is incomparable for all sorts of fruit-trees. A third participates of both the former; fattish, yet interspersed with small flints and pebbles, not to be altogether neglected. A fourth is totally sandy, and that of divers colours, with sometimes a bottom of gravel, now and then rock, and not seldom clay ; and, as the foundations are, so it is more or less retentive of moisture, and tolerable for culture ; but all sand does easily admit of heat and moisture, and yet for that not much the better; for either it dismisses and lets them pass too soon, and so contracts no ligature, or retains them too long, especially where the bottom is of clay, by which it parches or chills, producing nothing but moss, and disposes to cankerous infirmities ; but if, as some- times it fortunes, that the sand have a surface of more genial mould, and a bottom of gravel or loose stone, though it do not long maintain the virtue it receives from heaven, yet it produces forward-springing, and is parent of sweet grass, which, though soon burnt up in dry wea- ther, does as soon recover with the first rain that falls. Of pure and sheer sand, there is white, black, bluish, red, yellow, harsher, and milder, and some mere dust in appearance, none of them to be desired alone; but the gray-black and ash-coloured, and that which frequently is found in heathy commons, or the travelling kind, volatile, and exceedingly light, is the most insipid and worst of all. I do not here = OF EARTH. 7 speak of the drift and sea-sand, which is of admirable virtue and use in mixtures, and to be spread on some lands, because it has been described so accurately already in a just discourse upon another occasion, by an ex- perienced gentleman dwelling in the western parts, where this manure is perfectly understood, and recommended to more general use. Ass of sands, so are there different sorts of clays, and of as different colours, whereof there is a kind so obstinate and ill-natured, as almost nothing will subdue ; and another so voracious and greedy, as nothing will satiate, without exceeding industry, because it ungratefully devours all that is applied to it, turning it into as arrant clay as itself. Some clays are more pinguid than others; some more slippery ; all of them te- nacious of water on the surface, where it stagnates and chills the plant without penetrating ; and in dry seasons, costive, and hardening with the sun and wind; most of them pernicious and untractable. The unctuous and fatter clay frequently lies upon the other, having oftentimes a basis of chalk beneath it ; but neither is this worth any thing till it be loosened and rendered more kind, so as to admit of the air and heavenly influences: in a word, the blue, white, and red clays (if strong) are all unkind; the stony and looser sort is yet sometimes tolerable ; but the light brick earth does very well with most fruit-trees. I had almost forgotten marsh-earth, which, though of all other seem- ingly the most churlish, a little after it is first dug and dried, (when it soon grows hard and chaps,) may, with labour and convenient exposure, be brought to an excellent temper; for being the product of rich slime, and the sediment of land-waters and inundations, which are usually fat, as also the rotting of sedge, yea, and frequently of prostrated trees, rotted, and now converted into mould, it becomes a very profitable land; but whether I may reckon this among the natural earths, I do not contend, Of loams and brick-earths we have several sorts, some approaching to clay, others nearer marl; differing also in colour; and if it be not too rude mingled in just proportion with other mould, an excellent ingre- dient in all sorts of earth, and so welcome to the husbandman, and espe- cially the gardener, as nothing does well without a little dash of it, 8 A DISCOURSE Of marl (a substance between clay and chalk, of a cold, sad nature) we have seldom such quantities in layers as we have of the forementioned earths ; but we commonly meet with it in places affected to it, and it is taken out of pits at several depths, and of divers colours, red, white, eray, blue, all of them unctuous, of a slippery nature, and differing in goodness ; for, being pure and immixed, it sooner relents after a shower, and when dried again, slackens and crumbles into dust, without indura- tion, and growing hard. All the kinds are profitable for barren grounds, . as abounding with nitre *. Lastly, chalk. This is, likewise, of several kinds and colours ; hard, soft, fine, coarse, abstergent, slippery, and marly, and apt to dissolve with the weather into no unprofitable manure. Some kinds have a sandish, others a blacker and light surface; and there is a sort which produces sweet grass and aromatic plants, and some so rank, especially in the valleys of very high hills, as to feed not only sheep, but other cattle, to great advantage, as we may see in divers places among the downs of Sussex. But it has a peculiar virtue above all this, to improve other lands, as we shall come to shew. I forbear to speak particularly of fullers’-earth, tobacco-pipe clay, dry and astringent, the white cimolia, and the several fictile clays, be- - cause they are not so universal and serviceable to the plough and spade ; much less of terra lemnia, chia, melitensis, hetrusca, and the rest of the sigillate ; nor of the boles, rubrics, and ochres, figuline, stiptic, smegmatic, &¢c. as they are diversely qualified for several uses, medicinal and mechanical, but content myself with those I have already enume- rated °. - 4 Whoever is desirous of obtaining a just and philosophical idea of marl, may consult Dr. Ainslie’s account of that substance, as inserted inthe Georgical Essays. Inthe same work, there is a most useful Essay by the ingenious Mr. Henry, of Manchester, on the manner of compounding (factztious marl, for the use of such farmers as reside in countries where genuine marl cannot be obtained. Sand and calcareous earth plentifully bestowed upon heavy clay land, will, for a time, convert the surface, to the depth of some inches, into a kind of marl. It were to be wished that the mixture of opposite soils was more attended to by the farmer, and this happy consequence would follow, that over-stiff and adhesive lands would be made tender and over-sandy lands would have a texture given them. ¢ Earths consist of very minute and almost impalpable particles, cohering very slightly OF EARTH. 9 Now, besides the description and characters we have given of these several moulds and earths, as they reside in their several beds and couches, there are divers other indications, by which we may discover their quali- ties and perfections; as, amongst others, a most infallible one is, their disposition to melt and crumble into fine morsels, not turn to mud and mortar, upon the descent of gentle showers, how hard soever they seem before, and if in stirring, they rise rather in granules, than massy clods. If, upon excavating a pit, the mould you exhaust do more than fill it again, Virgil tells us it is a good augury ; upon which Laurembergius affirms, that at Wittemberg, in Germany, where the mould lies so close, together. They do not burn, nor are they malleable ; are easily diffusible, but not soluble, in water. Properly there are but two sorts : I. Argillaceous earths, which harden in the fire, and do not dissolve in the mineral acids. II. Alkaline, or calcareous earths, which in the fire burn to lime, and dissolve in the mineral acids. ARGILLACEOUS EARTHS Consist either of spongeous, or of smooth, tenacious parts: the former is called vegetable earth, or mould ; the latter clay. Among the clays are reckoned : I. Potters’ earths, viz. 1. Loam, which is coarse, irony, and very sandy. 2. Common potters’ clay, which is heavy, without sand, of different. substance and colour, whence some require a greater degree of heat to flux them than others. 3. Fine clay, or porcelain clay, which is smooth one greasy to the touch, and of va- rious colours. II. Medicinal earths, viz. 1. Boles and terre sigillate. III. Mechanical earths, viz. 1. Tripoli. 2. Fullers’ earth, which lathers like soap, and raises a froth in the water. But the true fullers’ earth dissolves in acids, and consequently belongs to the marl. earths. IV. Painters’ earths, viz. 1. White: 4. Mineral red. 2. Mineral yellow. 5. Mineral blue. 3. Umber. 6. Mineral green. To the Arkauine or Catcarzous eartus, belong the following : I. Chalk. This is composed of fine particles, adhering closely together, and forming a pretty compact texture. It colours the hand upon being touched, and commonly is white, but sometimes is of different colours and kinds. Il. Marls. These are of a loose, friable texture, easily reducible into powder, and readily separating and diffusing in water. Whtn_ recently dug out of the ground, they Volume II. 3G 10 A DISCOURSE as it does not replenish the foss out of which it has been dug, the corn which is sown in that country soon degenerates into rye; and what is still more remarkable, that the rye sown in Thuringia (where the earth is less compacted) reverts, after three crops, to be wheat again f. My lord Bacon directs to the observation of the rainbow, where its extremity seems to rest, as pointing to a more roscid and fertile mould ; but this, I conceive, may be very fallacious, it having two horns, or bases, which are ever opposite. But the situation and declivity of the place is commonly a more certain mark; as what lies under a southern, or south-east rising ground; but are pretty hard, but being exposed to the air, soon fall into powder. They are of various colours, but are seldom pure, being commonly mixed with a portion of argillaceous earth. *,* As stones are intimately connected with earths, I shall, in this place, give a general idea of them, in order that the reader may have a full and comprehensive view of that mixed body, which is the subject of this Essay. Stones may be comprehended under the four following genera : Calcareous, or lime stones. 1. These effervesce with, and dissolve in, the mineral acids; and in the fire burn to lime. II. Argillaceous, or clay stones. 1. These are insoluble in acids, and burn to hardness in the fire. III. Gypseous, or plaster stones. 1. These are not affected by acids. They burn to plaster in the fire, and being wetted with water, presently grow hard, in which they differ from lime, which does not harden upon wetting, unless mixed with sand, and not then till after a long time. IV. Vitrescent, or glass stones. 1. These suffer no change with acids, and in the fire run’ to glass. All this genus strike fire with steel, except the glass spar and the pumice stone. *.* A great many small, visible, vitrescent stones, constitute what is called sand, which is either coarse or fine. Sometimes sand consists of one species only, but oftener of two or more. When these cohere, they form the grit or sand stone, of which mill-stones, grind-stones, &c. are made. f This observation of Laurembergius has neither reason nor experiment to recommend it, It is in the last degree absurd. OF EARTH. 11 this is also eligible according to the purposes you would employ it for ; some plants affecting hotter, others colder exposures; some delight to dwell on the hills, others in the valleys and closer seats ; and some again are indifferent to either; but generally speaking, most of them choose the warm and more benign; and the bottoms are universally fertile, be- ing the recipients of what the showers bring down to them from the hills and more elevated parts. Another infallible indication is the nature and floridness of the plants which the land naturally produces; as where thistles spontaneously thrive; where the oak grows tall and spreading ; and as the plant is of kind, so to prognosticate for what tillage, or other use, the ground is preper. ‘Thyme, strawberries, betony, and sorrel, direct to wood ; chamomile, toa mould disposed for corn and hortulan furniture ; burnet, to pasture ; mallows, to roots, and the like, as my lord Verulam and others observe. On the contrary, some grounds are so cold, as naturally to bring forth nothing but gorse, broom, holly, yew, juniper, ivy, and box; which may happily direct us to the planting of pine, firs, the phillyreas, laurel, Spanish broom, and other perennial verdures, in such places. Moss, rushes, wild tansey, sedge, flags, fern*, yarrow, and where plants appear withered or blasted, shrubby and curled, (which are the effects of immoderate wet, heat and cold, interchangeably,) are natural auguries of a cursed soil; yet I have observed some ferny grounds proper enough for coppice and forest-trees. Thus, as by the plant we may conjecture of the mould, so by the mould we may guess at the plant; the more herbaceous and tender, springing from the gentle bed; the coarser and rougher plants, from the rude and churlish. And as some earths appear to be totally barren, and some, though not altogether so § Where fern grows luxuriantly, we may pronounce the soil favourable to turnips, corn, and trees. The other plants here mentioned are certain indications of a bad soil. Virgil describes steril grounds, by enumerating the plants that naturally grow in such places. There, picee tantum, taxique nocentes Interdum, aut hedere pandunt vestigia nigre. GEORG. li. 3G 2 12 A DISCOURSE unfruitful, yet wanting salacity to conceive, vigour to produce, and sen- sibly eluding all our pains; so there are others which are perpetually pregnant, and this is likewise a good prognostic. Upon these, and such like hints, in proposals of transplanting spices and other exotic rarities from either Indies, the curious should be stu- dious to procure the natural mould in which they grow, (and this might be effected to good proportion, by the ballasting of ships,) either to plant or nourish them in, from the seed, till they were of age, and had gained some stability of roots and stem, and become acquainted with the genius of our climate; or for essays of mixtures, to compose the like. By the goodness, richness, hungriness, and tincture of the water straining through grounds, and by the weight and sluggishness of it, compared with the lighter, conjecture also may be made, as in part we have shewed already. To conclude: there are.almost none of our senses but may of right pretend to give their verdict here. And first, we judge by the odour or smell, containing, as my lord Verulam affirms, the juice of vegetables already, as it were, concocted and prepared ; so as after long droughts, upon the first rains, good and natural mould will emit a most agreeable scent, and in some places (as Alonzo Barba, a considerable Spanish author, testifies) approaching the most ravishing perfumes; on the contrary, if the ground be disposed to any mineral, or other ill quality, it sends forth arsenical and very noxious steams, as we find in our marshes and fenny grounds. adly, By the taste, and that with good reason, all earths abounding more or less in their peculiar salts, as well as plants; some sweet and more grateful; others bitter, mordacious, or astringent; some flat and insipid ; all of them to be detected by percolation of untainted water through them; though there be who affirm that the best earth, like the best water and oil, has neither odour nor taste. 3dly, By the touch, if it be tender, fatty, detersive, and slippery ; or more asperous, gritty, porous, and friable ; likewise if it stick to the fin- gers like bird-lime, or melt and dissolve on the tongue like butter. OF EARTH. 13 Furthermore, good and excellent earth should be of the same constitu- tion, and not of contrary, as soft and hard, churlish and mild, moist and dry ; not too unctuous, nor too lean, but resoluble, and of a just and procreative temper, combining into a light, easily crumbling mould, yet consistent, and apt to be wrought and kneaded; such having a modi- cum of loam naturally rising with it, to entertain the moisture, does neither defile the fingers, nor cleave much to the spade, which easily enters it: this kind is usually found under the turf of pasture-grounds, upon which cattle have been long fed and foddered. Ina word, that is the best earth to all the senses which is of a blackish gray, cuts like butter, sticks not obstinately, but is short, light, breaking into small clods, is sweet, will be tempered without crusting or chapping in dry weather, or becoming mortar in wet. Lastly, By the sight, from all the instances of colour and other visible indications; for the common opinion is, though exploded by Columella, that all hot and choleric grounds are red or brown ; cold and dry, black- ish; cold and moist, whitish ; hot and moist, ruddy ; which yet, exha- lations from minerals, the heat of the sun, and other accidents may cause; but generally they give pre-eminence to the darker grays; next to the russet ; the clear tawny is found worse; the light and dark ash-colour (light also of weight, and resembling ashes) good for nothing; but the yellowish red worst of all. And all these are fit to be known, as contri- buting to noble and useful experiments, upon due and accurate com- parisons and inquiries from the several particles of their constitutions, figures, and modes, as far at least as we can discover them by the best auxiliaries of microscopes, lotions, strainers, calcinations, and grindings ; upon such discovery to judge of their qualities, and by essaying variety of mixtures, and imitating all sorts of mould, foreign or indigene, to compound earths as near as may be resembling the natural, for any special or curious use, and thereby be enabled to alter the genius of grounds as we see occasion ". } T cannot in this place omit the beautiful and correct description that Virgil has given us of the various soils : Next, of each various soil the genius hear ! Its colour, strength, what best dispos’d to bear. 14 A DISCOURSE The consideration of this it was which gave me the curiosity to fall upon the examining of a collection I had made of several sorts of earths and soils, such as I could find about this territory, whereof some I washed, to find by what would melt, reside, or pass away in the percolation, of what visible figure they chiefly seemed to consist, armed as I was with Th’ unfriendly cliffs, and unprolific ground, Where clay jejune, and the cold flint abound, Where bushes overspread the barren field, Will best th’ unfading grove of Pallas yield: Here the wild olive woods luxuriant shoot, And all the plains are strewn with sylyan fruit. But the rich soil with genial force endu’d, Ali green with grass, with moisture sweet bedew’d, Such as we oft survey from cavern’d hills, Whence many a stream descends in dripping rills, : And with rich ooze the fatt’ning valley fills ; Or that which feels the balmy southern air, And feeds the fern unfriendly to the share ; Ere long will vines of lustiest growth produce, And big with bounteous Bacchus’ choicest juice, Will give the grape in solemn sacrifice, Whose purple stream the golden goblet dyes, When the fat Tuscan’s horn has call’d the god, And’the full chargers bend beneath the smoking load. But bullocks would you rear, and herds of cows, Or sheep, or goats that crop the budding boughs ; Seek rich Tarentum’s plains, a distant coast, And fields like those my luckless Mantua lost, His silver-pinion’d swans where Mincio feeds, As slow they sail among the wat’ry weeds. There for thy flocks fresh fountains never fail, Undying verdure clothes the grassy vale ; And what is cropp’d by day, the night renews, Shedding refreshtul stores of cooling dews. A sable mould and fat beneath the share, That crumbles to the touch, of texture rare, And (what our art effects) by nature loose, Will the best growth of foodful grain produce : And from no field, beneath pale evening’s star With heavier harvests fraught, returns the nodding car. Or else the plain, from which the ploughman’s rage Has fell’d the forest, hoar through many an age, 4 OF EARTH. 15 an indifferent microscope, of which be pleased to take this brief ac- count. Gravelly and arenous earths of several sorts, before they were washed, appeared to consist mostly of rough crystals, of which some were very ————— aa And tore the tall trees from their ancient base, Long the dark covert of the feathery race ; Banish’d their bow’rs, abroad they mount in air, While shines the recent glebe beneath the share. For the lean gravel of the sloping field, And mould’ring stones, where snakes their mansions build, Where in dark windings filthy reptiles breed, And find sweet food their lurking young to feed ; To bees ungenial, scarcely will supply Their cassia-flow’rs, and dewy rosemary. In that blest ground, which from its opening chinks, At will a steaming mist emits, or drinks ; Which blooms with native grass for ever fair, Nor blunts with eating rust the sliding share, Round thy tall elms the joyous vines shall weave, And floods of luscious oil thy olives give ; This, with due culture, thou shalt surely find Obedient to thy plough, and to thy cattle kind. Such fertile lands rich Capua’s peasants till, And such the soil beneath Vesevus’ hill ; And that, where o’er Acerrae’s prostrate tow’rs Clanius his swelling tide too fiercely pours. Rules to know diffrent soils I next dispense ; How to distinguish from the rare the dense. This best for vines, that golden grain approves, ‘6 Ceres, the dense ; the rare, Lyaeus loves. First choose a spot that’s for the purpose fit, Then dig the solid earth ; and sink a pit ; Next, to its bed th’ ejected soil restore, And press with trampling feet the surface o’er ; Ifthe mould fail, ’tis light ; that soil inclines To fatten herds, and swell thy cluster’d vines, But o’er the pit replenish’d, if the ground Stl rise and in superfluous heaps abound, O’er the thick glebe let sturdy bullocks toil, Cleave the compacted clods and sluggish soil. The land that’s bitter, or with salt imbu’d, Too wild for culture, for the plough too rude, Where apples boast no more their purple hues, And drooping Bacchus yields degen’rate juice, 16 A. DISCOURSE transparent and gemmy ; few of them sharp or angular, but roundish, and mixed with particles of a mineral hue, which being well dried, and bruised on a hard serpentine stone, and mullar of the same, was, with little labour, reduced to an impalpable whitish sand, untransparent, as it happens in the bruising of most bodies, though never so diaphanous before. Yellow sand had the appearance of amber ; but, when bruised, it be- came a paler, untransparent sand. Fat, rich earth, full of black spots, without much discolouring the water, (as hardly did any of the sands,) being dried, was reduced to a delicate sandy dust, with very little brightness. _Marsh-earth contained a considerable quantity of sand, the rest re- sembled the fat earth. The under-pasture mould had likewise a sandy mixture, and what passed with the water after evaporation, seemed to be an impalpable and very fine, untransparent sand. Clay consisted of most exceedingly smooth and round sands of several opacous colours. Potters’ earth, of different sorts, ground small, became like sand, of a yellowish gray and other colours, exceedingly polite and smooth. May thus be known: of twigs a basket twine, Like that from whence is strain’d the recent wine; This with the soil and crystal water fill, Then squeeze the mass, while thro’ the twigs distil The big round drops in many a trickling rill ; Soon shall its nature from its taste appear, And the wry mouth the bitter juice declare. We learn from hence a fat and viscid land ; It sticks like pitch uncrumbled to the hand: The moister mould a rank luxuriance feeds, Of lengthen’d grass, and tall promiscuous weeds ; O may be mine no over-fertile plain, That shoots too strongly forth its early grain ! The light and heavy in the balance try, The black and other colours strike the eye ; Not so the cold; lo! there dark ivy spreads, Or yews or pitch-trees lift their gloomy heads, WARTON: OF EARTH. 17 A certain yellowish loamy earth, which had been brought to me with some orange-trees out of Italy, was reduced to a bright, soft sand, ap- pearing more gemmy than in the other loams. Chalk resembled fine white flour, and some of it sparkled, especially the harsher sort; but the tender, not. Fullers’-earth appeared like gum tragacanth ; a little wetted, seem- ingly swelled, yet glistering; but, when reduced to a fine dust, became a smooth sand. Tobacco-pipe earth, not much bruised, was just like white starch ; washed and well-dried, it resembled the whitest flour of wheat a little candied. JI had not the opportunity of examining the several sorts of marls; so I proceed to the dungs. Neats’-dung (the cattle fed only with fodder, or little grass, for it was in the winter I made my observations) appeared to be nothing but straws in the entire substance, and colour a little altered, save what a certain slippery mucilage gave them, sprinkled with a glistering sand like atoms of gold; but, upon washing and drying again, the tenacious matter vanished, and the straws appeared separated and clear. Sheeps’-dung was much like the former, only the spires and blades of a fine short grass were conglomerated and rolled up into pellets, about which the glue was less viscous, but it passed also away in the lotion. Swines’-dung had the resemblance of dirty bees’-wax, mingled with straws and husks, which seemed like candied eringo, and some like angelica roots. The soil of horses appeared like great wisps of hay and little straws, thin of mucilage, and which, being washed, was easily to be discerned by a naked eye. Deers’-dung much resembled that of sheep. Volume If. 3H 18 A DISCOURSE Pigeons’-dung consisted of a stiff, glutinous matter, easily reducible to dust of a gray colour, with some husky atoms, after dilution. Lastly, The dung of poultry was so full of gravel, small stones, and sand, that there appeared little or no other substance, save a very small portion both of white and blackish viscous matter twisted up together. This, of all others, the most foetid and ill smelling. These were all I had time and leisure to examine: I cannot say with all the accurateness they were capable of, but sufficiently to encourage the more curious, and to satisfy myself, that the very finest earth and best of moulds, however to appearance mixed with divers imperfect bodies, may, for ought we know, consist more of sandy particles than of any other whatsoever, at least if from this criterion we may be allowed to pro- nounce what they seem to the eye, sands, crystals, or salts, call them what you please; the consideration of which being so universally the cause of vegetation, was no small inducement to me to see if, by examining the several earths, (though but by a cursory inspection,) I might possibly de- tect what rudiments of such a principle there were lurking in them, ab- stractedly taken; not that I think earth to be salt alone, and nothing else, (though perhaps little more besides sulphur,) for so it produces no vegetable that I know of, without water to dissolve and qualify it for in- sumption, and perhaps some other vegetable matter, fitted to manure and receive the seeds, and keep the plant steady, which yet, for ought I can discern, is also but a finer sort of sand, the clamminess of it being rather something extrinsical and accidental to it, than any thing natural, and originally constitutive: for, the combination of these several moulds which gives the ligature, slipperiness, and a diverse temper, seems rather to be caused by the perpetual and successive rotting of the grass, plants, leaves, branches, moss, &c. (than any peculiar or solitary principle apart) which, in long tract of time, has amassed together a substance heteroge- neous to the ruder particles, which after the dilutions of the superficies {that is, of the rich and fatter mould) appears to be little other than sand, or fixed salts, of various figures and colours; since even the most obdu- rate and flinty pebble beaten and ground to powder, or by calcination re- duced to an impalpable dust, is as fine both to the eye, and smooth to the touch, as the most smetic earths and marls themselves; such at least as OF EARTH. 19 you shall collect from the subsidence (to appearance) of the most crystal waters, precipitated by deliquated oil of tartar, or the like; and the more they be subdued and broken, the harder they will prove, if (cleared of their nitrous parts) they pass the potter’s fire, however they seemed before to be of different constitution. This is evident in vessels made of tobacco-pipe clay, or whatever the material be, which has of late been so successfully employed by Dr. Hook, a worthy member of this Society, for the finding out a composition (if I may so call it) nothing inferior to the hardest porcelam, and almost as beautiful. And now upon contem- plation of that almost universal ingredient, sand, through all our trials, I cannot but incline to the sentiment of that excellent philosopher, as well as physician, the learned Dr. Lister, that sand might be the first mantle and universal covering of the newly-created earth. See his dis- course upon a map, discovering sands and clay, reduced to tables, pre- sented to the Royal Society’. But to return to our superficial earth, which we call the mould. I affirm it to grow and increase yearly in depth from the causes aforesaid ; and, in some places, to that proportion as to have raised no inconsiderable hills and eminences by the accidental fall and rotting of woods and trees, such as Birch, Beech, &c. which are not of a constitution to remain long in the ground (as Fir, Oak, Elm, and some other timber will do, and grow the harder) without corruption, and relenting into mould as soft and tender as what they first were sown or planted in; and of this I am able to give undeniable instances. I insist not here on the perpetual suc- cessions and generations of flints and other stones, in the same places i Dr. Lister was of opinion, that, by examining the earth from the surface downwards, as often as an opportunity offered, a pretty just theory might be formed of its contents in general: for it appeared from his own observations, that upper natural soils infallibly pro- duce the same internal minerals and materials. He has thrown out a hint to every na- turalist for extending this useful knowledge, by advising that a soil or mineral map should be made, properly distinguished into countries, and enriched with observations for general use, arising from remarks on the bounds and produce of every particular soil—The doctor likewise thought that sand was once the exterior and general cover of the surface of the whole earth, and that clay was another coat in the more depressed and hollow parts. The ‘following are his tables of sands and clays which he drew up in 1673, from observations made in the northern parts of England, and is the matter here referred to by Mr. Evelyn. 3H 2 SAND Of Westmore- A TABLE OF SANDS: Sharp, or rag sand, composed of small transparent pebbles, naturally found upon the mountains, not calcinable. Fine White Stitenham Moor, in the road washed up very white pebble. Flamborough-Head, of which the light-house there is ce- mented. Calais sand burns reddish, but falls not in water. Fine Gray Seaton banks, near Hartlepool, on the Tees mouth. Escrick, in the gravel-pit there ; a vein of exceeding fine sand. The pillow-sand in the Baltic. In a spring at Heslington. : The sand at the bath in Somersetshire. Acomb, near York, drifted sand. Hutton Moor washed. Thorp Fells. Ouse at York. Nid at Nun-Monkton. Dug up at Raweliff, near Snaith. Wharf at Ickly and Denton. Aire at Carleton, in Craven. Ure at Craven. Ganton. Santon, in Lincolnshire. Bromeby Common. Skipwith Common. Reddish Brown Grisley Coarse Brown Soft, or smooth with flat particles At in Yorkshire, Avein at Oswell-Ba- From lime- (con, in Lincolnshire. stone, with mica of different par- ticles. Sea sand about the Scilly islands. In Cleveland, and about Scarborough. Ouse dust or sediment at Raweliff. A vein of mica in Heslington gravel-pit. Mica argentea in red sand rock, near Ripon, plenti- fully. Mica aurea of Cleveland. ( Silver-like. land. Gold-like. CLAY. A TABLE OF CLAYS. Pure, that is, such as is soft like butter to the teeth, and has little or no grittiness in it. Greasy, to be reckoned amongst the medicinal earths, or terra sigillate. 1. Fullers’ earth. . At Brickhill, in Northamptonshire. Brown, about Halifax. White, in Derbyshire lead-mines. 9. Boli In Cleveland. oh At Linton upon Wharf. 3. Pale yellow, in the marl-pit at Ripley. 4. Cow-shot clay, or the soap-scale lying in coal-mines. 5. A dark blue clay, or marl, at Towthorp. Harsh and dusty when dry. \ 6. Creta, properly so called, or the milk-white clay of the Isle of Wight. 7. The potter’s pale yellow clay of Wakefield Moor. The blue clay of Bullingbrook pottery, in Lincolnshire. A blue clay of Bugthorp Beck, in which the astroites are found. 10. Yellow clay in the seams of the red sand rock at Bilbrough. 11. Fine red clay in the red sand rock at Bilbro’and Ripon. 13. A soft chalky red clay. } mt Hutterouprals 8. 9 Stony when dry. y y In the banks of Whitear-Beck. adored stone Cy: near Leppington, and at Hou 3 e 15. A blue stone clay. an aS Rien 16. Clunch, a white stone clay, in Cambridgeshire. With round sand, or pebble. 17. The yellow loam of Skipwith Moor, in Yorkshire. 18. A red sandy clay in the right-hand bank of the road beyond Cottingham, near the lime-kilns going to 19. A red sandy clay in the red sand rock near Ripon. With flat or thin white sand, glittering with mica. 20. Crouch white clay in Derbyshire, of which the glass pots are made at Nottingham. 21. Gray or bluish tobacco-pipe clay at Halifax. 22, A red clay in the red sand rock at Rotherham. Mixed OF EARTH. 21 where they have been sedulously gathered off, by many (not improbably) thought to proceed from worm-casts, hardened by the air, and a certain lapidescent succus or spirit which it meets with ; and this, for happening most on downs very much exposed, (yet undisturbed.) is the more proba- ble; as, on the other side, it establishes our conjecture of the purest moulds being capable of such a change; that which is thus cast up by the worms being so exceedingly elaborated and refined. Nor perhaps are all those innumerable perforations, especially through the hardest sur- faces, the labour of worms alone, but the effect of some nitrous spirit that spews out those molecule. In the mean time, let no man be over confi- dent that because some earths are soft, fat, and slippery, they may not possibly consist of sands, (of which there are so many kinds,) since it is evident that even all fossil bodies, which can be reduced and brought to sands, may, by contrition of the particles, be rendered so minute, as to emulate the finest earths we have enumerated ; the compactness and ac- cidental mixtures resulting, as we affirm, from things extrinsical, not ex- cluding exhalations, passage of liquors, and several juices to them, or conveyed by subterraneous steams and influences, be the stones or rock, glareous, metallic, testaceous, salts, or any other concretes whatsoever. And what if we should indeed suspect all earth to be arrant salt, nay glass; and that glass, how hard soever, the offspring and child of water, the most fluid, crystalline, sincere, and void of all other qualities ? It is not impossible, I think, but by the different texture of its parts, even that liquid element may be brought to the consistence of a most different body to what it appears. We know that water (besides that it was the first immense body which invested the chaos) was by some thought to be the mother of earth *, (nay, the principia soluta of all mixts whatsoever) and that the bottom of the sea was made by a perpetual hypostasis or sub- sidence, which precipitated from every part of it to the centre. Ido not stand to justify these speculations, but to illustrate what I am about, name- ly, that water is apt enough to be condensed and made hard; and crude « This was the opinion of Thales, the Milesian, who taught that all things originated from water. Milton, where he describes the formation of the earth, makes a beautiful allusion to this doctrine: Sabdiiduassdbabcneados dtisGadanHbed 500 On the wat’ry calm His brooding wings the sprit of God outspread, And vital virtue infus’d, and vital warmth Throughout the fluid mass. PARADISE LOST. 22 A. DISCOURSE mercury, and running metal, crystals, gems, and pearls, do more re- semble it, than that dirty and opaque body which we usually denominate earth. Besides, we find how divers waters not only indurate and petrify other substances, but grow into stones, and leave a rocky callus where they drop and continually pass, and that all sands and stones are not dia- phanous, therefore, that is no eviction but that they might once have been fluid, since their opacity may be adventitious, and proceed from sundry accidents; so as granting this hypothesis, we are less to wonder that this matter is above all other so disposed to vegetation, and apt to produce plants endued with colour, weight, taste, odour, and with sundry medi- cal and other virtues, as I think that excellent philosopher Mr. Boyle, the great ornament of this Society, does somewhere make out from the vari- ous percolations, concoctions, and circulations of that fruitful menstruum; and if that be true, that there is but one catholic, homogeneous, fluid matter, (diversified only by shape, size, motion, repose, and various texture of the minute particles it consists of, and from which affections of mat- ter, the divers qualities result of particular bodies,) what may not mixture and an attentive inspection into the anatomical parts of the vegetable family in time produce, for our composing of all sorts of moulds and soils almost imaginable, which is the drift of my present Discourse ? And why might not Solomon, by this means, have really had all kinds of plants in his incomparable gardens ? even ebony, cloves, cinnamon, and from the cedar to the shrub, such as grew only in the remotest regions, furnished (as he doubtless was) with so extraordinary an insight into all natural things and powers for the composing of earths, and assigning them their proper mixtures and ferments’. I do not here inquire whe- ther there be not a pansperme universally diffused, individuated, and spe- cified in their several matrixes and receptacles pro ratione miaxti, as they speak, but I think there might very unexpected phenomena be brought to light in vegetable productions, did men seriously apply themselves to make such possible trials as is in the power of art to effect ; and how far ‘It is climate, and not soil, that occasions such a variety in plants; so that unless we can give a foreign plant something of its own climate, it will be in vain to rear it even in its own earth. Of this, Mons. Tournefort, in his travels into the east, had very con- vineing proofs. At the bottom of Mount Ararat, he found the common plants of Armenia ; a little higher up, those of Italy; higher, those which grow about Paris; afterwards, the Swedish plants ; and lastly, on the top, the alpine plants of Lapland. OF EARTH. 23 soils may be dissembled, and the air and water attempered, (at least for some curiosities which may give light to more useful things,) I do not con- clude; but I should expect very rare and considerable things from an at- tentive and diligent endeavour. To this end, the raising of artificial dews and mists, impregnated with several qualities for the more natural refreshment of exotic plants, were, it may be, no hard matter to effect, no more than were the modification of the air abroad, as well as in our more confined reserves, where we set them in for hyemation, and during the most rigorous colds. As for mixtures of earth; plants we know are nourished by things of like affinity with the constitution of the soil which produces them, and therefore it is of singular importance to be well read in the alphabet of earths and composts; for, as we have said, plants affect the marsh, bog, mountain, valley, sand, gravel, fat and lean mould, according to their tempers; and for want of skill in this, the same plant not only languishes and starves, but some we find to grow so luxuriant as to change their very shapes, colours, leaves, roots, and other parts, and to grow almost out of knowledge of the most skilful phyto- logist ; not here to speak of what alterations do accrue from transplanting and irrigations alone. I mention this to incite the curious to essay artifi- cial compositions in defect of natural soil; to make new confections of earths and moulds for the entertaining of the most generous and pro- fitable plants, as well as the most curious, especially if, as I hinted, we could skill to modify also the air about them, and make the remedy as well regional as topical; and why not for other fruits (strangers yet amongst us) as for oranges, lemons, pomegranates, figs, and other pre- cious trees, which of late are become almost endenizoned amongst us, and grow every generation more reconcilable to our climate? For, accord- ing to Theophrastus, it is not the excessive fatness and richness of the soil which invites these exotics and varieties to stay with us, or indeed any other plants to prosper, but something which is connatural and suit- able to the species. Here we might enlarge upon the several inquiries formerly suggested ; as, how far principles might be multiplied and differenced by alteration and condensation ? Whether earth, stripped of all heterogeneity and un- uniform particles, retains only weight and an insipid siccity ? And whe- ther it produces or affords any thing more than embracement to the first rudiments of plants, protection to the roots, and stability to the stem ; - 24 A DISCOURSE unprolifie, as they say, till married to something of a more masculine vir- tue, which irradiates her womb; but otherwise, nourishing only from what it attracts, without any active or material contribution ? It is in the mean time, wonderful to consider how such vast, tall, and monstrous trees, as firs, pines, and other alpestrals, (whose footing and roots insinuate into the most dry and impenetrable rocks, without any earth or mould to nourish them,) can grow, exposed as they are to the most rigid colds, fierce winds, and other inclemencies of weather, if the rains, dews, mists, the air,or other visible principle, appear in no proportion to the stature, bulk, and substance of these goodly trees. ‘These, indeed, with many other queries, do appositely come inhere; but it would, perhaps, render this Discourse more prolix than useful to enter upon them in detail; nor is it for me to undertake speculations of so abstruse a nature without un- pardonable ostentation: and, therefore, having only offered something to- * wards the discovery of the great varieties and choice of earths, (such as we gardeners and rustics for the most part meet with in our grounds,) my next endeavour shall be to shew how we may improve the best, and _pre- scribe remedy to the worst, by labour and stirring only ; which, being the least artificial, approaches the nearest to nature. At the first breaking up of your ground, therefore, let there be a pretty deep trench, or furrow, made throughout, of competent depth, (as is the manner of experienced gardeners,) the turf being first pared off and laid by itself, with the first mould lying under it, and that of the next in succession, that so they may both participate of the air, showers, and in- fluences, to which they are exposed ; and this is to be done in severals, as deep as you think fit, that is, so far as you find the earth well-natured ; or you may fling it up in several small mounds or lumps, suffering the frosts and snows of a winter or two (according as the nature of it seems to require) to pass upon them, beginning your work about the commence- ment of autumn, before the mould becomes too ponderous and sluggish ; though some there are who choose an earlier season, and open their ground when the sun approaches, not when he retires; but certainly to have the whole winter before us, does best temper and prepare it for those impregnating agents. In separating the surface-mould from the deeper, whether you make a trench, or dig holes to plant your trees in, be it for standards, espaliers, OF EARTH. 25 or shrubs, the longer you expose it and leave the receptacles open, (were it for two whole winters,) the better it will recompense your expectation; and especially if, when you come to plant, you dispose of the best and fattest earth at the bottom, which, if it be of sweet and ventilated mud of ponds, or highway dust, were preferable to all the artificial composts you can devise. In defect of this, (where it cannot be had in quantity,) cast in the upper turf, if not already consumed, the sod downwards, with the next adhering mould for half a foot in thickness ; on this, a layer of well-manured dung; then as much of the earth which was last flung out, mixing them very well together. Repeat this process for kinds, mixture, and. thickness, till your trenches and holes be filled four or five inches above the level or area of the ground, to which it will quickly subside upon the first refreshings, and a very gentle treading to establish the tree. Fruit planted in such mould, you will find to prosper infinitely better than where young trees are clapped in at adventure in new broken-up earth, which is always cold and sluggish, and ill-complexioned; nor will they require (as else they do) to be supplied every foot with fresh soil, be- fore they are able to put forth lusty and spreading roots; but which it is impossible to convey to them so as to affect the under parts, by excava- ting the ground and undermining the trees, after once they arrive to any stature, without much trouble and inconvenience, and the manifest re- tarding of their progress. If you will plant in pits and holes, and not give your ground an uni- versal trenching, (which I prefer,) make them the larger ; five feet, at the least, square, but not above half a yard or two feet deep, according to the nature of the tree". In dressing the roots, be as sparing as possible of ‘the fibres, small and tender strings, (which are, as it were, the emulgent veins which insume and convey the nourishment to the whole tree,) and such of the stronger and more confirmed parts which you trim, cut sloping, m Tt is certainly the best way to trench the whole land before planting; but the expense of doing that by the spade, in large undertakings, does generally induce the planter to perform the work by making holes in the manner here described, though not recommended. Since the days of our excellent author, the trenching-plough has been much improved ; and, indeed, when properly worked, it is capable of preparing the greatest extent of land for planting, at a price infinitely less than the spade. Volume TT. 3 1 26 A DISCOURSE so as the wound may best apply to the earth. The heads or tops I advise you to let alone till after the most penetrating colds be passed, and then about February to take them off, and shape them as you please, as the skilful gardeners can direct you, or as it is described graphically in Mons. de la Quinteny’s Complete Gardener *, and his industrious epitomizers. Now, the earth in which you thus plant your fruit-trees, will require four annual stirrings; namely, at the approach of March, a spade-bit deep, covering it with some mungy stuff, heaps of grass or weeds, to protect it from the parching sun; in May following, after a gentle rain, stir again, but not so deep as to molest the subnascent weeds ; again in the month of July; and lastly in October, after the same me- thod you are taught in March. This, for standards planted out for good and all. The nursery re- quires a busier process, as it is excellently described by squire Cotton in that late incomparable Manual published by that worthy person. Briefly thus :—Three weeks before midsummer lay some green fern about the ranks, after the ground is laboured, to defend it from the heats; in which work, care must be also had not to offend the tender roots ; therefore you shall stir it deeper in the middle of the lines or interstices ; and when win- ter comes, bury the ferns in the place, by making little trenches, or ra- ther taking away some of the earth you shouldered up, when the stocks were first drawn out of the seminary and planted in those rows ; yet so as to leave it somewhat higher than the area, to secure them from the frosts. In March following stir your nursery again, chopping and mincing in the fern, and mingling it with the loosened mould which you took from the imps when you first applied the fern ; then back them up again as before. Repeat this three or four years successively, till your stocks are fit to graff on. To an orchard thus planted, spring and autumnal stirrmg of the mould is of incredible advantage ; and even during the hottest summer months, carefully to abate the weeds, (but not to dig above a quarter of a spit deep, for fear of exposing the plants to the sun, unless it be after plentiful showers,) is very necessary. 2 In the year 1658, Mr. Evelyn published a translation of Mons. de la Quinteny’s Com- plete French Gardener. It has gone through several editions, and is a work of considerable merit. OF EARTH. 27 There are, I confess, who fancy that this long exposure of earth, before it be employed for a crop, causes it to exhale and spend the virtue which it should retain ; but provided nothing be suffered to grow on it whilst it lies thus rough and fallow, there is no danger of that, there being in truth no compost or latation whatsoever, comparable to this continual motion, repastination, and turning of the mould with the spade; the pared-off turf (which is the very fat and efflorescence of the earth) and even weeds with their vegetable salts, collected into heaps and exposed, when re- duced, fall into natural, sweet, and excellent mould. I say, this is a marvellous advantage, and does, in greater measure, fertilize the ground alone, without any other addition ; for the earth, which was formerly dull and unactive, or perhaps producing but one kind of plant, will by this culture, dispose itself to bring forth variety, as it lies in depths, be it never so profound, cold, and crude, the nature of the plant always following the genius of the soil; but indeed requiring time, according to the depth om whence you fetch it, to purge and prepare itself, ana render it fit for conception, evaporating the malignant halituses and impurities of the imprisoned air, laxing the parts, and giving easy de- liverance to its offspring. I do not dispute whether all plants have their primogenial seeds, (as in truth I believe they have,) and that nothing emerges spontaneously and at adventure; but, that these would rise freely in all places, if impedi- ments were removed, (of which something has already been spoken,) and to shew how pregnant most earths would become, were these indisposi- tions cured, and that those seminal rudiments, wherever latent, were free to move and exert their virtue, by taking off these chains and weights which fetter and depress them. It is verily almost a miracle to see how the same land, without any other manure or culture, will bring forth and even luxuriate; and that the bare raking and combing only of a bed of earth, now one way, then ano- ther, as to the regions of heaven and polar aspects, shall diversify the annual production, which is a secret worthy to be considered. Iam only to caution our labourer as to the present work, that he do not stir the ground in over wet and slabby weather; that the sulcus or trench be made to run from north to south, and that if there be occasion for opening of a 312 28 A. DISCOURSE fresh piece of earth for present use, he dig not above one spit deep, which will be sufficient to cover the roots of any plantable fruit, or other tree; he must not disturb it again till the March following, when, if he please, and that the ground seem to require an hastier maturation, there may be a crop of beans, peas, or turnips sown upon it, which will mellow it ex- ceedingly, and destroy the noxious weeds ; after which, witha slight re- pastination, one may plant or sow any thing in it freely, especially roots, which will thrive bravely, and so will trees, provided you plant them not too deep, but endeavour to make them spread, and take in the succulent virtue or the upper mould; and therefore too deep trenching is not al- ways profitable, unless it be for esculent roots, such as carrots, parsnips, beets, and the like, since trees, especially fruit, should be tempted even by baits to run shallow ; such as penetrate deep, commonly spending more in wood and leaves, than in the burden for which we plant them. There is only this caution due, That you never plant your trees where the stiff and churlish ground is likely to touch their roots ; for though it be neither necessary nor convenient they should penetrate deep, it is yet of high importance they should dilate and spread, which they will never do in obstinate and inhospitable land (but revert back towards the milder, and better-natured mould) which crumples the roots, and perverts their posture, to their exceeding damage: and to this infirmity our rare exotic plants and shrubs are most obnoxious, confined as they are to their wooden cases and testaceous prisons, and therefore require to be frequently trim- med, and supplied with fresh and succulent mould to entertain the fibres, which else you will find to mat in unexplicable entanglements, and ad- here to the sides of the vessel, where they dry or corrupt. Having said thus much of the natural, I should now come to artificial helps, by application of dungs and composts; and indeed, stude ut mag- num sterquilinium habeas, was old and good advice ; but as some there be who affirm any culture of the earth preferable to dung, even things so slight as the haulm of peas and lupines, or any other pulse, (for when I speak of dungs, I mean those excrementitious and sordid materials which we commonly heap up and lay upon our grounds,) I shall beg your pa- tience to suspend awhile my stirring that less pleasant mixture, and, till it be well aired and fit for use, proceed on our former subject, and try what aid we may expect yet from more kind and benign means, before we come OF EARTH. 29 to the gross and violent. For, besides that such compost (at least so pre- pared as it ought to be) is not every where, nor always to be had in quantities, to confide in dungs and ordure is neither so safe, nor of that importance to our husbandman, as some are made to believe ; since, if we shall look back into the best experience of elder days, (Hesiod,) we shall find they made very little or no use at all of stercoration °. I know some there be who attribute this neglect to the natural fertility of the country, considering dung as the busy nurse of vermine and nauseous accidents; but waving these, (without intending to desert the aid of soil in place and time,) I proceed with what I call more natural helps ; namely, opening, stirring, and ventilating the earth, and sometimes the contrary, coverture, shade, rest, and forbearance for a season, as we daily see it practised in our worn-out and exhausted lay-fields, which enjoy their sabbaths. It is certain, that for our gardens of pleasure, the fairest beauties of the parterre require rather a fine, quick, friable, and well-wrought mould, than one rank or richly dunged : and even all fruit-trees affect not to stand upon artificial and loose composts, but in naturally rich and sweet mould, within the scent and neighbourhood of well-consumed soil for the next layer under, and above, so as the virtue thereof may be derived to it through a colature of natural earth ; those forcing mixtures being more ° Mr. Tull, who revived a mode of husbandry anciently practised, was a great enemy to dung, being of opinion that frequent ploughing was all that was necessary towards ren- dering the earth fertile. By his theory, earth, minutely pulverized, constitutes the food of plants, and under that erroneous influence, there is no wonder that he recommended the constant working of the plough and horse-hoe. By his method, commonly called the new husbandry, no change of species is required, as wheat-land is continually cropped with that grain, and so of others. The seed is drilled in rows with an interval of four feet, which in summer is continually worked with the horse-hoe. This interval, kept clear of weeds, constitutes a fallow for the succeeding crop ; and in this manner the land annually produces the same grain. However ingenious this method may appear in the closet, it loses its ex- cellence, when reduced to practice in the field, as from the experiments of Sir Digby Legard, of Ganton, in Yorkshire, and even of Mr. Tull himself, the crop does not suffi- ° ciently pay the cultivator for his additional trouble and expense. And here I wish to be understood as speaking of the drill husbandry with wide intervals; for drilling of grain in equi-distant rows constitutes quite a different system. My very worthy and excellent friend the late Rev. Sir William Anderson, has given the public a very just idea of this last me- thod, for which the reader is desired to consult the Georgical Essays, p. 357. Mr. Tull’s system has infinite merit, when applied to beans and turnips, which, to the shame of this country, still continue to be cultivated in the old method. In Scotland, the drilling of beans and turnips is well understood. 30 A DISCOURSE proper for annuals and exotic plants, which having but little time to live, refuse no assistance, whilst trees of longer duration care not much for accelerations. I shall here, then, begin with an experiment I have been taught by a learned person of this illustrious body, (Dr. Beal,) from whom I have long since received the choicest documents upon this and many curious sub- jects. And first, I think it will be evinced, as constant and undeniable, that amongst the mechanical aids, (wherein stercoration has no hand,) that of pulverizing the earth by contusion, and breaking it with the plough or spade, is of admirable effect, to dispose it for the reception of all the natural impregnations we have been discoursing upon. For the earth, especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, by which it at- tracts the salt, power, or virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and is the reason of all the labour and stir we keep about it, to sustain us; all dungings, and other sordid temperings, being but the succedaneums to this improvement, which, of all other, makes its return of fruit, or what- soever else it bears, without imparting any of those ill and pernicious qualities which we sensibly discover from forced grounds, and that not only in the plants which they produce, but in the very animals which they feed and nourish. I know Laurembergius (somewhere) denies this, and that animals in preparing chyle, transmute, alter, and insume what is only their proper aliment, rejecting all that is superfluous ; but as our early asparagus, cauliflowers, and divers roots, manifestly refute it, so does the taste of the flesh of fowl, and the milk of cattle that feed on the wild garlic, fenny-grass, and other rank things, not here to insist on their sweet and delicate relish upon change to a more odoriferous pasture. But to the experiment : Take of the most barren earth you can find, drained, if you please, of all its nitrous salts, and masculine parts; reduce it to a fine powder ; (which may be done even in large proportion, by a rude engine, letting fall a kind of hammer or beetle, at the motion of a wheel ;) let this pul- verized earth, and for the time incessantly agitated, be exposed, for a summer and winter, to the vicissitudes and changes of the seasons and in- fluences of heaven: by this labour, and rest from vegetation, you will OF EARTH. ~ 31 find it will have obtained such a generous and masculine pregnancy, within that period, as to make good your highest expectations: and to this belongs Sir Hugh Platt’s contrition, or philosophical grinding of earth, which, upon this exposure alone, without manure or soil, after the like revolution of time, will, as he affirms, be able to receive an exotic plant from the farthest Indies, and cause all vegetables to prosper in the most exalteddegree; andto speak magnificently with that industriousman, to bear their fruit as kindly with us as they do in their natural climates ; and this Dr. Munting pretends to have done in Holland. But a little to abate of this, modestly we may say, that this culture (easy and simple as it is) will be found effectually able to render the soil of a most extensive capacity for the entertainment of foreign and uncommon plants. For to enumerate some of its perfections ; such as refuse dung and violent appli- cations, have here pure earth ; and such as require aid, a mellow and rich mould, impregnated with all the blessings which the influence of the heavens and efflorescence of the earth can contribute to it, fitted as it is for generation, (and yet so restrained from it,) as greedily to receive the first seeds, which are committed to it, with a passion and fervency, as it were, of animal love’. What high and sublime things are spoken more upon this, I forbear to prosecute; but in Sir Kenelm Digby’s Discourse of Sympathetic Powder, he affirms, that the earth, in the years of repose, recovers its vigour by the attraction of the vital spirits which it receives from the air and those superior irradiations, which endow simple earth with qualities promoting fermentation. And, indeed, such a vegetative activity I have often observed in the bare exposure of some plants but for a few hours only, as has raised my admiration, particularly in the aloe and other kinds of sedums, which, when to all appearance shrunk and shrivelled up, have filled themselves in a moment, set out in the air, when a very few drops of water (at the time, that is, winter time) would certainly have made them rot and turn to a mucilage, as to my cost I have experienced. And these ferments of the earth, by this amity and genial intercourse with the air, are innumerable, to concoct, digest, accelerate, and restore; equal to, yea, beyond any artificial enforcements of dungs P Virgil supposes the earth to be in this state, when he says, Vere tument terre et genitalia semina poscunt. 32 A DISCOURSE and composts whatsoever *. But to return to dust again. By the toil we have mentioned, it is found that soil may be so strangely altered from its former nature, as to render the harsh and most uncivil clay obsequious to the husbandman, and to bring forth fruits and plants, which other- wise require the lightest and hollowest moulds. In other cases and affections, the earth may be likewise fertilized, as from without, so from within, by more recondite and central causes and agitations, which if in excess, may be allayed with some feminine or other mixture; since oftentimes qualities too intense rather poison dry and cho- lerie grounds, than conduce to their advantage, as we shall come to shew; and that which makes a cold and moist ground fertile, will destroy the contrary, as we see in the too free applications of salt ; and therefore, it requires no ordinary dexterity to be able to direct where and what reme- dies are to be administered, since we find it the same in vegetable produc- tions as in the animal, where complexions should be suited ; for want of which care, through avarice and other sordid circumstances, noble fami- lies themselves are many times rendered childless, which might else have multiplied and been perpetuated. To illustrate this by our present subject; we find, that a thin sifting or sprinkling of ashes, has enriched all the higher pastures, when, where strewed too thick, the ground be- came totally barren. Sometimes, again, defect of sufficient depth may be cause of sterility ; and so it frequently happens, that the proper remedy of some hungry and shallow surface, is to superinduce and lay more earth upon it, and to find out the medium, by the diligent trials of some de- grees of depths in the same soil: but solitary, single, or over-hasty experiments, before the earth be prepared by some of our fore-men- tioned essays, may prove discouraging and insufficient, as my lord Bacon has oft advertised us. 41 From accurate experiments made by Dr. Stephen Hales and others, it is certain that the leaves of plants draw from the air a considerable portion of aqueous fluid, in which a large share of nutriment is minutely dissolved. ‘This nutriment is certainly produced by putrid steams, generated upon the surface of the earth, which, flying upwards, become blended and incorporated with the atmosphere. Showers of rain bring down these par- ticles again to the earth, and probably they are delivered to the mouths of the vegetable creation in a more elaborated state, in consequence of their solution in the atmospheric vapours. OF EARTH. 33 Earth is also sometimes improved by mixtures of fern, rotten leaves, and the poriture of old wood, the haulm of beans, peas, and other legumina, which heat and accelerate concoction ; for which, and all other medications, the nature of the mould is carefully to be examined, that application be made accordingly ; as for instance, if it be sandy, or other light mixed earth, to imbody it with something of a fatter nature, as lime or marl, (for I yet forbear the touch of ordure or animal conrposts, as the least natural,) and be sure so to stir and lay it (especially if lime) that it may not sink too deep and suddenly, as it is apt to do, and so de- sert the surface-mould, where it should do the feat, and therefore it is to be the oftener renewed. But marl enters as properly here, and so does mud, slub of slimy waters, especially if the soil be gravelly and mixed, which it will sadden and impinguate; and consequently bind; but if the gravel be wet and cold, lime is preferable: wherefore the nature of the mould should be well examined before the application: as here ‘arenous and sandy earth wants ligature, and besides, consisting of sharp and asperous angles, wounds and galls, curls and dwarfs our plants, with- out extraordinary help to render the passages more slippery and easy ; therefore relenting chalk, or chalk-marl, is also profitable, with calcina- tions of turf, or sea-wreck, where it is at hand; andif the soil be exceed- ingly bibulous, spread a layer or couch of loam, discreetly mingled at the bottom, to entertain the moisture. In the mean time, there are yet some plants which thrive almost in nothing so well as in sand alone, or with very little mixture, nor that of any dung: so melonsare said to grow in Jamaica, and some vast timber-trees have little or no mould adhering to their roots; such is that beautiful stranger the Japan Lily, called by those of Guernsey (from whence we only have them) La Belle de nuit : and a certain palm of the same Japan, which shrinks and dries at the least touch of water, as if it were laid before the fire, which is, it seems, the only remedy that restores it, or the sudden replanting it in scales of iron, or the most burning sand. But what if sand itself, however vul- garly reputed, be not so hot or interiorly ardent as it is given out to be? Indeed, for being of an open and loose contexture, it is apt to put forth a forward spring, as more easily admitting the solar rays; but it does not continue,.and is an infirmity which may be remedied with loam, which not only unites it closer for the present, but is capable in time to alter Volume II. 3K 34 A DISCOURSE and change its very nature also, so as too hot a compost be no ingre- dient in it’. Here I take notice, that husbandmen observing a too clean and accurate gathering of stones from off those grounds which lie almost covered with them, rather impoverishes than improves the land, especially where corn is sown, by exposing it to heat and cold. Certain it is, that where the stones are not too gross and plentiful, a moderate interspersion of the smaller gravel preserves the earth both warm and loose, and keeps it from too sudden exhalation ; whilst the over-fine grain, or too nice a sift- ing, makes it apt to constipate and grow stiff upon wetting, so as the ten- der seedlings can hardly issue through ; and this isa document for igno- rant gardeners, who, when they have a fine flower, think they can never make the ground fine enough about it ; yet the finer the plant or seed, the finer should the mould be which entertains it ; though, when all is done, trees thrive best where they have easier footing. Chalky grounds come next to be considered, and they should be treated like gravel, sand, and stony, if harsh; but if of the melting kind, it is apt to mix with all the sorts of moulds ; and being of itself so husbanded, composes a kind of natural soil fit for most uses sought for, and of ad- mirable effect in dry grounds. t Light sandy soils are best improved by marl; but as that most excellent earth cannot be procured every where, some judicious persons recommend clay, which, from various trials, is found to answer very well upon light lands. In proportion to the lightness of the soil, the quantity of clay must be increased or diminished. The best and most profitable method of applying clay to sand land, is thus described in the Georgical Essays :—* Where the land «has never been broken up, the clay may be carried and spread, and suffered to lie a whole < year before it is ploughed in. The swarth will set the clay a working ; but, where there “is no swarth, a coat of dung will be necessary before the and is sown. Where the clay is « short, and the soil light, 120 loads will be required for an acre ; but where the clay is strong, < and the land not so light, then 60 or 80 loads will be sufficient. It is better to lay on too < Jittle than too much ; it will be sufficient if the land is made moderately cloddy. About “ A few years ago, Mr. Elkington obtained a bounty from parliament for making public his mode of draining land ; and in order that the information should be properly warranted, the Board of Agriculture sent Mr. Johnstone down to visit the principal drainings that Mr. Elkington was then making. This gentleman, in the most satisfactory manner, has, in a quarto volume, described Mr. Elkington’s mode of draining, of which the principal merit seems to consist in tapping the drains with an auger, in cases where the water lies lower than the drain. Volume II. 3L 42 A DISCOURSE of the ground, and of competent depth to receive and drain the weeping springs, instead of those frequent slashes and gutters I have mentioned ; since, besides the beauty of the canal, the profit of the fish, &c. the earth and mud cast out on both sides, and spread upon the depressed and lower parts of the ground, will not only raise the unprofitable marsh, but thereby improve it for pasture. One needs go no farther to see the effects of this husbandry, than to St. James’s park, where, before the canal, I remem- ber all that pleasant valley, now yielding most rich pasturage, (with the fish, decoy, and walks planted with fragrant lime-trees,) was nothing but a noisome, unwholesome bog and morass of moss andrushes. The use of the plough is for this work the most expeditious, and cheaper than the spade alone, which, after every journey of the first, will be necessary to cast and shovel out the loosened earth on both sides, to fill up the hol- lows and depressures of the ground, and with the rake to trim the banks and level the rest as is requisite. This, undertaken in’ dry summer weather, the plough still succeeding the spade till the channel be of con- venient depth, will of all other be the most effectual; and, if near the- mansion-house,a graceful addition to it. But to return to other remedies. Lands which are cold and dry, (as we have hinted,) to be improved by contraries, namely, by application of composts, which are hot and moist; as sheep’s dung, burning and calcining of the earth with the ve- getables on it, and the like, to excite heat and fermentation ; but which is not to be effected without repugnant remedies, and such as are of he- terogeneous parts, to stir and lift up the mould, and render it less in- active. If it be cold and clinging, as frequently it is found, there lime- rubbish, the small harsher chalk, sea-coal ashes, a moderate sprinkling of sand, with some compost, may perform the cure ¢. ¢ Some lands are wet and poachy in winter from a bed of clay keeping up the water that falls from the heavens. The best method of rendering such lands firm and dry, is thus described by my excellent and learned friend, T. B. Bayley, esq. whose activity and dili- gence in the public service merit the highest praises. « From a very extensive experience, I recommend the following method of draining Jand, as effectual, durable, and cheap. ‘‘ First make the main drains down the slope or fall of the field. When the land is very wet, or has not much fall, there should, in general, be two of these to a statute acre ; for the shorter the narrow drains are, the less liable they will be to accidents. «© The width of the trench for the main drains should be, at the top, about thirty inches ; OF EARTH.) 43 Hungry grounds require to have the cause-well looked into, (the water turned as above directed,) or if in want, such as is well enriched. Lands that are hot and burning, allay with swines’ dung (as some say) the coldest ; or with neats’, which will certainly refresh it. ————————S TT but the width at the bottom must be regulated by the nature and size of the materials intended to be used. If the drain is to be made of bricks ten inches long, three inches thick, and four inches in breadth, then the bottom of the drain must be twelve inches ; but: if the common ’sale bricks aré used, then the bottom must be proportionably contracted. In both cases there must be an interstice of one inch between the bottom brick and the sides ‘of the trench, and the vacuity must be filled up with straw, rushes, or loose mould. For the purpose of making these drains, I order my bricks to be moulded ten inches long, four broad, and three thick. These dimensions make the best drain; and I beg leave to be understood, throughout this essay, as speaking of bricks formed in the above manner. « The method I pursue in constructing my main drains is as follows : «‘ When the ground is soft and spongy, the bottom of the drain is laid with bricks placed across. On these, on each side, two bricks are laid flat, one upon the other, forming a drain six inches high and four broad. This is covered with bricks laid flat. Fig. 2, plate 1. «When I first engaged in this mode of draining, I conceived that in places where the bottoms of the main drains were firm and solid, as of clay or marl, it would be an unne- cessary expense to pave them with brick. Under this idea, I recommended them to be constructed as in plate 1, jig. 3, the sides being formed by placing one brick edgeways, instead of two laid flat. But after the experience of some years, I found that the access of air, and the alternation of wet and dry, occasioned the hardest clay or marl to crumble down, whereby the side bricks, not having a paved bottom, were made to fall in. From the experience of this circumstance, I now direct the main drains to be invariably paved with brick, as repeated in plate 1, fig. 2. This will render them as lasting as the sod, or pipe-drains, which I have found free and open after being constructed twenty-five years. «When stones are used instead of bricks, the bottom of the drain should be about eight inches in width. And here it will be proper to remark that, in all cases, the bottom of the main drains must be sunk four inches below the level of the narrow ones, even at the point where the latter fall into them. ; “ The main drains should be kept open till the narrow ones are begun from them, after which they may be finished: but before the earth is returned upon the stones or bricks, it will be advisable to throw in straw, rushes, or brush-wood, to increase the freedom of the drain. ‘¢ The small narrow drains should be cut at the distance of sixteen or eighteen feet from each other, and should fall into the main drain at very acute angles, to prevent any stop- page. At the point where they fall into, and eight or ten inches above it, they should be made firm with brick or stone. “In making the narrow drains I employ four labourers. The first man, with a common 3L2 44 A DISCOURSE For earth which is too light, there is nothing better than pond-mud, after a winter has passed over it. Karth over rank (for there be some too fat as well as too lean) sand and ashes will take down, but still have regard to what you design to plant spade, takes out the turf, or sods, eighteen inches wide, (the drains being before marked out,) and lays them carefully on one side; the second man, with a common spade also, digs out two, three, or more spits of earth, (laying it on the other side of the trench,) till he has cut through the soil, or staple, and come to the under-stratum of clay, marl, or ‘other hard and solid body of earth. The bottom and sides of this trench must be cleanly wrought ; and, allowing for the sloping of the sides in working, should, at the bottom, be clear sixteen inches wide. «In this trench, the frame, jig. 5, plate 1, is laid; and, in the middle of it, the third man, who ought to be strongest and most expert, works the long narrow-draining spade in the body of the clay. By taking care to work it at its full depth, he is always sure of his level, if the drains are properly laid out. The wooden frame is of great use; it gives a firm sup-= port to the feet of the workman, keeps the bottom of the trench smooth and clean, and serves as a purchase to the wings of the narrow tool. Fig. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, plate 2. «‘ When thirty or forty yards have been cut out by the draining spade, the fourth man cleans the bottom of the drain with the scoop, jig. 6, plate 2, and works it quite smooth ; he then covers it with the sods, laying the grass side downwards. In this part of the work too much care and attention cannot be used. The sods should be sound and dry, cut even on the sides, and fitted closely to each other. No broken or rotten pieces should be put in ; and if any of the sods taken out, in cutting the trench for the narrow drains, are bad, good ones, firm and full of roots of rushes, strong grass, &c. should be got in. the other parts of the field, and their place supplied with the decayed ones. In marshy, bad fields, where sound turf cannot be had, little sticks may be placed across the .trench, and the loose and tender sods safely laid upon them. The narrow drains being thus _ covered, the earth must be thrown in again, taking care that the clay, &c. brought out by the narrow tool, be not mixed with it. No greater length of these drains should be cut than can be finished the same day. The price varies with the depth. For the main drains, cut thirty inches above, and thirty-eight deep, laid with bricks, covered, &c. I give about ninepence per rod (eight yards). For the narrow drains, constructed and completely finished according to the foregoing directions, their whole depth (including that of the trench, and that of the draining spade) being thirty-two or thirty-four inches, I give five- pence halfpenny per rod (eight yards *). «From my much-respected friend, the Rev. Mr. Whateley, of Nonsuch-park, in Surry t+, I first received an account of the Hertfordshire and Essex method of draining ;.at the same time, he obligingly sent me a set of tools made use of there, with very particular directions. «‘ The great price of stone and brick in my neighbourhood, rendered the Hertfordshire * Atthis price my labourers, after they were a little acquainted with the work, earned, even in winter, two shillings a-day each. ++ Professor of Rhetoric in Gresham College. Ih | Gp q UY Y =U 7) , SG HAASE SSSA Gp bt OT Y Y MALLETT OF abv Vlt7T OF EARTH. AS upon it. Neither the almond nor the hazel will endure a wanton mould ; and though it seem a paradox that any soil should be too rich, (upon which some critics have suspected the text in Theophrastus, which asserts it twice in two successive chapters,)it is yet a truth indubitable, and holds methods too expensive. Hence I took the idea of the sod drains, and the improvement of the tools. Mr. Young, in the second edition of his justly-esteemed Six Months’ Northern Tour, calls me the inventor of this method of draining. All the merit. I claim, is that of having introduced, together with an amendment of their construction, the application of these celebrated tools to a mode of draining with sods or turf, where stone, brick, or even brush-wood is extremely scarce and dear. «‘ Wherever this is the case, I can, from my own experience, recommend the hollow drains covered in the above manner. “I must observe, that, in loose, crumbly soils, where the wetness does not arise from the retention of water by an under-stratum of clay, but from springs, these drains are im- proper: for such lands they should be made of brick or stone. On the contrary, which is most commonly the case, when the wet is prevented from passing off by an under-stratum of clay, marl, or a mixture of both, these sod drains are excellent. “For if the whole staple or soil is cut through, as it ought to be, the narrow tool will be wholly worked in a solid body, and leave a firm compact ledge, or shoulder, of six inches wide on each side, for the sod to rest on. Fig. 4, plate 2. The strength with which the sods are supported, and their depth in the ground, will effectually prevent their removal by any weight on the surface, and secure them from all effects of the weather. Being at their least depth, twelve inches below the surface, they will also be beyond the reach of the plough. «¢ With respect to the shape of the narrow drains, it will be scarce necessary to observe, that their great depth and contracted width enable them to draw in the moisture of the earth, and, at the same time, to keep themselves clear and open. “ The tools should be formed of well-wrought iron, and made with great care and exact- ness. Including the shaft, the narrow tool should weigh 12lb. *. References to the Plates. “ Plate 1, fig. 1. A field with the drains properly laid out. A A A the maindrains; aaa the narrow sod drains. Fig. 2. A brick drain. Proper, whether the bottom be hard or soft. « Fig. 3. A brick drain, formerly recommended when the bottom was hard, as of clay or mar], but now discontinued for reasons already given. « Fig. 4. A narrow drain; a a the shoulders for the sods to rest upon ; 6 the cut made by the narrow spade. This, and fg. 2 and 3, may be measured by the scale of plate 2. « Fig. 5. The wooden frame to be laid in the trench. It is made of two oak boards, (inch * These tools are made by Mr. Benjamin Royle, smith, in Dolefield, Danesgate, Manchester ; and by Mr William Staveley, smith, in Stonegate, York. 46 A DISCOURSE as well in plants as animals, which growing very fat, are seldom prolific. Some lands, on the contrary, are so lean, dry, and insipid, as hardly any pains will make them fruitful. Such are mineral and metallic soils, devour- ing clays, light and ashy sands; some again are putrid and fungous; others, though fruitful, producing only venomous plants, hemlock and the deadly aconite ; and some, though wholesome ground, may be poisoned with unskilful or malicious mixtures, and with damps or arsenical va- pours, which sometimes (though natural) are yet but accidental, and for a season; as when after extraordinary droughts and stagnant air, the earth hath not been seasonably opened, refreshed, and ventilated. Moreover, ground is sometimes barren, and becomes unfruitful, by the vicinity of plants, sucking and detracting the juice of the earth from one another. Thus we see the reed and fern will not be made to dwell toge- ther; hemlock and rue are said to be inimicable; the almond and the palm are seldom fruitful but in conjunction ; and perhaps there are efflu- via, or certain inconspicuous steams of dusty seeds, which not only im- pregnate places where never grew any before, but issue likewise from one to another, as I observe in our junipers and cypress flowering about April, which are trees of consort, and thrive not well alone. The ficus never keeps her fruit so well as when planted with the caprific«. By what irra- diations the myrtle thrives so with the fig, or why the vine affects the thick) each twelve feet long and six inches in breadth. They are fastened together at the ends by two ribs on the upper side, leaving a slit of five inches for the entrance of the nar- row spade. a the handle. “« Plate 2, fig. 1. A front view of the narrow draining-spade. a the shaft; 6 the wings for the workman’s foot ; c the iron part of the spade, which is greatly concave. “ Fig. 2. A side view. a the shaft ; 6 the wings; c two sharp fins, one on each side, for cutting the next spade graft ; d the iron part. « Fig. 3. A back view. athe shaft; 6 the wings; c the cutting fins; d the iron part, which is convex. «« Fig. 4. A back view in perspective. a the shaft ; 6 the wings ; c the fins ; d the iron part. *« Fig. 5. A front view in perspective. a the shaft; b the wings; c the fins; d the iron part. It will be here proper to remark, that the perspective views must not be measured by the scale. “ Fig. 6. The scoop. aa the wooden handle ; 6 the iron scoop. 4 Tournefort, during his abode in the islands of the Archipelago, had an opportunity of observing this curious fact. For his account of it, consult the notes on the Silva, p. 149, vol. i. , sayouy Jo Prop af Gk ok GE Os 0¢ GT Or g ih\\: RATT = z = —— = 1 OAT : H GE sb vAsa[ OF EARTH. 47 elm and olive, (which is at antipathy with the oak, and imparts also such a bitterness to the mould, as kills lettuce and other subnascent plants,) and why so affect to live in crowds, others in solitude, is hard to say ; but that firs, pines, cedars, elms, and divers other trees, aspire and grow so tall in society, may be (as from other causes) so from their not overglutting themselves with nourishment, (for compost is not their delight,) which inclines them rather to shoot upwards than expand and spread. Lastly, Ground is rendered barren by shade, and the dripping of um- brageous trees. ‘To these, air and sun may be soon restored, by remov- ing the screens which intercept them; and yet all shade is not unpro- pitious where the soil and climate are benign, as well as that which casts the umbrage ; and of this we have a notable instance in some parts of Africa, where the soil and air are so genial, that the olive is said to grow under the date-tree, the fig under the olive, under the fig-tree the gra- nade, under that the vine, and under the vine a crop of corn, and at the feet of the corn a certain pulse ; none of them impeded by the more than reduplicated shades. But there are some, we must confess, amongst us, which are not so propitious; trees of all sorts (though the perennial greens least) breathe as much after the air as the soil, and do not thrive without it, nor except it be wholesome. But to return to barren earths, which are either out of heart by being Spent, or from the nature of the soil, (in both which cases the plants pro- duced, though never so unprosperous, run hastily to seed, or make an offer,) they are to be restored by the plough, the spade, and the rake; by stirring and repose, appositions and mixtures of earth, calcinations, and composts ; and above all, by the eye of the master, and dust of his feet, as the Italian proverb has it. or after this process, and innumerable other trials, (mixtures of things being endless,) all other sorts of earths and imperfect moulds may be treated and meliorated ; namely, if it be too hard and close, mollify and relax it; if too loose, give it ligature and binding ; if too light, ballast ; if too meagre, fatten and impinguate it ; if too rich and luxuriant, emaciate, and bring it down; if too moist, ap- ply exsiccatives ; if too cold, fermenting composts ; if excessive hot, cool and refresh it: and thus earths should be married together like male and female, as if they had sexes; for being of so many several complexions, 48 A DISCOURSE they should be well considered and matched accordingly, things (as was said) becoming fruitful from the mixture of repughant qualities; so as cold and dryness, without a warm and cherishing moisture, produces nothing. For this, therefore, you see what choice I have presented you of sand, ashes, chalk, lime, marl; mixture of mould, calcinations, air, sun, dew, rain, frosts, and snows, trenching, drilling, watering, infusions, and finally, of animal stercorations and other composts, which is the next and last part of this (I fear) over-tedious Discourse ; since indeed, it is not suf- ficient to find out even the best and most grateful mould in nature, so as to rely for ever upon the same performance, without supplies of all sorts, stirring and repose, constant dressing, and (after all we have said) artifi- cial latations likewise, to encourage and maintain it in vigour. We proceed, then, in the next place, to what farther advancement we may expect from stercoration, and manuring the ground by composts, and to discover the qualities which may be latent in their several fer- ments, and how to apply them by a skilful and philosophical hand, without which they do always more hurt than good ; and therefore, first, we will enumerate their several kinds; we shall next inquire what it is we chiefly seek for and expect from them ; and lastly, shew how to treat them, so as to render them fitting for our service. From animals, we have the soil of horses and other beasts of burden, neats, sheep, goats, hogs, pigeons, poultry, and fenny fowl: we have also flesh, fat, blood, hair, feathers, urine, shavings of horn, hoofs, leather, skins, fish, garbage, snail-mud, &c. From vegetables, (as of nearest affinity,) we have vine-cuttings, stalks, fallen leaves, marc of the wine and cider-presses, lees of wine, oil, rotten fruit, gourds, weeds, fern, haulm, stubble, rotten wood, saw-dust, refuse of the tan-pit, sea- weed, and old rags; also brine, pickle, ashes, soot ; and of things pro- miscuous, washings of dishes and barrels, soap-suds, slime, and scouring of ponds and highways, dust, sweepings ; in sum, whatsoever is apt to rot and consume in any competent time, and is either salt, unctuous, or fatty ; to which let me add impregnating rains and dews, cold and dry winters, with store of snow, which I reckon equal to the richest manures, impregnated as they are with celestial nitre. But with all these auxiliaries, we are not yet to imagine that any of them are, therefore, profitable and good, because they return an heady scent, are hot, moist, rotten, and slip- OF EARTH. ) 49 pery, fat or unctuous, and the like, which are all qualities that alone, and of themselves, effect little till they are corrected and prepared ; but, for that among these materials we detect the causes of fertility more emi- nently than in other substances, partly from their fixed salts, or some vir- tue contained in them, or rather drawn from without, and imparted to the exhausted and defective earth ; and that by such a process, as by convert- ing them into a chyle, (as it were) it facilitates their being insumed, assimi- lated, and made apt to pass into nourishment, promoting vegetation. This obtained, the next thing is, skilfully to apply what we have pre- pared ; and this, indeed, is a difficulty worthy the heads, as well as hands, of the profoundest philosophers, since it requires a more than superficial knowledge and penetration into causes. We know, indeed, that the earth is, without any artificial auxiliaries, endued with a wonderful prolific virtue ; but this, for being possible to decay and be lost, (at least for a longer time than our necessities can support,) and from some grounds never to be expected without such helps, it may be worth our while a little to consider by what expedients of digestion, or other ways, the desired effect of perpetuating its vigour might best be accomplished. That the secret we inquire after, and which does most apparently seem to evirtuate towards this end, is some vegetable salt or matter, I suppose is generally agreed ; for salt it is which gives ligature, weight, and constitution to things, and is the most manifest substance in all artificial composts. It is salts which entice roots to affect the upper and saline surface of the earth, upon which the nitrous rains and dews descend ; and the cause that some plants, the most racy, and charged with juice, of all other (for such is the vine) thrive so well among rocks and pumices, and in what- ever best maintains this vital pickle. It is salt which makes all covered and long-shaded earths to abound in fertility, and renders the dung of pigeons, poultry, and other salacious Volume IU. 3M 50 A DISCOURSE corn-fed birds, so eminently effectual before the soil of horses and other beasts, in which it less abounds, as having less virtue to attract it ‘. It is salt that gives such vigour to places sprinkled with urine, soot, ashes, &¢. which have them not diluted; and to bones, flesh, horn, hair, feathers, blood, and the rest of those animal excrements: and whence those seminal masses should proceed after calcination of the earth, when it comes to be exposed again, is hard to divine; whence, I say, they should derive their life and energy, without being destroyed by so powerful an agent as fire, unless they lurk in some vegetant and indissoluble salts, (vo- latile, fixed, or nitrous earth,) from whence they (phoenix-like) emerge, though I do not say without any other specific rudiment: but it is strange, what, as I remember Dr. Morison affirms of the Hrysimum, or Irio, so seldom seen to grow spontaneously in England before the late prodigious conflagration of this city, when there appeared more of it amongst the ruins, than was known to grow in all Europe besides: it being a curious exotic, to be found most about Naples in the time of Fabius Columna, and but rarely elsewhere *. It is salt which resuscitates the dead and mortified earth, when, lan- guishing and spent by indulgence to her verdant offspring, her vigour seems to be quite exhausted, as appears by the rains and showers which gently melt into her bosom what we apply to it, and for which cause all our composts are so studiously made of substances which most en- gender or attract it. © The richness of poultry and pigeon dung appears rather to arise from its being over- charged with oil and mucilage, than any thing saline. For further information upon this subject, consult the note upon the 27th page of the Ist vol. of the Szlva. f This is the Ssymbrium (Irio) foiiis runcinatis dentatis nudis, caule levi, filiquis ereclis. Linn. Two years ago a crop of wild mustard ( Erysimum vulgare. Bauh.) was reaped from the banks raised at Hull to form a dock for the reception of shipping; and it is generally-ob- served that a spontaneous crop of this vegetable makes its appearance, for two successive years, upon the banks of all large drains made in Holderness. Similar appearances have been observed in the isle of Axholme, and other low countries. This phenomenon proves that seeds, when kept from air, may retain their vegetative power many years beyond the term seemingly allotted them. OF EARTH. 51 It is salt which fertilizes and renders Egypt so luxuriously fruitful after the inundations of the Nile; and the nitrous grounds of Jamaica and other places, cause a stupendous growth of plants and trees. It is the want of salt which emasculates the virtue of seeds too long macerated in hungry water, and renders floated wood such unprofitable fuel, and to turn into such insipid ashes ; and whatsoever it be some plants may appear to affect, as to the external differences of appetite, some of them seeming to draw in more air, some earth, and others water in ex- traordinary measure, accoxding to the several contextures of their parts, or by whatever magnetisms and attractives, it is still to come at their salts, which doubtless create that inclination, and compose the various saps and juices which they present us. Nay, what if I should say that all the se- veral parts of vegetables were endowed with their peculiar and distinct salts, through different motions, complications, and percolations? Or, that so many earths, so many kinds of salts digested and transported by their different vehicles and strainers ; and those also, though unlike in quality, yet perfectly congruous to what they produce and nourish? but what this vehicle or menstruum is, I contend not. It is evident that salts unite best with water, vernal and autumnal showers and dews, as the most apt to convey their insinuations. You know, who have dignified salt with the prerogative of being named element-earth, the vigour and close of all things; yea, the first and last of elementated bodies. What shall I say, quid divinum! the original of all fecundity ; nor can I say less, since there was no sacrifice, or discourse, acceptable without it. And verily, upon serious contemplation of the premises, and the little experience I have had of their effects in this work of vegetation, as far as I am able to penetrate into causes by them, I am pot displeased at the magnificent epithets which are given it. In the mean time, I know there be who are so averse to this doctrine, as to prefer water alone before it ; nor contend I with them, so they allow the near affinity and friendship which is between them, as I have deduced it at the entry of this Discourse, where I describe my autoptical observations of the several earths: all that I pretend from hence being only to excite us to make diligent inquiry what may more likely be the cause of vegetation, and whether salt have not a dominion almost monarchical in this great work of Nature, being so 3.M 2 52 A DISCOURSE absolute an ingredient in all our dungs and composts. I cannot, in the mean time, but wonder how a thing so eminently sacred and fertile, should come to be the symbol of malediction; when, as the custom was, they used to sow salt in the place of cities they had erased and cursed; there being in all nature nothing so pregnant and fruitful, unless it were to invite the plough to go there, and that the fertility of the spot for corn and grain might divert them from rebuilding and covering it again with houses. Indeed, to applv salts in excess, burns the earth for a time, so as nothing will grow upon it; but, when once the rains have well diluted it, vegetables spring up more wantonly than ever. This I daily find, by sifting common salt upon the gravel walks of my garden, and for which cause I have left it off; and we find that the earth itself over-marled, and too highly manured, is as unprofitable as if it were barren for the time, and that there is in all things a just proportion to be observed. But neither all this while do I pretend, much less determine, that the principle I so much celebrate, is our common artificial salt, composed of urine, and the like, which of itself is so burning and destructive, till its acidity be qualified by the air and showers from heaven, (which endows it with a natural magnetism to receive their irradiant virtues,) but a certain more unctuous spirit, or airy nitre, pregnant with a vital balm, which is the thing we endeavour to find in the materials of composts ; but whether it be accidental or essential, corporeal or more spiritual, principal or or- ganical, or (to speak with the chymists and later atomists) whether com- municated by effluvia, salts embryonate, or undigested and not specificate, from ferments, spermatic vapours, influences celestial, or from liquor only impregnated and concocted, I leave to those who affect to wrap up easy notions in hard and uncertain terms, whilst the things would be of use to the philosophical husbandman, were they reduced into just classes, for the better discriminating of the several composts; as which of them most abound in nitrous or urinous parts; or which partake of the nature of : our crude common salts, and Kali’s mineral, or other. This would en- able us to pronounce, where and how we may apply them with safety and success : for some we know are plainly exitial and deadly to plants, (such as the mineral,) others properate too fast, and some are sluggish, and scarce OF EARTH. 53 advance them at all®. It should, therefore, be considered, whether any salts do universally nourish all plants alike; or rather partly, some one plant, some another: for upon the clear decision of this secret, depends all that is truly curious in this affair; laying, as I do, for position, that the improvement of all the earths and soils I have spoken of, results from some salt or spirit, (call it which you please,) as from an indispen- sable principle in this vegetation, and perhaps the first rudiment of life in all things else; and till we shall arrive to this, (by what I have observed in the discreet use even of our common salt, brine, the effects of urine, and the like,) I firmly believe, that were saltpetre (I mean factitious nitre) to be obtained in plenty, we should need but few other composts to me- liorate our ground ; since whether that which so fertilizes it, by any mix- ture we can yet devise, effect it from any other cause, is greatly to be doubted; nor do I think but the charge of extracting it (at least sufficient to impregnate water in convenient quantity) might be compassed by the industrious farmer without much inconvenience or difficulty, were he competently instructed in the process of calcination, resolution, percola- tion, evaporation, and separation, put into honest Hnglish, and easily to be learned: soon we should then see that this were not to be extracted altogether out of stinking dung, and found in heady trash, (which yet is material,) but rather in the well-impregnated and natural mould itself, charged with a more generous spirit, or medicinal nitre, (in congress with a certain sulphur,) capable of warming and exciting to vegetation, beyond all we can promise from any mere artificial ferments, much less our com- mon mixtures and ways of stercoration, which, in time, grow cold and languish, and are so quickly checked", & Without multiplying distinctions, we may divide manures into four kinds : 1, Such as give nourishment only ; as rape-dust, soot, malt-dust, blood compost, horn- shavings, pigeons’-dung, and all top-dressings. 2. Such as give nourishment, and add to the soil; as horse-dung, cows’-dung, human ordure, rotten animal and vegetable substances. 3. Such as open the soil, and do not nourish in their own natures ; as lime, light marls, sand, and vegetable ashes. 4. Such as stiffen the soil, and, at the same time, nourish a little ; as clay, clay marls, and earth. * All the boasted compositions of nitre, and other salts, for increasing the fertility of land without other assistance, are now experimentally found to be of little value, Dung, that is, putrid animal and vegetable substances, constitutes the only fertilizer for the use of the 5A A DISCOURSE And now, after all this, I dare not say that there is nothing more than this mere salt, or spirituous nitre, which concurs to those desired effects that promote fertility, and set the ferment on working : what ignite par- ticles beside, and special composts there may be, of consanguinity and near alliance to the respectable vegetables, (which we know to be of vast difference one from another,) we pretend not to determine; for some plants are very brisk and quick, others insulse and flat ; some are acid, others more dulcerous and sweet ; they are salt, sour, luscious, austere, hot, bitter, moist, dry, astringent, and of strangely different qualities, not to speak of their effects, which it were hard to number. Therefore, that the same compost, or remedy, should be promiscuously universal, is the more unlikely, and should be well considered: but admitting this to be solvable, and that we find, by experience, a well-digested compost be- neficial to almost all the vegetable family, may it not, in all probability, spring from its participation of all those varieties of ferments, (in some at least, though in different proportion,) which we have been speaking of ? As by which each single species draws and assimilates that only to itself, which it finds most congruous to its nature; and if so it be, then we have no more to do than to learn how to prepare our ferments, and apply them accordingly ; namely, acid to acids, sweet to sweets, benign to be- nign, and so the contrary, as we would promote its natural quality ; and this perhaps, either by reducing some parts of them into composts, as their leaves, stalks, fruit, or by some more refined extraction of their salts, conveyed in proper vehicles. And for the better administering of this, the nicer texture of vegetables should diligently be considered, their se- veral vessels and organic parts, since every impregnate liquor is not pre- sently fit for all alike, the figuration of their labiola and curious pores (which it is likely draw several juices and spirits) being very different, as the most sagacious Dr. Grew, and the learned Malpighius, (both ornaments of this illustrious Society,) have begun the way to us in those elaborate anatomizations, which the world will shortly admire. I insist the rather on this, because we find some plants to reject divers rich compounded liquors, especially such as pretend to work miracles in the Protean changes farmer. I must, however, except the oily manures, as rape-dust and soot, which nourish without undergoing the putrid ferment. And here I beg leave to be understood as agree- ing, that worn-out lands may in time be restored to their former vigour by the influence of the atmosphere, without any foreign assistance: but this is a circumstance not to be accom- plished instantaneously by the application of nitre, or any other substance whose basis is saline. ‘ZLAINO LEY GYUMD I UAIAPDAWD f°? / If yf * ZL POD OD — CO My YL ULL OF EARTH. 55 of colours, and other qualities, from mineral, or other substances ;, and that the very rains and dews differ in several climes: so as even from this reason alone, to instance in no more, all plants do not easily become denizens in all places: ——— “ Nec omnis fert omnia tellus.” I might add to this, the niceness of their palates, and fondness to their own homes, and to live some in consort, some in solitude, some on dry banks, some in watery puddles, and some, as it were, in the very air and fiery soils; nay, some are found to destroy the vegetable virtue where they grow, for such are said to be woad, hemp, the Scythian lamb ', &c. 1 This vegetable is called the Tartarian lamb, from its resemblance in shape to that animal. - It usually has four stalks which look like feet, and its body is covered with a brownish kind of down, Travellers report that it will suffer no vegetable to grow within a certain distance of its seat. Sir Hans Sloane read a Memoir upon this plant before the Royal Society ; for which, consult their Transactions, No. 247, p. 461.—Mr. Bell, in his “* Account of a Journey from St. Petersburgh to Ispahan,” informs us that he searched in vain for this plant in the neighbourhood of Astrachan, when, at the same time, the more sensible and ex- perienced among the Tartars treated the whole history as fabulous. This journey was un- dertaken in the year 1715. The annexed plate is taken from Mrs. Blackwell's Herbal, and seemis a just representation of the plant. That given by Edwards has too much the appear- ance of fancy. Itis the Polipodium (Barometz) frondibus bipinnatis: pinnis pinnatifidis lanceolatis serratis, radicibus lanatis, Linn. Dr. de la Croix, in correct and easy Latin verse, has described this supposed animal production : ‘ “Est ubi preeterea tingit sua purpura succos, Itaque cruor nostro similis, qui Caspia sulcant quora, sive legant spumosa Boristhenis ora, Sive petant Asiam velis, et Colchica regna. Hine atque inde stupent visu mirabile monstrum, Surgit humo Baromez. Precelso in stipite fructus Stat quadrupes, Olli vellus. Duo cornua fronte Lanea, nec desunt oculi, rudis Accola credit Esse animal, dormire die, vigilare per umbram, Et cirelim exesis pasei radicitus herbis : Carnibus ambrosie sapor est, succique rubentes, Posthabeat quibus alma suum Burgundia nectar ; Atque loco si ferre pedem natura dedisset, Balatu si posset opem implorare, voracis Ora lupi contra, credas in stirpe sedere Agnum equitem, gregibusque agnorum albescere colles. 56 A DISCOURSE and if this be true and constant, all our imbibitions of salts and composts signify little to earth pre-impregnated with a salt or virtue different from what the plant does naturally delight in, some obscure footsteps of which every ploughman seems to discover, which makes him change the crop in some places yearly. For the first, second, or third burden of the same grain, especially wheat, will exhaust that which is its proper aliment, and then leave the rest to more ignoble grain, which will be found to thrive well enough, till at last several successions of different seeds quite wear it out, and then the land must repose, or be manured with composts for fresh life and vigour *. And to thiswe may add, howsome plants again require little change or help of art; such as most of the perennial greens, and amongst these, the most resinous and oily, as the Pine, Fir, Cedar, &c. which thrive on barren hills, and grow in rocky crannies, without any earth almost to cover and protect their roots. Of this sort I have a Cedar table, which was sawed out of a spur only, of a monstrous tree growing in Barbadoes, which held six feet long, five feet broad, and three inches thick, formed and wrought as it stands upon the frame; and his royal highness had another of a much larger dimension, namely, eighteen feet in length, and nine in breadth, cut out of the stem, which was of prodigious growth, fed and nourished as it was between the barren Hoc é fonte fluit, me judice, fabula Graium ; Hee olim eripedes tauri, vigilesque dracones / Vellera servavere, hac ibat dote per undas Medea, his visus renovari fructibus A‘son, Et succo presente senex revocasse juventam,”’ Connus. For. k It does not seem a well-founded opinion, that plants of different kinds select different particles from the same earth. Accurate experiments rather prove that they all live upon the same general food. Some require more, some less. Some take it near the surface, others take it deeper. Upon these principles we may rationally account for the necessity of changing the species in the old husbandry. With regard to the different tastes and odours of different plants growing upon the same bed of earth, I shall only remark, that the modi- fication of the particles of the general nutriment produces all the differences. Matter, con- sidered as matter, has no share in the qualities of bodies. It is from the arrangement of it that we have so many substances in nature. We may eat the earth, and drink the water that moistens it, and yet from the modification of its parts by the different vessels of plants, it is capable of becoming both bread and poison. A lemon, grafted upon an orange stock, is capable of changing the sap of the orange into its own nature, bya different arrange- ment of the nutritive juices. The same mass of innocent earth can give life and vigour to the bitter aloe, and to the sweet cane! to the cool houseleek, and to the fiery mustard! to the nourishing grains, and to the deadly nightshade ! OF EARTH. 57 rocks. But to proceed; we find that most esculent and culinary roots do rather choose a rich, natural, and light mould, inclining to sand, than what is forced or over-mucked; and how much they yield to soil, grow- ing hard, short, and fibrous, and contract the smell and relish of the fer- ments applied to accelerate their growth, (for according to the Italian proverb, Ogni pianta serba della sua radice, “ Kvery plant has a smack of the root,”) I have already mentioned ; so as to confide in dungs, as our vulgar gardeners about this city do, is no encouragement; and, there- fore, some, not without good reason, prefer the corn and grain which is reaped from marl, chalk, lime, and other more natural manures, before what is produced from a crop, which, in comparison, grows on a dung- hill; experience also shewing, that the cause of smuttiness many times proceeds from the impurity and rankness of the dressing; and, there- fore, we omit to enumerate, amongst our soils, stercus humanum, which howsoever preferred by some before all other, and mentioned by Colu- mella with that of fowl and cattle, does, (unless exceedingly ventilated and aired) perniciously contaminate the odour of flowers, and is so evi- dent in the vine, as nothing can reconcile it’. To give some instances of the nature of particular and simple composts, (for so I beg leave to use a solecism,) whatever they be, they are by no means fit for the earth and use of the husbandman, unless, besides their richness, they be perfectly well digested, made short, sweet, and almost reduced to a crumbling mould; so ordered, as not only not to lose any of their virtue, but to improve it, and to excite, entertain, and commu- nicate heat and vegetative spirits to whatever you apply them: and that this is not done per se, that is, by immediate application, without pre- judice, (unless it be for the hot-bed, which yet has an intermedium of mould,) experience tells us, especially in the soil of animals, which is of all other the most active, as consisting of heterogeneous parts and repug- nances, without which no fermentation could be obtained. Now, since —= 1 This is the richest species of manure that possibly can be introduced into the field. In Flanders they use it with great success, either strewed upon the land in the form of powder, or dissolved in water and thrown on with a wooden scoop. In large families, this excellent top-dressing may be easily prepared by filling the pits of the necessartes with moor-earth, and in this state it may be put upon the land with great advantage and cleanliness. Volume II, 3N 58 A DISCOURSE many of these being freshly made, are not sensibly hot, but mordacious. and burning, they are with caution to be used. That every kind of earth (as well as the dung of beasts, &c.) has its peculiar ferment, and operates accordingly, either by attracting something to it, or embasing what approaches it, sufficient has been said; together with directions how to mingle and attemper it, as best may qualify it for culture. That we may do the like with the several sorts of soil, let us consider what their natures are, what their correctives, and how to apply them. Horse-dung, the least pinguid and fat of any, taken as it falls, being the most fiery, excites to sudden fermentation above any ; wherefore, as we said, it is then fit only for the hot-bed, and when that fervour is past, may be spread on fields where we would have a rank grass to spring ; but is at no hand to be admitted into the garden, or where you desire good roots should grow, unless the ground be very stiff, cold, or wet, and then too it had need be well rotted, lest, instead of curing it, it leave couch-grass and pernicious weeds, worse than the disease. The seeds of hay and other plants, of which the horses eat, come oftentimes entire from them; and we observe, that such vegetables do commonly spring up from the soil of cattle as they chiefly eat ; as long knot-grass from this beast ; short, clean, and sweet pasture from sheep and cows ; the sonchus, or sow-thistle, from the swine. Ground mucked with horse-dung is al- ways the most infected of any ; and if it be not perfectly consumed, it makes your roots grow forked, fills them with worms, and imparts to them an unpleasing relish ; but being laid on at the beginning of win- ter, and turned in at spring, it succeeds sometimes with pulse. The dung of asses is highly esteemed, for its being better digested by the long mastication and chewing of that dull animal ; but since we have no quantity of it in this country, it does the least concern us. The dung of cows and oxen is, of all other, the most harmless, and the most useful; excellent to mingle with sandy and hot grounds, lean or dry, and being applied before winter, renders it the most like natural earth, and is, therefore, for the garden and orchard preferred to any other. To use it, therefore, with the most certain success in such thirsty grounds, ap- plya plentiful surface of it, so blended, as the rain and showers may wash in the virtue of it thoroughly; but this is best done by making the dung OF EARTH. 59 the finer, arid what if reduced to powder, sprinkled for the garden, or otherwise working it in at asoaking wet (not stormy) season; but leave it covered with it for some time, if the rain descend in too great excess. The next is sheep-dung, which is of a middle temper between that and pigeons’ ; profitable in cold grounds, and to impregnate liquors, of choice use in the garden. The dung of swine is esteemed the coldest and least acrimonious, (though some there be who contradict it,) and, therefore, to be applied to burning lands; but always so early interred, as never to appear above ground, where it is apt to produce weeds in abundance, from the greedy devouring of what that animal eats. This, though not so proper for the garden, (and the most stinking,) is said yet to edulcorate and sweeten fruit so sensibly, as to convert the bit- terest almond into sweet, and, therefore, reeommended, above all others, for experiments of change and alteration : some qualify it with bran, or chaff well consumed, greatly comfortable to fruit-trees, but especially the hairs and bristles buried about the roots of pear-trees. Pigeons’ dung, and that of poultry, (especially of aquatic fowls, which is too fiery,) being full of volatile salts, is hot and burning, and, there- fore, most applicable to the coldest ground. There is nothing more effectual to revive the weak and languishing roots of fruit-trees than this laid early to them; but first be sure they pass their mordicant and piercing spirits, and be discreetly mixed: be this, therefore, observed as a constant rule, That the hotter composts be early and thinly spread, é contra, the colder. Very efficacious is this dung to keep frosts out of the earth, and, there- fore, of great use to cover the mould in cases of exotic and tender plants ; but if the heat be not well qualified, the very steam will kill them in a moment ; therefore, let a full winter pass over this leetation for most uses. The best way of preparing it, is to reduce it into powder, and mingle it with the mould, and to water with its infusion, which alone does won- ders ; or, if it has been well exposed and abated, you may use it at the spring without addition; but if you desire something that is exquisite, 60 A. DISCOURSE macerate it well rotted in the lees of wine, stale urine, and 4 little brim- stone beaten very fine; then mingle it with your earth, for one of the richest composts. But let this be noted, that as the effect of this dung is sudden, so it lasts not long, and, therefore, must the oftener be re- newed. The flesh of carrion and dead animals, being (as I think my lord Bacon tells us) prepared already by so many curious elaborations of its juices, is highly effectual; but it should be very well consumed and ventilated, till it have quite lost its intolerable smell, and, therefore, never applied too crude *. Blood is excellent almost with any soil where fruit is planted, especially the mural. To improve the blood of the grape, it is of great advantage, beingsomewhat diluted,and poured about the roots. It has been assuredly reported by divers eye-witnesses, that after the battle of Bradock Down, in Cornwall, (where Sir Ralph Hopeton obtained a signal victory,) the carnage being great, the blood of the slain did so fertilize the fields, where corn had been sown a little before, that the year following pro- duced so extraordinary a crop, as most of the wheat-stalks bare two, three, four, yea seven, and some even fourteen ears ; a thing almost incredible. The owner of the land seeing his ground so miserably trodden by the horse and soldiers after the conflict, intended to resow it, as believing all his former labour lost; but being dissuaded from his purpose, (per- haps to make the experiment,) it happened as you have heard ». Urine, for being highly spirituous and sharp, had need be well cor- rected; and then, being mingled with other composts to allay its acri- monious salt, it hardly has its equal. m The offal of the shambles, when mixed with earth and fresh horse-dung, makes a com- post of the richest quality ; but this cannot be obtained in large quantities. Some years ago, I recommended a compost, the basis of which was whales’ flesh, after the oil had been taken from it. This, compounded with horse-dung and earth, is now much used by the farmers who live in the neighbourhood of sea-ports where ships are fitted out for the Green~ land seas. The manner of preparing this rich kind of manure is described in the Georgical Essays, p. 385. " Blood, mixed with saw-dust, makes a very good hand-dressing to be sown upon wheat in the spring. It equals soot, and does not come to half the price. OF EARTH. 61 Hair, horn-shavings, bones, skins, leather, &c. are deeply to be buried, and so as not to touch, but lie about the roots: these, with rags, coarse wool, and pitch-marks, improve the earth, as being full of volatile salts, drawing and retaining the dews. Fish is likewise spread to great ad- vantage of grounds, where it is to be had in plenty; and for being quickly consumed, may soonest be applied °. We come now to vege- tables. The marc and pressings of the grape make a good compost, and so do lees of wine mingled with mould. ‘This is of singular comfort to the roots of orange-trees and case-plants ; and if you sift a little brick-dust with it, and bury it near the roots of rosemary, the plant will thrive wonderfully: it may bea laudable compost for moist ground, where that vegetable grows so unwillingly. The leaves of trees are profitable for their own fruit, and natural, being well rotted, and not musty: the peach-leaf, hurtful to cattle, is excel- lent for the tree from which it falls; and the walnut-leaf, noxious to gress, is helpful to the tree. Duck-weed, the slime and spongy ouze of stagnant waters, mixed with proper mould, make a kind bed for aquatics. Saw-dust, rotten-wood, found in the hollow of decayed trees, under the stacks, and where trees grow thick together, as in great and old woods, but especially that which is taken out of an inveterate willow- tree, is preferable to any other for the raising of seedlings of choice plants, mixed, as it should be, with a little loam, lime-rubbish, and mould, as we have taught. This and the rest being well ventilated, is of great effect to loosen and mellow’ground, as tenacious of moisture. © In all towns upon the sea-coast, the refuse of fish may be obtained upon moderate terms. It is matter of surprise that this hint of our excellent author, given in the year 1675, should have operated so little, that at this time (1778) the use of refuse fish is hardly known. The sea, with generous bounty, throws at the feet of the husbandman her richest treasures, and invites him to partake with freedom; but, instead of embracing the prof- fered riches, he drives his team to some distant town to purchase, at a high rate, what the watery elements offer without a price. 62 A DISCOURSE W ood-ashes, rich and impregnate with salts, are fit for wet ground without mixture, and in pasture excellent, not sifted on over thick. In the West Indies, near Guatimala, Gage tells us their manure is the burn- ing of trees to ashes’. These kill the worm; but in earth which is subject to over-heat and chap much, ashes and burning composts do but increase the fever, and, therefore, contrary remedies are to be sought, such as the dung of oxen and swine ; but not so when lands are naturally or ac- cidentally cold. Wherefore we should endeavour by all means to detect, as far as we are able, the quality predominant both of the earth we would improve, and the composts we apply, and not throw them promiscuously upon every thing, without considering of what temper and constitution they be; for grounds are as nice as our bodies, and as obnoxious to in- firmities upon every defect and excess; and therefore it requires skill, and no little study, to be able rightly to marshal this materia medica (as I may call it) of composts, the virtue of which does sometimes lie very hidden ; at least, if it be true which Sir Hugh Platt affirms, that what we all this while seek after, is indeed altogether invisible to human eyes, and to be discerned only by the eyes intellectual, because it is veiled and clad under so many different bodies, whereof some are more ponderous, such as marl, chalk, the dung of beasts, &c. ; and some more light, as their flesh, bones, hair, &c.; and some yet lighter, as grain and generous seeds : for in such as have virtue to multiply their own species, that spirit is invested with a very thin and curious integument, as in effect we have instanced in the blood and flesh of animals, so much more powerful for the enriching of land than their dung and excrements—this industrious man computing it to no less than twenty times ; and to the same advance above this, hair, wool, and calcined bones*. As to the coarser soils, he says, that the P In Sweden, Finland, Livonia, and the greatest part of Russia, where woods are plen- tiful, the countrymen cut down large tracts, and after burning the wood, they sow the land with corn, which husbandry they continue for three years, the wood-ashes remaining in force for that time. On the fourth year, they remove to another woody quarter, and in this manner they proceed till the first sown land be again covered with wood, which is generally in about twenty years. This operation is called in the north, Swedieland. See Osbeck’s Voyage to China, p. 50. Vol. I. 4 Bones should by no means be calcined, as their virtue is dissipated by the fire, and nothing but a caput mortuum left behind. My worthy friend, Gen. St. Leger, has favoured me with the following account of bones used for manure. The subject is curious as well as important : “Eight years ago I laid down to grass a large piece of very indifferent limestone land OF EARTH. 63 - dung of pigeons and poultry does far exceed that of beasts which feed on gross vegetables, and tells us it has been found upon experience, that one load of any sort of seed contains as much virtue, as ten loads of ordi- nary dung ; therefore, it is advisable, upon all removals of corn-ricks, hay- stacks, &c. that the husbandman reserve all he can of the bottoms, offal, and shakings, and mingling them with chimney-soot and blood, let him reduce the whole into the form of a paste. To this, add as much dried “‘ with a crop of corn; and, in order that the grass-seeds might have a strong vegetation, “I took care to see it well dressed. From this piece I selected three roods of equal quality “‘ with the rest, and dressed them with bones broken very small, at the rate of sixty bushels «per acre. Upon the lands thus managed, the crop of corn was infinitely superior to the “yest. The next year the grass was also superior, and has continued to preserve the same «superiority ever since, insomuch, that in spring it is green three weeks before the rest of « the field. , “ This year, I propose to plough up the field, as the Festuca Sylvatica (Prye Grass) has “ overpowered the grass-seeds originally sown. And here it will be proper to remark, that, « notwithstanding this species of grass is the natural produce of the soil, the three roods on «which the bones were laid, have hardly any of it, but on the contrary, have all along pro- « duced the finest grasses. «Last year, I dressed two acres with bones in two different fields prepared for turnips, «« sixty bushels to the acre, and had the pleasure to find the turnips greatly superior to the « others managed in the common way. I have no doubt but these two acres will preserve « their superiority for many years to come, if I may be allowed to prognosticate from former “ experiments most attentively conducted. <¢ T also dressed an acre of grass ground with bones in October, (1774,) and rolled them in. «« The succeeding crop of hay was an exceeding good one. However, I have found from “< repeated experience, that, upon grass ground, this kind of manure exerts itself more power- «fully the second year than the first. «It must be obvious to every person, that the bones should be well broken before they “can be equally spread upon the land. No pieces should exceed the size of marbles. To << perform this necessary operation, I would recommend the bones to be sufficiently bruised, «« by putting them under a circular stone, which being moved round upon its edge by means “ of a horse, in the manner that tanners grind their bark, will very expeditiously effect the «purpose. At Sheffield it is now become a trade to grind bones for the use of the farmer. « Some people break them small with hammers upon a piece of iron, but that method is «inferior to grinding. To ascertain the comparative merit of ground and unground bones, «| last year dressed two acres of turnips with large bones, in the same field where the « ground ones were used ; the result of this experiment was, that the unground materials did «not perform the least service; while those parts of the field on which the ground bones «< were laid, were greatly benefited. «T find that bones of all kinds will answer the purposes of rich dressing ; but those of “ fat cattle, I apprehend, are the best. The London bones, as I am informed, undergo 64 A DISCOURSE neats’ dung, tempered with urine, and made up in cakes as big as house- hold loaves; and after all is well dried in the shade, crumble the mass to dust, to be sifted or sprinkled on the ground, for a very considerable im- provement; we say sprinkled, because it should never be sown too thick, especially for corn, which it either cloys or over-heats, according as it is qualified’. Thus, pigeons’ dung burns seeds on hot ground, but is excellent for barley, &c. sown on the colder mould. “the action of boiling water, for which reason they must be much inferior to such as retain “ their oily parts ; and this is another of the many proofs given in these essays, that oil is the «food of plants. The farmers in this neighbourhood are become so fond of this kind of ‘manure, that the price is now advanced to one shilling and fourpence per bushel, and even “at that price they send sixteen miles for it. «« J have found it a judicious practice to mix ashes with the bones ; and this winter I have “« six acres of meadow land dressed with that compost. A cart load of ashes may be put to “thirty or forty bushels of bones, and when they have heated for twenty-four hours, (which ««may be known by the smoking of the heap,) let the whole be turned. After laying «ten days longer, this most excellent dressing will be fit for use.” Georgical Essays, page 461. My very excellent friend, Edward M. Mundy, Esq. of Shipley, in the county of Derby, this moment informs me, that a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Matlock has lately erected a mill for grinding bones, which he profitably applies both to pasture and arable lands. t These observations of Sir Hugh Platt, relative to the nutritive powers of all kinds of seeds, are fully confirmed by the present practice of using the powder of rape-cakes upon corn lands. This species of manure is much used upon the thin limestone lands in Yorkshire. They generally use three quarters per acre for wheat, and four quarters for barley. It is sown by hand, and harrowed in with the grain; and costs about nineteen shillings per quarter. If rain fall within a week or ten days after sowing, the barley crop is generally good, but if no rain fall till long after, the benefit of this expensive dressing is in a great measure lost; neither does the succeeding crop receive much advantage from it. For wheat, rape-dust is considered as a certain dressing, rain generally falling within a short time after sowing that grain: the strong mechanical powers employed in drawing the oil from the rape-seed, must, as I conceive, diminish the goodness of the dust used by the farmer. However, some experienced farmers contend that it is full as good as when it contained more oil. This deserves to be carefnlly investigated, and should be the object of correct experiment. On this subject | have fully enlarged in the note upon the twenty- eighth page of the first volume of the Silva, and I think I have there proved, that oil, or mucilage, is the food of plants ; if so, the violence used in extracting the oil from the seed, must render the rape-cake of less value. In all light soils, whether deep or shallow, what is called top-dressing,, constitutes a system of farming, that is highly judicious ; for which reason I do recommend the farmer to employ his ingenuity and attention in forming a body of manure that may be put on by hand, either at the time of sowing the grain, or after it has come up. The use of pigeons’ dung and OF EARTH. 65 Of like effect is earth blended with malt-dust, or decayed corn reduced to meal; so is the dust of old furze bushes, (in Devonshire called dress, ) but this last should not be taken in seed-time, lest it infect the ground with a plant not easily to be extirpated. Lastly, the mud of ponds and stagnant waters of ditches, shovelled up and well aired, is best applied to roots of trees, but especially the dust of unstony highways, where the drift of cattle and much passage is*. Let it be carried off from March to November; for, it being already a kind of refined soil, continually stirred and ventilated, there is no compost pre- ferable to it for any use. It is prepared in the highest degree, and will need no wintering, but may be used immediately; and so may straw, soot is universally known, but the application of rape-dust is only attended to in a few counties. The expense incurred by the farmer for the above-mentioned hand-dressings, is 8o considerable, that it should induce him to invent similar ones of a less expensive * nature. A good top-dressing may be made by mixing a due proportion of shambles-blood and saw-dust, both which articles may be procured in every large town at a moderate price: when the heat and putrid ferment is over, the compost is fit for use. Another top- dressing, but of a richer quality, may be obtained by putting saw-dust, or moor-earth, at the bottom of the necessaries, a practice that is followed in Flanders, with considerable advan- tage. No kind of manure exceeds human ordure in strength, and on that account the farmer should be careful to let it down to a suitable standard, before he applies it. All large towns may be made to supply this kind of compost, at a price considerably under what is given for soot and pigeon-dung. A farmer would be benefited, if, at his own expense, he was to erect commodious necessaries in places where numbers of manufacturers assemble. The common sewers should, in no town, be permitted to run to waste. Their contents should be directed into reservoirs, filled with the sweepings of the streets and all kinds of light materials. Much excrementitious matter is conveyed into the ocean by rivers, where probably it supplies the submarine plants with food, but of that circumstance we have but an imperfect knowledge. Man, however, has this last substance returned to him by the fish taken from the sea ; and in the end, the balance may be in his favour. This is an_har- monious rotation, which only the philosophic farmer can see and admire. Every farmer knows that the animals under his protection must be supplied with proper food, and he exerts every nerve to procure it; but he should also know that the vegetables which grow at his feet, require also their food. Let him take the same pains to procure it, and he may rest assured that the earth will return with plenty and gratitude all that he bestows upon her. s The pulverized materials of our turnpike roads are well calculated for cold clay lands, whether in pasture, or under the plough. But the commendable practice of removing the dung of horses as soon as it has dropt, has diminished the value of this kind of manure. Volume LI. 30 66 A DISCOURSE haulm, and other litter trampled on in dirty streets, after it is a while rotted and mingled. Mr. Ray tells us, that in some places about the Alps, he found them sowing dust upon the snow, as he supposes, for manure, and to fertilize the dissolution. Thus with no little industry, are found out the several kinds of com- posts, and materials for improvement, and what is the most genuine and true medicament of every soil for arable, pasture, or garden. I do not say all, as if I thought there were no more; for what, if indeed there should be as many sorts of composts as there are of ferments or salts; and as many sorts of salts as there be of vegetables, or any other putrifiable matter. The more there be, the greater ought to be our industry and skill to be able to distinguish them, and to know how and when rightly to apply them. Nor is it sufficient to consider the nature of the earth, mould, and se- veral composts, but of the very plants themselves, for the application of what you administer, be it for food or medicine ; as if they be cold of con- stitution, to make use of the hotter composts; if hot, to prescribe the cold. For instance in a few of the most useful only : Fruit-trees do generally thrive with the soil of oxen and swine; most flowers, but especially roots, with that of sheep. Peter Hondius tells us, (in his book entitled Dapes inempte,) that by the sole application of sheep-dung, he produced a radish root in his garden as big as half a man’s middle, which being hung up for some time in a butcher’s shop, people took it for a hog. Apples affect a pretty rich soil with a dash of loam, but they will bear even in clay well soiled, and mixed with chalk, especially the more hardy winter fruit ; and in chalk alone for some years; but they produce, though sweet, not so large fruit: but both apples and pears have a better relish in grounds that are not over moist, and where they may stand warm: and the last will prosper well enough where the soil is mixed with gravel, and has a harder bottom. : Cherries, summer and stone-fruit, such as have their roots like thrums, desire a fine light mould, sand, or gravel, with chalk and good compost, OF EARTH. 67 unless it be very coarse and stony ; in which case, it should be well soiled, and the pit you plant in, filled with rich mould, as far as the roots are likely to extend before they reach the gravel, so as to make good spread ; and this is to be renewed every third or fourth year; and for this reason it is profitable sometimes to bait steril grounds, by laying your composts at reasonable intervals, thereby to tempt and allure the roots towards it, and keep them from wandering, which they will be subject to do in search of fresh nourishment : for to bear constantly well, and much, fruit-trees must have frequent letations. Nor are we to judge that what is excel- lent ground for one sort of vegetable is so for another ; since that which is perfectly good for corn, is not so for all fruit-trees ; and a slender straw will be fed and brought up with a great deal less substance and virtue, than what will serve to furnish the stem, bulk, and head of a fertile and spreading tree. ; The vine (than which no plant more sensibly retains the different qualities of earth, or whose juice is of more variety) rejoices in a light, but vigorous mould, rather sandy, and inclining to dry, than either fat, luxuriant, or moist. Lime, tempered with blood, exceedingly recreates it, after the first heats are passed over. Fig-trees (though affected to dry grounds) are no lovers of stercoration; yet in some countries they apply olive-oil and pigeon-dung* to cause them to bear early fruit; but omitting the oil, if the dung be mingled with lime and ashes, it is not to be reproved:: this fruit thrives and ripens even in the shade, and in our northern exposures in the meridional parts of England; but much better in the south, and best of all in cases, and under shelter in winter: an industry worth the pains for the most de- licious fruit in nature, were it skilfully cultivated. Artichokes thrive exceedingly with sheep-dung, which, applied to the roots, make them produce very great heads: in the island of Jersey they use sea-wrack, to a wonderful improvement of that plant. * This composition is similar to the oil compost recommended in the Georgicai Essays. 302 68 A DISCOURSE Melons, asparagus, and most hasty growers, participate evidently of the soil, and, therefore, we have already shewed how new and heady dung contaminates ; and this is, amongst others, the reason why in the more southern countries (where they are planted in the natural and unforced mould) they are so racy, and superior in taste and flavour to ours. I should, therefore, recommend the use of sheep-dung, well reduced, or rather the ashes of burnt-straw, and the hotter dungs calcined, for some trials to reform it; or, as they do in Italy, mingle dust and earth ma- nured with sheep-soil and wood-ashes: if, after all we have said, the cause of our application of composts and dungs to these rarer and choice productions be not to prevent the rains only ; for otherwise, too rich soils impair the most delicious fruits, rather than improve them ; and grapes and other fruits are sooner ripened which stand near the high- ways, much beaten by passengers, than by all that you can lay to the _ roots, or spread on the ground for that purpose, the dust investing both the tree and fruit with a kind of refined soil, mellowed with the dews and gentle showers which fall from heaven. ; To give some instances : roots, as we have shewed, desire deep ground; fruit-trees should never go deeper than the usual penetrations of the sun, for no farther is the mould benign. Besides, they but too propensely sink of themselves, especially bulbs of flowers, whose fibres easily draw them down, and then they change their artificial and accidental beauty, and (as we call it) degenerate ; but trees will grow and thrive, if planted on the very surface, with little covering of the mould, so they be oft re- freshed, and established against the wind. Besides, we find that even the goodliest fruit (as well as some timber-trees) have many times the hardest footings with reasonable depth of earth. So little does it import to have it profound, that, in soft and deeper sands, they thrive nothing so well as on chalk and gravel, so long as the root can be kept from de- scending ; in which case, you should (as we have shewed) bait the ground towards the surface, and keep the roots from gadding too far from the stem, for the lower roots are frequently starved by the upper, which de- vour the nourishment before it arrives at them. Thus gardeners should sometimes humour their plants, cook and dress their foods to their appe- tite, and as they can well digest ; but by no means suffer the roots of fruit-trees, standards or mural, to be planted in dunged earth which is not exceedingly well digested, and little different from the natural soil. OF EARTH. 69 To give some other profitable instances of this nature: in transplant- ing trees (beginning early, and when the earth is most tractable) endea- vour to make your mould as connatural to that of the place, or nursery, from whence you remove them, as you can. It is not, therefore, material it should be so much richer ; but where imp-gardens are poor, the tender _ plant, like a child starved at nurse, does seldom thrive wherever you set it; and, therefore, you should have fair and spreading roots, and well fed, whatever some pretend. For other rarer shrubs and plants, the orange (Herera tells us) thrives well with the ashes of burnt gourds and leaves, and needs not change of mould, even in the case, above twice a-year, and that towards the surface ; but the Amomum Plinii is a strange waster of earth, and should continually be enriched and planted, as it were, all in dung; so the myrtle and pomegranate ; whilst the red rose, capers, sam- phire, and other shrubs and plants, thrive better in gravel and rubbish. Sage loves ashes, and purslain delights in dust and sweepings; rue af- fects the dry mould, lettuce the moister. lowers, for the most part, de- test the dung-hill, but, if they love any, it is that of sheep or cows, mixed with loam and light earth. Tulips delight in change, and rather in poor than rich mould, yea, sharp and hungry, to preserve their variegations. But because it is sometimes troublesome to transplant them yearly, place a layer of short stable-litter a foot beneath your mould, and they will remain unremoved for some years without prejudice. The iris loves the dry bed; crocus, a mixed, rich, and light soil; carnations desire a loamy earth, qualified, if too stiff, with sea-sand and sheep-dung; if too poor, with richer mould; so the peony, anemony, ranunculus, and other flowers; but then lay it at the bottom, such as you take from the last year’s hot-bed, giving it a surface of under-turf, which has been foddered on, sweet, and aired. In this plant your roots, but so as not to touch the artificial soil; for all dunged earths canker the bulbs of flowers, whilst their fibres reaching the heartier mould, draw from it with- out danger. Butif you would, indeed, be provided with excellent earth to plant most flowers in, lay turf of pasture-ground in heaps for two win- ters, till it be perfectly consumed ; this is also admirable for tuberous roots; and indeed all upland mould, whether sandy or loamy, may be made perfectly good with the dung of oxen laid on the surface about Michael- mas for one year, that it may wash kindly in; then in September after, pare this turf off as thin as you can, and for the first foot deep of earth, you have bedding for bulbs and tuberous roots superior to any other. 70 A DISCOURSE Another proper mixture, much in esteem with our gardeners, is willow- earth, a fourth part, sifted from the grosser sticks, with almost an equal portion of sheep-dung, (Laurembergius says, that goats’ is better,) natural mould making up the other two parts ; and indeed, this is excellent to raise any seedlings of flowers; but for the more minute and delicate, such as cypress, mulberry, the samera of elm, and the like, prepare a mould as fine as powder, and let it be gently refreshed with a dewy sperge or brush, not with the watering-pot, which plainly gluts it. ~ Auriculas, anemonies, &¢. should be raised in the willow-mould described above, but planted forth where the dung of oxen and loam is sifted among the pasture-earth. The pine and bigger kernels make (as some affirm) great advance by being coated with dung, but, being grown to great trees, they abhor it. Touching change of crop, something has been said already : peas dege- nerate betimes, at least in two or three years, be the land never so good ; so it is observed, that most plants long standing in the same bed, impair both the ground and themselves, especially sorrel. To conclude: for a general good garden soil, take the natural under- turf, if it be not too stiff; add to it a quarter part of oxen or sheep-dung perfectly consumed ; one bushel of slacked lime to each load of mould, with some sweet, though rotten wood-pile or willow-earth; mix these well together, and you have a choice composition for all your rare exotics, oranges, and case-shrubs, remembering to place the spray of rotten bavins, hampers, or baskets, to keep the mould loose, with lime- stone, brickbats, shells, and other rubbish at the bottom, that the water may pass freely, and not rot the fibres. And, therefore, be careful never to make your cases close below, but rather so barred as to be able to keep the coarse materials from dropping through, whilst auger-holes, though never so thick bored, are apt to be stopped up, and then your roots do certainly rot, and your trees grow sick. The same is to be observed in pots, and that you place them about an inch from the ground, that they may freely drain, and as freely receive refreshing. But I must not quit these curiosities, to speak of the cooler composts, till I have described the best hot-bed that I know of. OF EARTH. 71 Dig a pit or-fosse, hot-bed depth, (four feet is sufficient,) and of what figure and dimension you think will best entertain your furniture for it ; if it be twenty feet in length, and ten broad, I think it competent. Line the sides with a wall of brick and half thick ; fill this pit with fresh soil from the stable, trodden as other hot-beds are, but without any mould on the surface. On this place half-inch wooden cases, made like coffins, (but not contracted at the extremes, nor lidded,) of what length and breadth you think best, but not above a foot in depth; let these be dove- tailed, with wooden handles at each end to lift in and out, and bored full of auger-holes at the bottoms. Your cases thus fitted, fill them with proper mould, such as you would sow melon seeds in, or any other rare seed, and thus place them in your bed of dung. The heat will pass kindly through the perforations, and continue a cherishing warmth five times as long as by the common way of hot-bed, and prevent you the trouble of making new and fresh for the whole process of the melon, or what other of choicer plants require more than one removal. ‘The heat of this bed continues eight or ten weeks without need of repairing ; and if it should, it is but casting in some fresh-made soil and litter beneath and about your cases, of which some you may glaze cheveron-wise at the top, and with spiracles or casements, to refresh and give them air and sun at pleasure. And these beds, where you cannot conveniently sink them for want of depth, because of water, you may build above ground as well; and you may, or may not, extend a tent over them, to protect them from rain, wind, and sun, according as you find occasion. Thus have you a neat and useful hot-bed, as I have been taught to make it by the right honourable the late lord viscount Mordaunt, at Parsons- green, whose industry and knowledge in all hortulan elegancies, require honourable mention. Note, That ordinary fresh mould, so it be not poor and very lean, is apt to clog, and is a better surface for the hot-bed to entertain and cherish the most curious seeds, than what gardeners uni- versally make use of, sticky and over loose ; at least, let a due proportion of natural earth be sifted amongst it. Being now at last come to set down the several ways of preparing com- posts of dungs, and those other ingredients we have mentioned, we shall begin with the rudest, as that which best accommodates to the grosser part of husbandry, (which yet requires a special maturation,) and so descend to the more refined. These I distinguish into the moist, the dry, and the 72 A DISCOURSE liquid for irrigation. But first, here by the way, greatly to be reproved is the heaping of a deal of undigested soil, and other trash, exposed (as we commonly find it) to the heat of the sun, continual rains, and drying winds, as it lies in the wide field, without the least coverture or shade; by which means all the virtue is drawn forth and carried away, leaving little more than a dry and insipid congestion of caput mortuum, and per- haps a florid green circle, or fairy dance, at the bottom, which the im- pregnated rains have enriched with what has washed from the heap ; wherefore to prevent this, and make one load of our prepared soil worth ten of it: Cut a square or oblong pit, of thirty or forty feet in length, at the least four feet in depth, and ten feet over, or of what dimensions or figure you think will suffice to furnish you with store: let one of the sides or edges be made so sloping, as to receive a cart or wheelbarrow to load and unload easily, and let the bottom and sides, also, be so well paved, or laid with a bed of small chalk, clay, or the like, that it may be capable of retaining water like a cistern : if to this you can commodiously direct any channels or gutters from your stable, and other sinks about the house, it will be much the better. ‘The pit thus prepared, and under covert, (for that I should have premised,) so as at least the downright rains may not fall upon it, (but when you please,) cast into it, first, your stable-soil with the litter, a foot or more thick, according to the depth of your pit ; upon this lay a bed of fine mould, on that another bed of cider-mare, rotten fruit, and garden offal; on this, a couch of pigeon and poultry-dung, with more horse-dung; then a stratum of sheep-dung, a layer of earth again, then oxen-dung ; lastly, ashes, soot, fern, a moist and dry bottom of wood-stack, saw-dust, dry scourings of ponds and ditches, with all other ingredients, as you happen to amass them, till the cistern be full and heaped up; upon all this cast plentiful water from time to time, which if you can have out of some pond where cattle use to drink and cool themselves, it will be excellent. At the expiration of two years, you may confidently open your magazine, and separate the layers as they rise, to cast them into other small pits or receptacles made a little con- cave to receive them, where you may stir, air, mingle, and work them in with fresh mould, or one with the other, as you find cause, till they be- come comparatively sweet and agreeable to the scent. Lastly, you may pass them through a screen made of laths, placed at moderate intervals, OF EARTH. . 73 and with the liquor remaining in your great cistern, sprinkle the several composts, and make them up for use, casting the coarse remaining stuff, which would not pass the riddle, into the cistern again for farther mor- tification ; and so keep your pit filled with fresh materials from time to time, after the same method :' others, in the mean time, lay their several ingredients by themselves in some shady corner, which being frequently stirred, after two or three years thus mingle them at dis- cretion “. There are some who advise us to suffer our mixture to remain tillit be quite dry, after it is thus refined; and then, being beaten to dust, to strew it upon the ground. And indeed, this seems in Pliny’s time to have been the custom ; nor do I contradict it, provided you could water it, or were sure of a shower before the sun had drank too deeply of the spirit and vigour of it, which, reduced in this manner, it does easily part with. Now the reason of our thus treating composts of various soils and sub- stances, is not only to dulcify, sweeten, and free them from the noxious qualities they otherwise retain, and consequently impart, when applied, as usually we find them, crude, undigested, and inactive ; but for being immoderately hot and, burning, or else rank, and apter to engender ver- mine, weeds, and fungous excrescences, than to produce wholesome plants, fruits, and roots, fit for the table, and grateful to the palate ; for which effect, it should be thoroughly concocted, aired, of a scent agreeable, and reduced to the next disposition of a sweet and natural earth, short and tractable, yet not so macerated as to lose any of its virtue. The proper season, therefore, for this work, is the beginning of the autumnal equinox, and wind westerly, both to prepare and lay it on your land, that, whe- ther it be of wet or dry consistence, it may have a gentle soaking into the earth. As for fresh dung, such as sheep make when they are folded, it "In large families, a rich species of manure may be collected, by supplying the pits under the necessaries with vegetable offal from the gardens, and fresh mould from the commons. We cannot pay too much attention to the formation of compost dunghills; for, without their assistance, the utmost exertion of the plough and spade, will but little avail. In this particular the farmer should be scrupulously nice, and he should embrace every opportu- nity to improve his stock of dung. Volume II. BM Be 74 : A DISCOURSE is good advice to cover it with mould as soon as possible, before the sun has over-dried it, for the reason before hinted*; and by this early ap- plication, you will find all that is stiff and any ways contumacious, sub- dued and perfectly prepared before you turn it in. If you would meliorate ground for fruit-trees of the orchard, or roots and esculents of the olitory garden, be cautious that the hotter dungs approach not immediately to their stems or roots, without such a circumposition of natural mould as we have commended. But this is a note for such as think fit to use the soil steaming as it comes from the heap ; but, if it be prepared as we have shewed, there is no danger even of immediate contact. And the same is to be observed in ablaqueation, where we find cause to bare the roots of trees, and expose them to the air for fresh influence, or to abate exuberances ; and that the cavity be not filled all at once, (when we con- ceive the roots have been sufficiently aired,) but gradually from month to month, as from October till the beginning of March; and, upon other occasions, leaving the surface rough, rather than too compt and ex- quisitely trimmed, if only you dig your ground, which once in two or three years, four or five (as you perceive your trees require culture) is advisable, and then to mingle the earth with a thorough-soiling, and refresh it with the impregnate water of your cistern, will exceedingly recover a worn-out plantation. This irrigation may also be yearly given to the roots of your fruit-trees about June and July; and the spreading of a little good soil upon the surface, and rough chopping it in with the spade before winter, is good husbandry, for it draws the roots upwards, the shallow running of which is of so great importance. But of this already. And thus having shewed how to prepare, ripen, separate, and apply the several composts, (which, for distinction sake, we call the dry mix- ture,) I am next to describe the liquid, in many particulars not much differing from the former process. Betwixt east and north erect a pergola, or shed, so contrived with a cover, as to exclude or admit, the rain, snow, and weather at pleasure ; * In this manner plenty of rich compost may be raised. Some people bed the ground, on which sheep are folded, with sand, which enables them to remove the rich manure to any distant place at pleasure. ® ' OF EARTH.. 5 under this, sink a pit for a cistern, into which cast all the acid plants, bitter and rank weeds that come in your way, and grow in the neglected corners of your grounds, such as esula, hemlock, docks, thistles, fumitory, tobacco-stalks, wormwood, cabbage-leaves and stalks, aconites, the leaves, trash, and offal, such as cattle will not touch; to these add pigeon and poultry dung, with their quills and feathers; all sorts of ashes, soot, hogs’ hair, horn, bones; also urine, blood, garbage, pickle, brine, sea- water, (if conveniently to be had,) otherwise pond-water, to sprinkle it with, and keep it moist to accelerate putrefaction ; but when all is well consumed, forbear the pouring on of insipid liquors, and thus leave it till it be dry ; then air, mingle, and work your composts as you were directed above, or boil it into petre, casting what you find not well digested into the cistern again for another year, and, with a little addition, it will give you half the quantity of the former, and, provided that you supply the magazine, a continued and farther increase. Indeed this salt and compost is not immediately fit for use, till it be well dulcified and purged from its over acrimony, therefore mix it well with your mould, and dilute it as you see cause. A receipt is set down by old Glauber for the effecting of wonderful vegetation, by the assistance of certain circulatory vessels to prepare the oily succus, and pinguid juice, which that author teaches in his Miraculum Mundi, to extract not only out of these materials, but out of turf, wood, and stone itself, by calcining and burning them in close and reverberating furnaces, to which a tube, adapted near the bottom, may convey the spirits into a recipient, as he describes the process. 1 mention this the rather, for the real effects of which I have been told of this men- struum from very good testimony: and, doubtless, he who were skilled to extract it in quantity, (and to duleify and qualify it for use,) a true spiri- tuous nitre may do abundantly more, in the way of the improvements we have celebrated, with a small quantity, than with whole loads, nay hundreds of loads of the best and richest of dry composts which we can devise tomake’. But besides this, any house of ordure, or rancid mould, ot y The whole of this passage is an unnecessary and expensive multiplication of the farmer's trouble; and, indeed, it seems to have been given by our excellent author rather in con- formity to the philosophy of the times, than from his own experience or opinion. The boasted receipts of chymists for forwarding the powers of vegetation, are now justly ex- ploded, and the present age boasts of a philosophy in farming, that has truth and experi- ment for its foundation. 3P 2 76 A. DISCOURSE strong salts, vinous liquors, urine, ashes, dust, shovellings of the kennels and streets, &c. kept dry and covered for three or four years, will be converted into petre without half this trouble, especially if you mingle it with the dung of pigeons, poultry, and other salacious fowl which feed on corn: or, those who would not be at the charge of distilling for these advantages, may make experiment of the so famous muck-water, not long since cried up for the doing wonders in the field: throw off the shortest and best marl into your cistern, exceedingly comminute and bro- ken, which you may do with an iron rake, or like instrument, till the liquor become very thick ; cast on this the dung of fowl, conies, sheep, &c. frequently stirring it; to this add the soil of horses and cows, grains, lees of wine, ale, beer, any sort of beverage, broths, brine, fat and greasy stuff of the kitchen; then cast in a quantity of lime, or melting chalk, of which there is a sort very unctuous; also blood, urine, &c. mixed with the water, and with this sprinkle your ground at seasonable times; and when you have almost exhausted the cistern of the liquid, mingle the residue with the grosser compost of your stable and cow- house, and layers of earth, sand, lime, 8. S. S. frequently moistened with uncrude water; the taking up of which you may much facilitate, by sinking a tub or vessel near the corner of the cistern, and piercing it with large holes at the bottom and sides, by which means you may take it out so clean as to make use of it through a great syringe or watering engine; such as is used to extinguish fire, will exalt and let it fall by showers on the ground, and is by much the more natural way of irriga- tion; it also despatches the work. This liquor has the reputation, also, for insuccation of corn and other grain, to which, some add a fine sifting of lime-dust on it, and when that is dry, to repeat it with new infusions and siftings: but, There is yet a shorter process, namely, the watering with fishmonger’s wash, impregnated with the sweepings of ships and vessels trading for salt, adding to it the blood of the slaughter-house, with lime, as above ; but this is also much too fierce for any present use till it be perfectly diluted ; which is a caution indispensably necessary whenever you would apply such powerful affusions, lest it destroy and burn up, instead of ‘curing and enriching. Another is as follows : OF EARTH. "7 Take rain-water of the equinox, a sufficient quantity. Boil with store of dung of oxen till it be very strong, then dissolve one pound of saltpetre in every pottle of the water; in this, a little tepid, macerate your seeds for twenty-four hours; dry them gently, rather with a cloth than by the fire, and sow in the most barren earth, or water fruit-trees with the liquor, for prodigious effects. Or thus: _ Take two quarts of the same water, dung of oxen as before ; boil to the consumption of half; strain and cast into the percolation two hand- fuls of bay salt, and as much saltpetre. Another: Take rain-water which has stood.till putrefied ; add to it oxen, pigeon, or sheep-dung ; expose it for insolation a week or ten days, then pass it through a coarser strainer; infuse more of the same soil, and let it stand in the sun a week longer; strain it a second time, and add to it common salt and a little ox-gall. Another: Take quick-lime, and sheep-dung at discretion; put these into rain- water, four fingers eminent; to ten pints of this liquor, add one of aquavite ; macerate your seeds, or water with it any lean earth, where you would plant for wonderful effects. Another : Infuse three pounds of the best Indian nitre in fifteen gallons of water ; with this irrigate your barren mould. It was successfully tried amongst tulips and bulbs, where the earth should by no means (as we have said) be forced by composts. But a gentler than either, is, A dilution of milk with rain-water, sprinkled upon unslacked lime, first sifted on your beds; and so after every watering, the lime repeated. These, with divers more which I might superadd, not taken and tran- scribed out of common receipt-books, and such as pretend to secrets, but most of them experimented, I thought fit to mention, that upon repeti- tion of trials, the curious might satisfy themselves, and as they have op- portunity improve them ; whilst, perhaps as to irrigations, less exalted li- quors were more natural. And what if essays were made of liquors per lixivium, the plant reduced to ashes: might it not be more connatural, since we find by more frequent trial, that the burning of stubble, before 78 A DISCOURSE the rains descend on it, impregnates ground by the dissolution of its sper- matic salts ? I only name the naked phlegm of plants distilled, either to © use alone, or extract the former salt; but I say I only mention them for the curious to examine, and ex abundanti. For certainly (to retum a little, and speak freely my thoughts concerning them) most exalted menstrua, (and as they dignify them with a great name, ) essentiated spirits, all hasty motions, and extraordinary fermentations, though, indeed, they may pos- sibly give sudden rise, and seemingly exalt the present vigour of plants, are as pernicious to them as brandy and hot waters are to men; and therefore wherever these ardent spirits are applied, they should be poured at convenient distances from any part of the plant, that the virtue may be conveyed through some better qualified medium. But when all is done, waters moderately impregnated and embodied with honest composts, and set in the sun, are more safe, and, I think, more natural?; for, as the learned Dr. Sharrock truly affirms, water is, of its own constitution alone, a soil to vegetables, not only as the most genuine vehicle of the riches which it imparts to plants, through the several strainers, and by means of which all change and melioration is effected, but for that it is, of all other substances, best disposed to insinuate into and fertilize the earth, which is the reason that floated and irriguous grounds are so pregnant. Besides, it is, of all that pretend to it, nearest of blood (as I may say) to the whole vegetable family. For to assert with any confidence what part of the mere earth passes into their composition, or whether it serve (as we touched before) only for stability, or as a womb and receptacle to their seeds and eggs, (for so we are taught to call the seeds of plants.) I shall not undertake to discuss. Every body has heard of Van Helmont’s z\sh-tree*; and may, without much difficulty, repeat what has been ex- perimented, by exquisitely weighing the mould before and after a gourd 2 Here our excellent author, after enumerating the wild and fantastical opinions of others, at last gives his own, than which nothing can be more just. 4 Van Helmont planted a willow-tree, which weighed five pounds, in two hundred pounds of earth dried in an oven, and watered it with rain, or distilled water, after carefully cover- ing the case in which it stood, with a perforated tin-cover, to prevent the admission of any other earthy particles. Five years after, he weighed the tree, adding all the leaves it “had produced in that time, and found its weight amount to one hundred and sixty-nine pounds two ounces, while the earth was only diminished about two ounces. OF EARTH. 79 is planted in it, and till it be grown to bulk and full maturity, fed with water only ; by knowing how much liquor is insumed, and how little of the earth consumed, some conjecture may be made; though I do not yet conceive the earth to be altogether so dull and unactive as to afford no other aid to the generation of what she bears ; the diversity of soils being (as we have shewed) so infinitely various, and the difference of invisible infusions so beyond our arithmetic. But if we give liquids pre-dominion, at least the masculine preference, be they salts or spirits (that is, ni- trous spirits) conveyed into her bosom how they will; sure we are, that water and vegetables are much nearer of alliance, than either water or air are with the earth and mould. But neither do I here also, by any means, exclude the air, nor deny its perpetual commerce and benign influences, charged as it comes with those pregnant and subtle particles, which in- sinuating into the earth’s more steady and less volatile salts, and both to- gether invading the sulphur, (and freeing them from whatsoever they find contumacious,) that intestine fermentation is begun and promoted, which derives life, and growth, and motion, to all that she produces. That by the air, the most effete and elixiviated mould comes to be repaired, and is qualified to attract the prolific nitrous spirits, (which not only dis- poses the earth to this impregnating magnetism, but converts her more unactive fixed salts into quite another genius and nature,) the learned Dr. Mayow has ingeniously made out ; and all this by a naked exposure to the air alone, without which it produces nothing: nor can plants (totally excluded from the air) live, or so much as erect themselves to any thri- ving purpose, as being deprived of that breath and vital balm, which no less contributes to their growth and nourishment than does the earth it- self, with all our assistances, For that plants do more than obscurely re- spire, and exercise a kind of peristaltic motion, I little doubt from the wonderful and conspicuous attraction and emissions which some of them discover ; particularly the aloes and other sedums, and such as, consist- ing of less cold and vicious parts, send forth their aromatic wafts at considerable distance °, > From the experiments of Malpighius, Grew, Hales, and Duhamel, it is abundantly evident that all plants, without distinction, inspire and expire. The leaves perform these salutary operations, so that deciduous trees and shrubs, from the time they lose their leaves to the expansion of their buds, may be considered as in a state of perfect insensibility, re- sembling that class of animals called sleepers, 80 A DISCOURSE Besides, we find that air is nearer of kin and affinity to water, than wa- ter is to plants; unless I should affirm that air itself were but a thinner water; for how else are those vines, and other trees of prodigious growth, maintained amongst the barren rocks and thirsty pumices, where rains but seldom fall, if not from this rorid air: not te insist again, that per- haps even these rocks themselves may once have sprung from liquid pa- rents; and how little, even such as are exposed to continual showers, in other climates, abate of their magnitude, since we rather find them to in- crease; and that also the fruits and juices of vegetables seem to be but the concretion of better concocted water, and may not only be converted into ligneous and woody substance, (as the learned Dr. Beale has somewhere instanced in a Discourse presented to you, and recorded in the Public Transactions,) but is apt enough to petrify and become arrant stone. Whatever, then, it bewhich the earth contributes, or whether it contain universally a seminal virtue, so specified by the air, influences, and genius of the clime, as to make that a cinnamon-tree in Ceylon, which is but a bay in England, is past my skill to determine; but it is to be observed with no little wonder, what Monsieur Bernier, in his history of the em- pire of the Mogul, affirms to us of a mountain there, which being on one side of it intolerably hot, produces Indian plants, and on the other as intemperately cold, European and vulgar. Not here to pass without notice at least, what even the most exhausted mould will (to all appear- ance) produce spontaneously, when once it has been well exposed to the air and heavenly influences, if what springs up be not possibly from some volatile rudiments and real seeds, transported by winds, higher than we usually place our experiments. But Porta tells us, with more confi- dence, that he took earth from a most profound and dry place, and ex- posed it on such an eminence as to be out of reach even of the winds ; but it produced, it seems, only such plants as grow about Naples, and, therefore, may be suspected. To return, then, again from this digression, and pursue our liquids ; where there is good water, there is commonly good earth, and vice versa; because it bridles and tempers the salts, abates the acidity and fierceness of the spirits, and imparts that useful ligature and connexion to the mould, without which it were of no use for vegetation. In the mean OF EARTH. - 8 time, of all waters, that which descends from heaven we find to be the richest and properest in our work, as having been already meteorized, and circulated in that great digestory, enriched and impregnated with astral influences from above, at those propitious seasons; whence that say- ing, annus fructificat, non tellus, has just title to a truth we every year’s revolution behold and admire, when the sweet dews of spring and autumn (hitherto constipated by cold, or consumed with too much heat) begin to be loosened, or moderately condensed, by the more benign temper of the air, impregnating the prepared earth to receive the nitrous parts descend- ing with their balmy pearls, yet with such difference of more or less benign, (as vapours haply, which the earth sends up, may be sometimes qualified,) that nothing is more uncertain. And this we easily observe from the labours of the industrious bee, and her precious elixir, when for some whole months she gathers little, and at other times stives her waxen city with the harvest of a few propitious days. But I am gone too far, and therefore now shall set down only a few directions concern- ing watering, and so dismiss the subject and your patience. 1. It is not good to water new-sown seeds immediately, as frequently we do, and which commonly bursts them, but to let them remain eight- and forty hours in their beds, till they be a little glutted with the natural juice of the earth: but then neither must you so neglect their beds, as to become totally dry ; for if once the seeds crack through the heat, their little souls exhale*: therefore till they peep, you must ever keep them in a just temper for moisture, and be sure to purge them of predatious weeds betimes: in a word, these irrigations are to be conducted accord- ing to the quality of the seeds, those of hard integuments requiring more plentiful refreshings. 2. Never give much water at one time; for the surface of the earth will often seem very dry when it is wet enough beneath; and then the fibres rot about autumn, especially in pots and cases wintered in the green-house. ‘To be the more secure, we have already cautioned gar- ¢ This expression has an uncommon degree of simplicity and beauty. Volume II. 3Q 82 A DISCOURSE deners to keep their bottoms hollow, that nothing stagnate and fix too long, which should be but transitory. If such curiosities strike no root by September, the leaves desert them certainly at spring. The reason is want of air, not moisture. Therefore in all intervals of severe frosts, and rigorous winter-weather, be sparing of refreshings, and unless you per- ceive their leaves crumple up and fall, (which is the language for drink, ) give them as sparingly as you can. Indeed, during the summer, and when they are exposed, they require almost perpetual irrigation, and that the liquor be well impregnated with proper compost. It is ever advisable to water whilst the ground is a little moist, and not totally dry, especially during the growing seasons, for it stunts the plant and intercepts its progress. But in hard frosts, or foggy seasons, watering your housed plants endangers them by mustiness, and a certain mildew which they contract. On the other hand, Applications too dry create an intemperate thirstiness, and then they drink unmeasurably, and fall into dropsies, jaundice, and fevers, swell, languish, and rot; and if the liquor prove too crude, (as commonly it does, if taken from running and hungry fountains,) it extinguishes the natural heat, and obstructs the pores; and therefore whenever you are constrained to make use of such drink, expose it first to the warm sun for better concoction, infusing sheep, pigeon, or the dung of oxen, to give it body. But though spring water be so bad, slow-running river is often very good, and pond water excellent, so it be sweet ;_ but all stink- ing pools, mineral and bituminous waters, are not for our use; and often good air is as needful as good water ; worms, mouldiness, cankers, con- sumptions, and other diseases, being the usual and fatal consequences of these vices. If you be to plant in fresh and new broken-up earth, and that the season or mould be too dry, it is to be watered; but then give a com- petent sprinkling, or sifting of dry and fine mould upon what you have refreshed, and then beating it a little close with the back of your spade, plant it successfully ; forthis you will find to be much better than to water it after you have planted, (as the custom is,) and as you may observe in setting violets, auriculas, primroses, and other capillaries, planted in beds or borders, and then dashed with a flood of water, which, so soon as the OF EARTH. 83 sun has looked upon, resign and lose their tinctures, scorch and shrivel up: here, therefore, let gardeners be cautious how they expose their exotics and choicer case-plants, which many times having borne the win- ter bravely in the conservatory, dwindle away, and are lost on the sud- den, by being too suddenly placed in the eye of the sun in March, (or later,) when they most of all require the protection of a thin hedge, or canvas curtain, to break his scorching darts, as well as defend them from our then too constant and rigorous Hitesians. Lastly, For the season, likewise, of this work, let it be towards the evening in hot and summer days, for the reason immediately assigned ; for the moisture being in a short time drunk up, deserts the plant to the burning planet ; and hence it is that summer mists and meridian waterings are so noxious; and, therefore, the best expedient is, upon such exigencies, to pour your refreshings rather all over the area on which your cases of choice and rare shrubs are placed, and among the alleys and paths be- tween your beds of flowers, for the raising artificial dews, (by which is unfolded no common secret,) or water them per lingulam, and guttatim, than either with the pot or bucket: and after this manner, if at other seasons they stand in need of heat and comfort of warmth, by strewing sand or cinders on the same intervals, the reflection will recreate them upon all emissions of the sun-beams. As for grosser plantations, and trees of old orchard fruits, moderation in watering is also to be observed, and not to dash on such a quantity near the stem and body; but first with the spade to loosen the earth about them, especially towards the extremities of the tenderest roots, which generally sprout at the ends of the most woody, whose mouths are shut with tougher bark. These, therefore, may be cut sloping to quicken them a little, and make them strike fresh fibres, especially if some rich and tempting mould be seasonably applied : for trees will (as we shewed) with very little earth to cover them, take fast root (provided you esta- blish them against impetuous winds, shocks, and accidents of force) and thrive exceedingly with this refreshment. Some make pretty large holes with an iron crow, or (which is better) a pointed stake, and pour the liquor in at these apertures; but by this 3Q 2 84 * A DISCOURSE, &c. means they wound the roots, (which gangrenes, and sometimes kills the tree,) and if the holes be not filled, the air and moisture occasion mouldi- ness: so that when all is summed together, there is nothing comparable to frequent stirring the ground, opening the dry clod, and watering upon that ; and if you lay about them any fern-brakes, or other trash, capped with a little earth to entertain the moisture and skreen it from the heat, let it not be wadded so close, or suffered to lie so long as to contract any mustiness, but rather loose and easy, for the free intercourse of the air, and to break the more intense ardours of the sun-beams. Thus I have exercised your lordships’ and these noble gentlemen’s patience with a dull Discourse of Earth, Mould, and Soil; but I trust not altogether without some fruit, as the subject has relation to what has so lately been produced, and with happy event made out by those learned persons who have entertained this illustrious Society with the Anatomy of Plants. INDEX TO THE T E.RR.A. A AGe supplies vegetables with food, 31. Is absorbed by the leaves of plants, 79. ANIMALS, the flesh of, makes good manure, 60. Graminivorous, im- prove land by their breath, 39. ARTICHOKES, the growth of, pro- moted by sheep-dung, 67. ASHES, vegetable, the quantity to be obtained from an acre, 35. Of wood, recommended for pas- ture grounds, 62. Used in Li- vonia,Sweden, Finland, andsome parts of Russia, for corn lands, ib. Bay ery, Mr. his mode of draining land recommended, 42. BLoop,recommended for fruit-trees and corn, 60. Mixed with saw- dust, makes a good top-dressing, ib. Bones, reduced to powder, make good manure, 6. Burron, Mons. his description of the different strata of earth at Marly-la-Ville, 3. C CaTTLE, the dung of, examined,17. CHALK, description of, 8. CHERRY-TREES, howto prepare the ground for them, 66. Cray, the different kinds of, 7. How to lay upon land, 34. CLAY-LAND, how to improve, 38. CLIMATE, and not soil, makes the variety of plants, 22. Compost, a rich one, consisting of animal and vegetable substances, 60. A liquid one, bow to make, 57, 74. A rich one, compound- ed of animal offal and_ horse- dung, 60. Corn, decayed, a good manure, 65. Cow-DUNG, examination of, 17. D DEERS’ DUNG, examination of, 17. DRrarnInG, a mode of, invented by Mr. Bayley, 41. DriLL HUSBANDRY, a description of, 29. DUNG OF HORSES, produces weeds, 58. Of asses, reeommended, ib. Of cattle, preferred to others, ib. Of pigeons, good for fruit-trees, and to keep out frosts from the cases of tender plants, ib. Of sheep, recommended for cold lands, ib. Of swine, good for fruit-trees, ib. Dust oF HIGHWAYS, makes a good compost for the roots of trees, 65. Recommended for grass grounds, andas atop-dressing for wheat, ib. 10, Eartu, its kinds, enumerated, 2, 9. The different strata of, at Amsterdam and Marly-la-Ville,3. EartTu, virgin, a description of, 4. A definition of, 8. Beautifully de- ' 86 scribed by Pliny, 5. Argillaceous, described, 9. Alkaline and ecalea- reous, described, ib. Its good qua- lities, how known, 11. Its bad qualities, how known, ib. Vir- gil’s description of, 13. Its na- ture examined,15. Howto break up for planting, 25. How to pre- pare for the nursery, 26. Is re- stored tofertility by rest,27. Over rich, bad for some trees, 45. ELKINGTON, his mode of draining recommended, 41. ERysIMUM, sprung up. in great abundance after the great fire in London, 50. Was the Sisym- brium Irio, Lin. ib. r Farmers, their negligence con- demned,61. Should take every opportunity to improve their stock of dung, 65, and how, ib. Fern, where it grows luxuriantly, an indication of a soil favourable for turnips and corn, 11. Fic-TrEEs, do not love dung, 67. FiIsH, recommended as manure, 61. FLOWER-rooTS prefer sheep-dung, 66. How to prepare a compost for them, 69. Frvuit-TREEs, thrive best withneat and swine-dung, 66. Howtopre- pare the ground for, 74. Should be made to spread their roots near the surface, 68. GARDEN-STUFF, bestraisedinsweet natural earth, 57. GRAMINIVOROUS ANIMALS, i1m- prove land by their breath, 39. H Heatu, how to destroy, 40. Henry, Mr. his account of fac- titious marl, 8. Horn-sSHAVINGS, recommended for fruit-trees, 61. HoRSE-DUNG, examined, 17. 1: Nis eae Hot-BEpD, how to make, 71. Husspanpry, Mr. Tull’s system of, explained, 29. Lamp, Scythian, an account of, 55. Lanps, wet, how to drain, 41. Pro- ducing tall fern, are favourable to corn, turnips, and trees, 11. Cold, how to improve, 42. Worn out, how to restore, 47. ‘The goodness of, known by the natural produc- tions, 11. LEATHER, recommended as ma- nure for fruit-trees, 61. LEAVES of TREES, recommended for manure, 61. Some kinds of, difficult to be reduced to mould, 39. Lime, is of two kinds, calcareous and magnesian, 36. ‘Their qua- lities very different, ib. Lister, Dr. his soil and mineral map recommended, 19. M Maut-pwst, a good dressing, 65. Manure, arich one, how to ob- tain, 65. Mawnures, how divided, 53. How to collect inlargetowns, 65. How to prepare with lime, 36. Map, mineral, one published by Dr. Lister, 20. Mant, factitious, how to make, 7. Chemical examination of, ib. How to use, 37. Marts, their different kinds, 8. In- troduced into Britain by the Ro- mans, 36. Marty-La-VILue,. the different strata of earth observed there, 3. MarsH LAND, how to improve, 38. Marrer,themodification of, makes the different substances in na- ture, 56. MippieTton, Dr. the first W ood- wardian Lecturer, 4. Miz, one erected at Matlock for INDE X. grinding bones for the use of the farmer, 64. Mi. Tov, his allusion tothedoctrine of Thales, the Milesian, 21. Movtp, howto prepare for flowers, 69. Mustarp, wild, grows upon new thrown-up banks in Holderness and other low countries, 50. NEATS’-DUNG, examined, 17. NITRE, recommended as a fertilizer of land, 46. Its efficacy doubted, ib. O Oaks, growing tall and spreading, indicate a good soil, 11. OiL, thought to be the chief ingre- dient that gives richness to pi- geon-dung, 50. OLIVE-OIL AND PIGEON-DUNG, used as a compost for fig-trees, 67. OrporeE, human, used by the far- mers in Flanders, and how, 57. How to collect in large families, ib. P PIGEON-DUNG, examined, 18. Mix- ed witholive-oil, makesa compost for fig-trees, 67. In this state, is similar to the oil-compost, ib. Puants, their difference owing to climate, and not soil, 20. Wither- ed and curled, indicate a bad soil, 11. Varieties of, upon Mount Ararat, 22. The leaves of, draw nourishment from the atmos- phere, 32. of, rob one another, 46. Some kinds live best in consort, ib. All live upon the same food, but dif- fer in the quantity taken, and manner of seeking it, 56. Inspire and expire, 79. Deciduous, simi- lar to animalsthat sleep in winter, ib. When and how to water, 82. Purny, his beautiful description of the earth, 5. The different kinds - 87 PoULTRY-DUNG, examined, 18. QuINTENY, Mons. his book upon French gardening, translated by Mr. Evelyn, 26. R RapDisH, a wonderful one, men- tioned by Hondius, 66. Rain-watTeEn, best for gardens, 81. RAPE-DusT, used in Yorkshire. upon lime-stone lands, 64. Roots OF FRUIT-TREES, should be encouraged to spread near the surface, 28, 74. NS) St. Lrcer, Gen. his experiments on bones, 62. SALT, at first an enemy to vegeta- tion, but afterwards a promoter of, 52. Sanpb, the different kinds of, 6. Thought by Dr. Lister to be the firstand universal covering of the earth, 19. Table of, by Dr. Lis- ter, 20. SAND-LAND, how to improve, 34. SAND-STONE, howcompounded, 10. SEEDS, contain much vegetable nu- triment, and therefore recom- mended in composts, 63. Newly sown, should not be watered till some time after sowing, 81. SHAVINGS OF HORN, good for fruit- trees, 61. SHEEP-DUNG, examined, 17. Suruss, deciduous, similar to ani- mals that sleep in winter, 79. SLIME, mixed with earth, makes good manure, 61. Soit, how to prepare for green- house plants, 70. Srones, their different genera, 10. Are found not to be detrimental to corn lands, 34. SWINE-DUNG, examined, 17. T TARTARIAN LAMB, supposed to be 88 fabulous, 55. Is elegantly de- scribed by Dr. de la Croix, ib. Tua es, the Milesian, taught that all things originated from water, Q1. Tor-DRESSING, a good one recom- mended, 57. A dissertation on, 64. TourNEFORT, Mons. his account of plants growing upon Mount Ararat, 22. TREES, deciduous, resemble animals that sleep in winter, 79. TRENCHING, the best preparative to planting, 24. TRENCH-PLOUGH, 25. Tuuirs, their proper soil, 69. V recommended, VarEntvs, his description of the different strata of earth at Am- sterdam, 3. Vines, how to nourish, 67. Vireit, his description of the va- rious soils 13. VIRGIN-EARTH, described, 4. THE INDEX. U URINE, a rich ingredient in com- post dunghills, 60. W WATER, supposed to be the semi- nary of all created things, 21. W ATER-MEADOWS, recommended, 40. WATERING of plants, when and how, to perform, 84. WuaLtss flesh, makes a good com- post for meadow and corn lands, 60. WILLow-EARTH, excellent for rais- ing seedling plants, 61. W oop-AsHES, recommended for pastures, 62. Used for corn lands in Sweden, Livonia, Fin- land, and some places in Russia, ib. W oopwarpD, Dr. his Theory of the Earth, 4. Founded a lecture at Cambridge in defence of it, ib. Y YEW-TREEFS, an indieetinn £7 ren soil, 11. END. PARSE PRLS et Ae eee eee é (Thomas Wilson and Sons, High-Ousegate, York.) TUITE