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OF FOREST-TREES.

for such ligneous kinds will be the more probable, if you graff under theearth, upon or near the very root itself, which is likely to entertain thecion better than when more exposed, till it be well fixt, and have madesome considerable progrefs.

14. When you would fell, let the sap be perfectly in repose, as it iscommonly about November or December, even to February, after thefrost hath well nipped them: I have already alleged my reason foritand I am told, that both Oak and Elm so cut, the very saplings(whereof rafters, spars, &c. are made) will continue as long as the veryheart of the tree without decay. In this, work, cut your kerfe near tothe ground, but have a care that the tree suffers not in the fall, andbe ruined with its own weight: This depends upon your woodman’sjudgment in disbranching, and is a necefsary caution to the felling of allother timber-trees.- If any begin to doat, pick out such for the ax, andrather trust to its succefsor; and, should you cut over late, by floatingthem two or three months in the water, it prevents the worm, and provesthe best of seasons.

15. Elm, is a timber of most singular use, especially where it may liecontinually dry or wet, in extremes; therefore proper for water-works,mills, the ladles and soles of the wheel, pipes, pumps, aqueducts, pales,ship-planks beneath the water-line *, and some that have been foundburied in bogs, have turned like the most polished and hardest ebony,'only discerned by the grain also for wheelwrights, handles for thesingle handsaw, &c. Rails and gates made of Elm, thin sawed, are notso apt to rive as Oak; the knotty for naves, hubs; the straight andsmooth for axle-trees ; and the very roots for curiously dappled works;it scarce has any superior for kerbs of coppers, featheridge, and weather-boards, (but it does not, without difficulty, admit the nail without boring,)chopping blocks, blocks for the hat-maker, trunks and boxes to becovered with leather, coffins, drefsers and shovel-board tables of greatlength, and a lustrous colour if rightly seasoned; also for the carver,by reason of the tenor of the grain, and toughnefs, which fits it forall those curious works of fruitages, foliage, shields, statues, and mostof the ornaments appertaining to the orders of architecture, and for notbeing much subject to warping I find that, of old, they used it even forhinges and hooks of doors; but then, that part of the plank which grew

Volume I. A a