258

A DISCOURSE

book i, and in that to fix the sets, or cuttings, of the, same length at six feetinterval. These, if the sets be large, will come immediately to be .trees jwhich after the first three years are to be abated within two feet of the-ground; then in April he advises to dig about them. Some raisethem abundantly by laying poles of them in a boggy earth only ;Of these they formerly made vine-props, Juga, as Pliny calls them,,for arch-wise bending, and yoaking, as it were, the branches to oneanother ; and one acre hath been known to yield props sufficient to servea vineyard of twenty-five acres.

24. John Tradescant brought a small Ozier from St. Omer’s, inFlanders, which makes incomparable net-works, not much inferiorto the Indian twig, or bent-works, which we have seen ; but if we hadthem in greater abundance, we should haply want the artificers whocould employ them, and the dexterity to varnish so neatly..

billow. 25. Our common salix, or willow, is of two kinds, the White andthe Black: The White is also of two sorts, the one of a yellowish, the otherof a browner bark : The Black Willow is planted of stakes of threeyears growth, taken from the head of an old tree, before it beginsto sprout; set them of six feet high, and ten distant, as directed for thePoplar. Those woody sorts of Willow delight in meads and ditch-sides,rather dry than over wet; (for they love not to wet their feet, and last thelonger;) yet the black sort, and the reddish, do sometimes well in moreboggy grounds, and should be planted of stakes as big as one's leg, cutas the other, at the length of five or six feet; the hole made withan oaken stake and beetle, or with an iron crow, (some use a longauger,) so as not to be forced in with too great violence. But first, thetruncheons should be a little sloped at both extremes, and' the biggestplanted downwards : To this, if they are soaked in water two or threedays, (after they have been sized for length, and the twigs cut off beforeyou plant them,) it will be the better. Let this be done- in February,the mould as w r ell closed to them as pofsible, and treated as was taughtin the Poplar. If you plant for a kind of wood, or copse, for such I haveseen, set them at • six feet distance, or nearer in the quincunx, andbe careful to take away all suckers from them at three years end; youmay abate the head half a foot from the trunk; viz. three or four of thelustiest shoots, and the rest cut close, and bare them yearly, that the