OF FOREST-TREES. 26V

were made high, and sloped; and being left unfenced, cattle wouldtread down the bank, and lay the roots bare; the ground should thereforenot be raised above two or three inches towards the body of the set.Now if the ground be dry, and want moisture, he chooses to bank themround, the fofses environing the mound and hillock, being reservesfor the rain, cools and-refreshes the sets.

He farther instances, that Willows of about twenty years growth’have-been sold for thirty shillings, and speaks of one sold for three pounds,which was well worth five pounds. He affirms, that the Willows plantedin beds between double ditches, in boggy ground, may be fit to be cutevery five years, and pay as well as the. best, meadow-pasture ; whichis an extraordinary improvement.

26 . There is a sort of Willow of a slender and long leaf, resemblingthe smaller Ozier, but rising to a tree as big as the Sallow , full of knots,and of a very brittle spray, only here rehearsed to acknowledge thevariety.

27 . There is likewise the Garden-Willow, which produces a sweet andbeautiful flower, fit to be admitted into our hortulan ornaments, andmay be set for partitions of squares; but they have no affinity with theothers. There is also in Shropshire another very odoriferous kind,extremely fit to be planted' by pleasant rivulets, both for ornament andprofit: It is propagated by cuttings or layers, and will grow in any drybottom, so it be sheltered from the south, affording a wonderful and:early relief to the industrious bee. Vitruvius commends the Vitexof the Latines (impertinently called Agnus Castus , the one being but theinterpretation of the other) as fit for building; I suppose they had a sortof better stature than the shrub growing among the curious with us, andwhich is celebrated for its chaste effects, and for which the antientsemployed it in the rites of Ceres: I rather think it more convenient forthe sculptor, which he likewise mentions, provided we may, with safety,restore the text, as Perrault has attempted, by substituting Levitatem forthe author’s Rigiditatem; stubborn materials being not so fit for thatcurious art.