i
184 A DISCOURSE
book in. College Gardens. I myself have woven young Ash-poles into twists ofthree and four braids, like women’s hair, when they make it up to fillet itunder their coifs, which have strangely incorporated and grown togetherwithout separation i but these are rather for curiosity, than of advantagefor timber.
Trees will likewise grow frequently out of the bole of the other ; andsome roots will penetrate through the whole length of the trunk, till,fastening in the very earth, they burst the including tree, as it hashappened in Willows, where an Ash-tree has sprung likely from somekey or seed dropt upon the rotten head of it: But this accident not soproperly pertaining to this chapter, I conclude with recommending thebowing and bending of young timber-trees, especially Oak and Ash, intovarious flexures, curbs, and postures, which may be done by humblingand binding them down with tough bands and withs, or hooks rather, cutskrew-wise, or slightly haggled and indented with a knife, and soskrewed into the ground, or by hanging of weighty stones to the tops orbranches, till the tenor of the sap, and custom of being so constrained, dorender them apt to grow so of themselves, without power of redrefsing.This course would wonderfully accommodate the ship-builder withmaterials for knee-timber, and prove useful to the wheel-wright, as itwould conform the wood to their moulds, save infinite labour, andabbreviate 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 domaturIn burim, et curvi formam accipit Ulmus aratri.
When in the woods with mighty force they bowThe Elm, and shape it to the crooked plow.
GEORG. II.