561
The best season for the fetching home of other fuel is in June, the chap.ways being then most dry and pafsable ; yet I know some good husbandswill begin rather in May, because fallowing and stirring of ground forcorn comes in the ensuing months, and the days are long enough, andswains have then least, to do.
And thus we have seenhowfor House-bote,and Ship-bote, Plough-bote,Hey-bote, and Fire-bote, the Planting and Propagation of Timber andForest-trees is requisite ; so as it was not for nothing that the very name(which the Greeks generally applied to timber) by synedoche, wastaken always pro materia since we hardlyfind any thing in nature moreuniversally useful; or, in comparison with it, deserving the nameof Material; it being, in truth, the mother-parent and (metaphorically)the pafsive principle ready for the form.
To complete this chapter of the universal use of trees, and the partsof them, something I could be tempted to say concerning staves,wands, &c. their antiquity, use, divine, domestic, civil, and political; thetime of cutting, manner of seasoning, forming, and other curiousparticulars, (how dry soever the subject may appear) both of delight andprofit; but we reserve 'it for some more fit opportunity, and perhapsit may merit a peculiar treatise,.as acceptable as it will prove amusing.
We have already spoken of that modern art of lapping trees in thespring, by which doubtlefs, some excellent and specific medicines maybe attained, as (before) from the Birch, for the stone; from Elms andElder, against fevers; so from the Vine, the Oakland even the veryBramble, besides the wholesome and pleasant drinks, spirits, &c. thatmay pofsibly be educed out of them. This we leave to the industrious;satisfying ourselves that we have ; been among the first who have hintedand published the ways of performing it.
Let us now sum up all the good qualities and transcendent perfectionsof trees, in'the harmonious Poets' Concert of Elogies :
-—-dant utile lignum
Navigiis Pinos, domibus Cedrosque Cuprefsosque;
Hinc radios trivere rotis, hinc tympana plaustrisAgricola:, & pandas ratibut posuere Carinas.
; Volume II. ’Ll