Sylva Part 15

3. They have a poplar in Virginia of a very peculiar shap'd leaf, as if the point of it were cut off, which grows very well with the curious amongst us to a considerable stature. I conceive it was first brought over by John Tradescant, under the name of the tulip-tree, (from the likeness of its flower) but is not, that I find, taken much notice of in any of our herbals: I wish we had more of them; but they are difficult to elevate at first.

4. The aspen only (which is that kind of _libyca_ or white poplar, bearing a smaller, and more tremulous leaf, (by the French call'd _la tremble_ or quaker) thrusts down a more searching foot, and in this likewise differs, that he takes it ill to have his head cut off: Pliny would have short trunchions couched two foot in the ground (but first two days dried) at one foot and half distance, and then moulded over.

5. There is something a finer sort of white poplar, which the Dutch call _abele_, and we have of late _abele_ much transported out of Holland: These are also best propagated of slips from the roots, the least of which will take, and may in March, at three or four years growth, be transplanted.

6. In Flanders (not in France, as a late author pretends) they have large nurseries of them, which first they plant at one foot distance, the mould light and moist, by no means clayie, in which though they may shoot up tall, yet for want of root, they never spread; for, as I said, they must be interr'd pretty deep, not above three inches above ground; and kept clean, by pruning them to the middle-shoot for the first two years, and so till the third or fourth. When you transplant, place them at eight, ten, or twelve foot interval: They will likewise grow of layers, and even of cuttings in very moist places. In three years, they will come to an incredible alt.i.tude; in twelve, be as big as your middle; and in eighteen or twenty, arrive to full perfection. A specimen of this advance we have had of an _abele_-tree at Sion, which being lopp'd in Febr. 1651, did by the end of October 52, produce branches as big as a man's wrist, and 17 foot in length; for which celerity we may recommend them to such late builders, as seat their houses in naked and unshelter'd places, and that would put a guise of antiquity upon any new inclosure; since by these, whilst a man is in a voyage of no long continuance, his house and lands may be so covered, as to be hardly known at his return. But as they thus increase in bulk, their value (as the Italian poplar, has taught us) advances likewise; which after the first seven years, is annually worth twelve pence more: So as the Dutch look upon a plantation of these trees, as an ample portion for a daughter, and none of the least effects of their good husbandry; which truly may very well be allow'd, if that calculation hold, which the late worthy{132:1} Knight has a.s.serted, (who began his plantation not long since about Richmond,) that 30 pound being laid out in these plants, would render at the least ten thousand pounds in eighteen years; every tree affording thirty plants, and every of them thirty more, after each seven year's improving twelve pence in growth, till they arrive to their acme.

7. The black poplar grows rarely with us; it is a stronger and taller tree than the white, the leaves more dark, and not so ample. Divers stately ones of these, I remember about the banks of Po in Italy; which flouris.h.i.+ng near the old Erida.n.u.s (so celebrated by the poets) in which the temerarious Phaeton is said to have been precipitated, doubtless gave argument to that fiction of his sad sister's metamorphosis, and the amber of their precious tears. It was whiles I was pa.s.sing down that river towards Ferrara, that I diverted my self with this story of the ingenious poet. I am told there is a mountain-poplar much propagated in Germany about Vienna, and in Bohemia, of which some trees have yielded planks of a yard in breadth; why do we procure none of them?

8. The best use of the poplar, and _abele_ (which are all of them hospitable trees, for any thing thrives under their shades) is for walks and avenues about grounds which are situated low, and near the water, till coming to be very old, they are apt to grow knurry, and out of proportion. The timber is incomparable for all sorts of white wooden vessels, as trays, bowls and other turners ware; and of especial use for the bellows-maker, because it is almost of the nature of cork, and for s.h.i.+p-pumps, though not very solid, yet very close, and yet light; so as it may be us'd for the soles, as well as wooden-heels of shooes, &c.

Vitruvius _l. de Materia Caedenda_, reckons it among the building-timbers, _quae maxime in aedificiis sunt idoneae_. Likewise to make carts, because it is exceeding light; for vine, and hop-props, and divers vimineous works. The loppings in January are for the fire; and therefore such as have proper grounds, may with ease, and in short time, store themselves for a considerable family, where fuel is dear: but the truth is, it burns untowardly, and rather moulders away, than maintains any solid heat. Of the twigs (with the leaves on) are made brooms. The _brya_, or catkins attract the bees, as do also the leaves (especially of the black) more tenacious of the meldews than most forest-trees, the oak excepted.

Of the aspen, our wood-men make hoops, fire-wood, and coals, &c. and of the bark of young trees, in some countries, it serves for candle or torch-wood.

The juice of poplar leaves, dropp'd into the ears, a.s.swages the pain; and the buds contus'd, and mix'd with honey, is a good _collyrium_ for the eyes; as the unguent to refrigerate and cause sleep.

One thing more is not to be pa.s.s'd over, of the white-poplar; that the seeds of misselto being put into holes bored in the bark of this tree, have produced the plant: Experiment sufficient to determine that so long controverted question, concerning spontaneous and aequivocal generations.

vid. D. _Raii_ P. L. Append. p. 1918.

FOOTNOTES:

{132:1} Sir Richard Weston.

CHAPTER XV.

_Of the Quick-Beam._

1. The quick-beam [_ornus_, or as the _pinax_ more peculiarly, _fraxinus bubula_; others, the wild sorb] or (as some term it) the witchen, is a species of wild-ash. The Berries which it produced in October, may then be sown; or rather the sets planted: I have store of them in a warm grove of mine, and 'tis of singular beauty: It rises to a reasonable stature, shoots upright, and slender, and consists of a fine smooth bark. It delights to be both in mountains and woods, and to fix it self in good light grounds; Virgil affirms, 'twill unite with the pear.

2. Besides the use of it for the husbandman's tools, goads, &c. the wheelright commends it for being all heart; if the tree be large, and so well grown as some there are, it will saw into planks, boards and timber, (vide Chap x.x.x. Sect. 10.) and our fletchers commend it for bows next to yew; which we ought not to pa.s.s over, for the glory of our once right English ancestors: In a Statute of HEN. 8. you have it mention'd: It is excellent fuel; but I have not yet observed any other use, save that the blossoms are of an agreeable scent, and the berries such a tempting bait for the thrushes, that as long as they last, you shall be sure of their company. Some highly commend the juice of the berries, which (fermenting of it self) if well preserv'd, makes an excellent drink against the spleen and scurvy: Ale and beer brew'd with these berries, being ripe, is an incomparable drink, familiar in Wales, where this tree is reputed so sacred, that as there is not a church-yard without one of them planted in them (as among us the yew) so on a certain day in the year, every body religiously wears a cross made of the wood, and the tree is by some authors call'd _fraxinus Cambro-Britannica_; reputed to be a preservative against fascinations and evil-spirits; whence, perhaps, we call it witchen; the boughs being stuck about the house, or the wood used for walking-staves.

CHAPTER XVI.

_Of the Hasel._

1. _Nux silvestris_, or _corylus_, the hasel, is best rais'd from the{136:1} nuts, (also by suckers and layers) which you shall sow like mast, in a pretty deep furrow toward the end of February, or treat them as you are instructed in the walnut; light ground may immediately be sown and harrow'd-in very accurately; but in case the mould be clay, plow it earlier, and let it be sufficiently mellow'd with the frosts; and then the third year cut your trees near to the ground with a sharp bill, the moon decreasing.

2. But if you would make a grove for pleasure, plant them in fosses, at a yard distance, and cut them within half a foot of the earth, dressing them for three or four Springs and Autumns, by only loosning the mould a little about their roots. Others there are, who set the nuts by hand at one foot distance, to be transplanted the third year, at a yard asunder: But this work is not to be taken in hand so soon as the nuts fall, till winter be well advanc'd; because they are exceedingly obnoxious to the frosts; nor will they sprout till the Spring; besides, vermin are great devourers of them: Preserve them therefore moist, not mouldy; by laying them in their own dry leaves, or in sand, till January.

Hasels from sets and suckers take.{136:2}

3. From whence they thrive very well, the shoots being of the scantlings of small wands and switches, or somewhat bigger, and such as have drawn divers hairy twigs, which are by no means to be disbranch'd, no more than their roots, unless by a very sparing and discreet hand.

Thus, your _coryletum_, or copp'ce of hasels, being planted about Autumn, may (as some practise it) be cut within three or four inches of the ground the Spring following, which the new cyon will suddenly repair in cl.u.s.ters, and tufts of fair poles of twenty, or sometimes thirty foot long: But I rather should spare them till two or three years after, when they shall have taken strong hold, and may be cut close to the very earth, the improsperous and feeble ones especially. Thus are likewise filberts to be treated, both of them improved much by transplanting, but chiefly by graffing, and it would be try'd with filberts, and even with almonds themselves, for more elegant experiments.

In the mean time, I do not confound the filbert, pontic, or filbord, distinguish'd by its beard, among our foresters (or bald hasel-nuts) which doubtless we had from abroad; and bearing the names of _avelan_, _avelin_, as I find in some ancient records and deeds in my custody, where my ancestors names were written Avelan, _alias_, Evelin, generally.

4. For the place, they above all affect cold, barren, dry, and sandy grounds; also mountains, and even rocky soils produce them; and where quaries of free-stone lie underneath, as that at Hasulbery in Wilts, Haseling-field in Cambridge-s.h.i.+re, Haselmeer in Surrey, and other places; but more plentifully, if the ground be somewhat moist, dankish and mossie, as in the fresher bottoms, and sides of hills, hoults, and in hedge-rows. Such as are maintain'd for copp'ces, may after twelve years be fell'd the first time; the next, at seven or eight, &c. for by this period, their roots will be compleatly vigorous. You may plant them from October to January, provided you keep them carefully weeded, till they have taken fast hold; and there is not among all our store, a more profitable wood for copp'ces, and therefore good husbands should store them with it.

5. The use of the hasel is for poles, spars, hoops, forks, angling-rods, f.a.ggots, cudgels, coals, and springs to catch birds; and it makes one of the best coals, once us'd for gun-powder; being very fine and light, till they found alder to be more fit: There is no wood which purifies wine sooner, than the chips of hasel: Also for with's and bands, upon which, I remember, Pliny thinks it a pretty speculation, that a wood should be stronger to bind withal, being bruis'd and divided, than when whole and entire: The coals are us'd by painters, to draw with like those of Sallow: Lastly, for riding switches, and divinatory rods for the detecting and finding out of minerals; (at least, if that tradition be no imposture) is very wonderful; by whatsoever occult virtue, the forked-stick (so cut, and skilfully held) becomes impregnated with those invisible steams and exhalations; as by its spontaneous bending from an horizontal posture, to discover not only mines, and subterraneous treasure, and springs of water, but criminals, guilty of murther, &c.

made out so solemnly, and the effects thereof, by the attestation of magistrates, and divers other learned and credibile persons, (who have critically examined matters of fact) is certainly next to miracle, and requires a strong faith: Let the curious therefore consult that philosophical treatise of{139:1} Dr. Vallemont; which will at least entertain them with a world of surprizing things. But now after all the most signal honour it was ever employ'd in, and which might deservedly exalt this humble and common plant above all the trees of the wood, is that of hurdles, (especially the flexible white: the red and brittle); not for that it is generally used for the folding of our innocent sheep, an emblem of the church; but for making the walls of one of the first Christian Oratories in the world; and particularly in this island, that venerable and sacred fabrick at Glastenbury, founded by St. Joseph of Arimathea; which is storied to have been first compos'd but of a few small hasel-rods interwoven about certain stakes driven into the ground; and walls of this kind, instead of laths and punchions, superinduc'd with a course mortar made of loam and straw, do to this day inclose divers humble cottages, sheads and out-houses in the countrey; and 'tis strong and lasting for such purposes, whole, or cleft, and I have seen ample enclosures of courts and gardens so secur'd.

6. There is a compendious expedient for the thickning of copp'ces which are too transparent, by laying of a sampler or pole of an hasel, ash, poplar, &c. of twenty or thirty foot in length (the head a little lopp'd) into the ground, giving it a chop near the foot, to make it succ.u.mb; this fastned to the earth with a hook or two, and cover'd with some fresh mould at a competent depth (as gardeners lay their carnations) will produce a world of suckers, thicken and furnish a copp'ce speedily. I add no more of filberts, a kinder and better sort of hasel-nut, of larger and longer shape and beard; the kernels also cover'd with a fine membrane, of which the red is more delicate: They both are propagated as the hasel, and while more domestick, planted either asunder, or in palisade, are seldom found in the copp'ces: They are brought among other fruit, to the best tables for desert, and are said to fatten, but too much eaten, obnoxious to the asthmatic. In the mean time, of this I have had experience; that hasel-nuts, but the filberd specially, being full ripe, and peel'd in warm water, (as they blanch almonds) make a pudding very little (if at all) inferior to that our ladies make of almonds. But I am now come to the water-side; let us next consider the aquatic.

FOOTNOTES:

{136:1} _De nuc.u.m generibus_, vide Macrob. Sect. L. II. C. 14.

{136:2}

Plantis & durae coryli nasc.u.n.tur....................

_Georg. 2._

{139:1} Vallemont, _Physique occult ou traite de la baguet divinitoire, &c._ But concerning the exploration, and superst.i.tious original, see Sir Thomas Brown, _Vulg. Err._ cap. xxiv. sect. 17. and the commentators upon 4. Hosea. 12.

CHAPTER XVII.

_Of the Birch._

1. The birch [_betula_, in British _bedw_, doubtless a proper indigene of England, (whence some derive the name of Barks.h.i.+re) though Pliny calls it a Gaulish tree] is altogether produc'd of roots or suckers, (though it sheds a kind of _samera_ about the Spring) which being planted at four or five foot interval, in small twigs, will suddenly rise to trees; provided they affect the ground, which cannot well be too barren, or spongy; for it will thrive both in the dry, and the wet, sand, and stony, marshes, and bogs; the water-galls, and uliginous parts of forests that hardly bear any gra.s.s, do many times spontaneously produce it in abundance, whether the place be high, or low, and nothing comes amiss to it. Plant the small twigs, or suckers having roots, and after the first year, cut them within an inch of the surface; this will cause them to sprout in strong and l.u.s.ty tufts, fit for copp'ce, and spring-woods; or, by reducing them to one stem, render them in a very few years fit for the turner. For

2. Though birch be of all other the worst of timber, yet has it its various uses, as for the husbandman's ox-yoaks; also for hoops, small screws, paniers, brooms, wands, bavin-bands, and wythes for f.a.gots; and claims a memory for arrows, bolts, shafts, (our old English artillery;) also for dishes, bowls, ladles, and other domestic utensils, in the good old days of more simplicity, yet of better and truer hospitality. In New-England our Northern Americans make canoos, boxes, buckets, kettles, dishes, which they sow, and joyn very curiously with thread made of cedar-roots, and divers other domestical utensils, as baskets, baggs, with this tree, whereof they have a blacker kind; and out of a certain excrescence from the bole, a _fungus_, which being boil'd, beaten, and dry'd in an oven, makes excellent spunck or touch-wood, and b.a.l.l.s to play withal; and being reduc'd to powder, astringent, is an infallible remedy in the hmerhoids. They make also not only this small ware, but even small-craft, pinnaces of birch, ribbing them with white cedar, and covering them with large flakes of birch-bark, sow them with thread of spruse-roots, and pitch them, as it seems we did even here in Britain, as well as the Veneti, making use of the willow, whereof Lucan,

When Sicoris to his own banks restor'd, Had quit the field, of twigs, and willow-board They build small craft, cover'd with bullocks-hide, In which they reach'd the rivers farther side: So sail the Veneti if Padus flow, The Britains sail on their rough ocean so.{142:1}

Also for fuel: In many of the mosses in the West-Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re, are often dug up birch-trees, that burn and flame like firr and candle-wood; and I think Pliny says the Gaules extracted a sort of bitumen out of birch: Great and small coal, are made by the charring of this wood; (see Book III Chap. 4. of fuel) as of the tops and loppings, Mr. Howard's new tanne. The inner white cuticle and silken-bark, (which strips off of it self almost yearly) was anciently us'd for writing-tables, even before the invention of paper; of which there is a birch-tree in Canada, whose bark will serve to write on, and may be made into books, and of the twigs very pretty baskets; with the outward thicker and courser part of the common birch, are divers houses in Russia, Poland, and those poor northern tracts cover'd, instead of slates and tyle: Nay, one who has lately publish'd an account of Sweden,{142:2} says, that the poor people grind the very bark of birch-trees, to mingle with their bread-corn. 'Tis affirm'd by Cardan, that some birch-roots are so very extravagantly vein'd, as to represent the shapes and images of beasts, birds, trees, and many other pretty resemblances. Lastly, of the whitest part of the old wood, found commonly in doating birches, is made the grounds of our effeminate farin'd gallants sweet powder; and of the quite consum'd and rotten (such as we find reduc'd to a kind of reddish earth in superannuated hollow-trees) is gotten the best mould for the raising of divers seedlings of the rarest plants and flowers; to say nothing here of the magisterial _fasces_ for which anciently the cudgels were us'd by the _lictor_, for lighter faults, as now the gentler rods by our tyrannical paedagogues.

3. I should here add the uses of the water too, had I full permission to tamper with all the medicinal virtues of trees: But if the sovereign effects of the juice of this despicable tree supply its other defects (which make some judge it unworthy to be brought into the catalogue of woods to be propagated) I may perhaps for once, be permitted to play the empiric, and to gratifie our laborious wood-man with a draught of his own liquor; and the rather, because these kind of secrets are not yet sufficiently cultivated; and ingenious planters would by all means be encourag'd to make more trials of this nature, as the Indians and other nations have done on their palmes; and trees of several kinds, to their great emolument. The mystery is no more than this: About the beginning of March (when the buds begin to be proud and turgid, and before they explain into leaves) with a chizel and a mallet, cut a slit almost as deep as the very pith, under some bough or branch of a well-spreading birch; cut it oblique, and not long-ways (as a good chirurgion would make his orifice in a vein) inserting a small stone or chip, to keep the lips of the wound a little open. Sir Hugh Plat, (giving a general rule for the gathering of sap, and tapping of trees) would have it done within one foot of the ground, the first rind taken off, and then the white bark slit over-thwart, no farther than to the body of the tree: Moreover, that this wound be made only in that part of the bark which respects the south-west, or between those quarters; because (says he) little or no sap riseth from the northern, nor indeed when the east-wind blows. In this slit, by the help of your knife to open it, he directs that a leaf of the tree be inserted, first fitted to the dimensions of the slit, from which the sap will distil in manner of filtration: Take away the leaf, and the bark will close again, a little earth being clapped to the slit. Thus the Knight for any tree. But we have already shew'd how the birch is to be treated: Fasten therefore a bottle, or some such convenient vessel appendant; this does the effect as well as perforation or tapping: Out of this aperture will extil a limpid and clear water, retaining an obscure smack both of the tast and odor of the tree; and which (as I am credibly inform'd) will in the s.p.a.ce of twelve or fourteen days, preponderate, and out-weigh the whole tree it self, body and roots; which if it be constant, and so happen likewise in other trees, is not only stupendous, but an experiment worthy the consideration of our profoundest philosophers: _An ex sola aqua fiunt arbores?_ whether water only be the principle of vegetables, and consequently of trees: I say, I am credibly inform'd; and therefore the late unhappy{144:1} angry-man might have spar'd his animadversion: For he that said but twenty gallons run, does he know how many more might have been gotten out of larger apertures, at the insertion of every branch, and foot in the princ.i.p.al roots during the whole season? But I conceive I have good authority for my a.s.sertion, out of the author cited in the margin, whose words are these: _Si mense Martio perforaveris betulam, &c. exstillabit aqua limpida, clara, & pura, obscurum arboris saporem & odorem referens, quae spatio 12 aut 14 dierum, praeponderabit arbori c.u.m ramis & radicibus, &c._ His exceptions about the beginning of March are very insignificant; since I undertake not punctuality of time; and his own pretended experience shew'd him, that in hard weather it did not run till the expiration of the month, or beginning of April; and another time on the tenth of February; and usually he says, about the twenty-fourth day, &c. at such uncertainty: What immane difference then is there between the twenty-fourth of Feb. and commencement of March?

Besides, these anomolous bleedings, (even of the same tree) happen early or later, according to the temper of the air and weather. In the mean time, evident it is, that we know of no tree which does more copiously attract, be it that so much celebrated spirit of the world, (as they call it) in form of water (as some) or a certain specifique liquor richly impregnated with this balsamical property: That there is such a _magnes_ in this simple tree, as does manifestly draw to it self some occult and wonderful virtue, is notorious; nor is it conceivable, indeed, the difference between the efficacy of that liquor which distils from the bole, or parts of the tree nearer to the root (where Sir Hugh would celebrate the incision) and that which weeps out from the more sublime branches, more impregnated with this astral vertue, as not so near the root, which seems to attract rather a cruder, and more common water, through fewer strainers, and neither so pure, and aerial as in those refined percolations, the nature of the places where these trees delight to grow (for the most part lofty, dry, and barren) consider'd.

But I refer these disquisitions to the learned; especially, as mentioned by that incomparable philosopher, and my most n.o.ble friend, the Honourable Mr. Boyle, in his second part of the _Usefulness of Natural Philosophy_, Sect. 1. Essay 3_d._ where he speaks of the _manna del corpo_, or trunk-manna, as well as of that liquor from the bough; also of the _sura_ which the coco-trees afford; and that Polonian secret of the liquor of the walnut-tree root; with an encouragement of more frequent experiments to educe saccharine substances upon these occasions: But the book being publish'd so long since this _Discourse_ was first printed, I take only here the liberty to refer the reader to one of the best entertainments in the world.

But now before we expatiate farther concerning saps; it is by some controverted, whether this exhaustion would not be an extreme detriment to the growth, substance, and other parts of trees: As to the growth and bulk, if what I have observ'd of a birch, which has for very many years been perforated at the usual season, (besides the scars made in the bark) it still thrives, and is grown to a prodigious substance, the species consider'd. What it would effect in other trees (the vine excepted unseasonably launc'd) I know not: But this calls to mind, a tryal of Esq; Brotherton, (mentioning some excortications and incisions, by what he observ'd in pruning,) that most (if not all) of the sap ascends by the lignous part of trees, not the cortical; nor between the cortical and lignous: And that the increase of a tree's growth in thickness, is by the descent of the sap, and not by the ascent; so as if there were no descent, the tree would increase very little, if at all; for that there is a perpetual circulation of the sap, during the whole Summer; and whilst it is in this course, and not a descent at Michaelmas only, as some hold, but evaporated by the branches, during Summer and Autumn, and at Spring supplied with rains. He also thinks it probable, that the bodies of plants, as well as those of animals, are nourish'd and increas'd by a double _pabulum_ or food; as water and air both impregnated, mixing and coalescing by a mutual conversion.

That all plants and animals seem to have a two-fold kind of roots, one spreading into the earth, the other shooting up into the air; which, as they receive and carry up their proper nutriments to the body of the plant and root, so they carry off the useless dregs and recrements, &c.