Jobn jx>eltt 287 



But Columella has another expedient for the 

 raising of our spinetutn, by rubbing the now 

 mature hips and haws, ashen-keys, etc., into 

 the crevices of bass-ropes, or wisps of straw, and 

 then burying them in a trench. Whether way 

 you attempt it, they must (so soon as they 

 peep, and as long as they require it) be sedu- 

 lously cleansed of the weeds ; which, if in beds 

 for transplantation, had need be, at the least, 

 three or four years ; by which time even your 

 seedlings will be of stature fit to remove. For I 

 do by no means approve of the vulgar prema- 

 ture planting of sets, as is generally used 

 throughout England ; which is to take such 

 only as are the very smallest, and so to crowd 

 them into three or four files, which are both 

 egregious mistakes. 



Whereas it is found by constant experience, 

 that plants as big as one's thumb, set in the 

 posture, and at the distance which we spake of 

 in the hornbeam that is, almost perpendicular, 

 (not altogether, because the rain should not get 

 in betwixt the rind and wood), and single, or at 

 most not exceeding a double row, do prosper 

 infinitely, and much outstrip the densest and 

 closest ranges of our trifling sets which make 

 but weak shoots, and whose roots do but hinder 

 each other, and for being couched in that pos- 

 ture, on the sides of banks and fences (espe- 



