CHAP, i S Y L V A 3 



acorns shall have peopl'd the neighbouring regions 

 with young stocks and trees ; the residue will become 

 groves and copses of infinite delight and satisfaction 

 to the planters. Besides, we daily see what course 

 lands will bear these stocks (suppose them oaks, 

 wall-nuts, chess-nuts, pines, firr, ash, wild-pears, 

 crabs, Gfc.) and some of them (as for instance the 

 pear and the firr or pine) strike their roots through 

 the roughest and most impenetrable rocks and clefts 

 of stone it self ; and others require not any rich or 

 pinguid, but very moderate soil ; especially, if com- 

 mitted to it in seeds, which allies them to their 

 mother and nurse without renitency or regret : And 

 then considering what assistances a little care in 

 easing and stirring of the ground about them for a 

 few years does afford them : What cannot a strong 

 plow, a winter mellowing, and summer heats, incor- 

 porated with the pregnant turf, or a slight assistance 

 of lime, loam, sand, rotten compost, discreetly mixed 

 (as the case may require) perform even in the most 

 unnatural and obstinate soil ? And in such places 

 where anciently woods have grown, but are now 

 unkind to them, the fault is to be reformed by this 

 care ; and chiefly, by a sedulous extirpation of the 

 old remainders of roots, and latent stumps, which by 

 their mustiness, and other pernicious qualities, sowre 

 the ground, and poyson the conception ; and here- 

 with let me put in this note, that even an over-rich, 

 and pinguid composition, is by no means the proper 

 bed either for seminary or nursery, whilst even the 

 natural soil it self does frequently discover and point 

 best to the particular species, though some are for 

 all places alike : Nor should the earth be yet per- 

 petually crop'd with the same, or other seeds, without 



