CHAP, in S Y L V A 43 



To observe therefore the coast, and side of the 

 stock (especially of fruit-trees) is not such a trifle as 

 by some pretended : For if the air be as much the 

 mother or nurse, as water and earth, (as more than 

 probable it is) such blossoming plants as court the 

 motion of the meridian sun, do as 't were evidently 

 point out the advantage they receive by their position, 

 by the clearness, politure, and comparative splendor 

 of the southside : And the frequent mossiness of 

 trees on the opposite side, does sufficiently note the 

 unkindness of that aspect ; most evident in the bark 

 of oaks white and smooth ; the trees growing more 

 kindly on the south side of an hill, than those which 

 are expos'd to the north, with an hard, dark, rougher 

 and more mossie integument, as I can now demon- 

 strate in a prodigious coat of it, investing some 

 pyracanths which I have removed to a northern 

 dripping shade. I have seen (writes a worthy friend 

 to me on this occasion) whole hedge-rows of apples 

 and pears that quite perished after that shelter was 

 removed : The good husbands expected the contrary, 

 and that the fruit should improve, as freed from the 

 proedations of the hedge ; but use and custom made 

 that shelter necessary ; and therefore (saith he) a 

 stock for a time is the weaker, taken out of a thicket, 

 if it be not well protected from all sudden and fierce 

 invasions, either of crude air or winds. Nor let any 

 be deterr'd, if being to remove any trees, he shall 

 esteem it too consumptive of time ; for with a brush 

 dipped in any white colour, or oaker, a thousand 

 may be marked as they stand, in a moment ; and 

 that once done, the difficulty is over. I have been 

 the larger upon these two remarks, because I find 

 them so material, and yet so much neglected. 



