50 S Y L V A BOOK i 



able screw or winch : I say, such an invention might 

 effect wonders, not only for the extirpation of roots, 

 but the prostrating of huge trees : That small engine, 

 which by some is call'd the german-de^pil^ reform'd 

 after this manner, and duly applied, might be very 

 expedient for this purpose, and therefore we have 

 exhibited the following figure, and submit it to 

 improvement and tryal. 



But this is to be practis'd only where you design 

 a final extirpation ; for some have drawn suckers 

 even from an old stub-root ; but they certainly perish 

 by the moss which invades them, and are very sub- 

 ject to grow rotten. Pliny speaks of one root, which 

 took up an entire acre of ground, and Theophrastus 

 describes the Lycean Platanus to have spread an 

 hundred foot ; if so, the argument may hold good 

 for their growth after the tree is come to its period. 

 They made cups of the roots of oaks heretofore, and 

 such a curiosity Athenasus tells us was carv'd by 

 Thericleus himself; and there is a way so to tinge 

 oak after long burying and soaking in water, (which 

 gives it a wonderful politure) as that it has frequently 

 been taken for a course ebony : Hence even by 

 floating, comes the Bohemian oak, Polish, and other 

 northern timber, to be of such excellent use for some 

 parts of shipping : But the blackness which we find 

 in oaks, that have long lain under ground, (and may 

 be call'd subterranean timber) proceeds from some 

 vitriolic juice of the bed in which they lie, which 

 makes it very weighty ; but (as the excellent natural- 

 ist and learned physician Dr. Sloane observes) it 

 dries, splits, and becomes light, and much impairs. 



1 5. There is not in nature a thing more obnoxious 

 to deceit, than the buying of trees standing, upon 



