CHAP, in S Y L V A 51 



the reputation of their appearance to the eye, unless 

 the chapman be extraordinarily judicious ; so various 

 are their hidden and conceal'd infirmities, till they be 

 fell'd and sawn out : So as if to any thing applicable, 

 certainly there is nothing which does more perfectly 

 confirm it, than the most flourishing out-side of trees, 

 fronti nullajides. A timber-tree is a merchant-advent- 

 urer, you shall never know what he is worth till he be 

 dead. 



1 6. Oaks are in some places (where the soil is 

 especially qualified) ready to be cut for cops in four- 

 teen years and sooner ; I compute from the first 

 semination ; though it be told as an instance of high 

 encouragement (and as indeed it merits) that a lady 

 in Northamptonshire sowed acorns, and liv'd to cut 

 the trees produc'd from them, twice in two and 

 twenty years ; and both as well grown as most are in 

 sixteen or eighteen. This yet is certain, that acorns 

 set in hedg-rows, have in thirty years born a stem 

 of a foot diameter. Generally, cops-wood should be 

 cut close, and at such intervals as the growth requires ; 

 which being seldom constant, depends much on the 

 places and the kinds, the mould and the air, and for 

 which there are extant particular statutes to direct 

 us ; of all which more at large hereafter. Oak for 

 tan-bark may be fell'd from April to the last of June, 

 by a Statute in the i Jacobi. And here some are 

 for the disbarking of oaks, and so to let them stand, 

 before they fell. 



17. To enumerate now the incomparable uses of 

 this wood, were needless ; but so precious was the 

 esteem of it, that of old there was an express law 

 amongst the Twelve Tables, concerning the very 

 gathering of the acorns, though they should be found 



