CHAP, iv S Y L V A 67 



5. There is besides these sorts we have named, one 

 of a more scabrous harsh leaf, but very large, which 

 becomes an huge tree, (frequent in the northern 

 counties) and is distinguished by the name of the 

 witch-hazle in our Statute Books, as serving formerly 

 to make long bowes of ; but the timber is not so good 

 as the first more vulgar ; but the bark at time of year, 

 will serve to make a course bast-rope with. 



6. Of all the trees which grow in our woods, there 

 is none which does better suffer the transplantation 

 than the elm ; for you may remove a tree of twenty 

 years growth with undoubted success: It is an expe- 

 riment I have made in a tree almost as big more as 

 my waste ; but then you must totally disbranch him, 

 leaving only the summit intire ; and being careful to 

 take him up with as much earth as you can, refresh 

 him with abundance of water. This is an excellent, 

 and expeditious way for great persons to plant the 

 accesses of their houses with ; for being disposed at 

 sixteen or eighteen foot interval, they will in a few 

 years bear goodly heads, and thrive to admiration. 

 Some that are very cautious, emplaster the wounds 

 of such over-grown elms with a mixture of clay and 

 horse-dung, bound about them with a wisp of hay or 

 fine moss, and I do not reprove it, provided they take 

 care to temper it well, so as the vermine nestle not in 

 it. But for more ordinary plantations, younger trees, 

 which have their bark smooth and tender, clear of 

 wenns and tuberous bunches (for those of that sort 

 seldom come to be stately trees) about the scantling 

 of your leg, and their heads trimm'd at five or six 

 foot height, are to be prefer'd before all other. Cato 

 would have none of these sorts of trees to be removed 

 till they are five or six fingers in diameter ; others 



