162 SYLVA BOOK i 



hedge-breakers, many do thus plant them ; because 

 they cannot easily be pull'd up, after once they have 

 struck root. 



8. If some be permitted to wear their tops five or 

 six years, their palms will be very ample, and yield 

 the first and most plentiful relief to bees, even before 

 our abricots blossom. The hopping-sallows open, and 

 yield their palms before other sallows, and when they 

 are blown (which is about the exit of May, or some- 

 times June) the palms (or uXtaiKapiroifrugiperdce, as 

 Homer terms them for their extream levity) are four 

 inches long, and full of a fine lanuginous cotton. Of 

 this sort, there is a salix near Dorking in Surrey, in 

 which the julus bears a thick cottonous substance. 

 A poor body might in an hour's space, gather a pound 

 or two of it, which resembling the finest silk, might 

 doubtless be converted to some profitable use, by an 

 ingenious house-wife, if gathered in calm evenings, 

 before the wind, rain and dew impair them ; I am of 

 opinion, if it were dry'd with care, it might be fit 

 for cushions, and pillows of chastity, for such of old 

 was the reputation of the shade of those trees. 



9. Of these hopping sallows, after three years root- 

 ing, each plant will yield about a score of staves, of 

 full eight foot in length, and so following, for use, as 

 we noted above : Compute then how many fair pike- 

 staves, perches, and other useful materials, that will 

 amount to in an acre, if planted at five foot interval : 

 But a fat and moist soil, requires indeed more space, 

 than a lean or dryer ; namely, six or eight foot distance. 



i o. You may plant settings of the very first years 

 growth ; but the second year they are better, and the 

 third year, better than the second ; and the fourth, as 

 good as the third ; especially, if they approach the 



