CHAP, xx SYLVA 177 



abandoning his young woods all this time, and perhaps 

 many years, to the venomous bitings and treading of 

 cattel, and other like injuries (for want of due care) 

 the detriment is many times irreparable ; young 

 trees once cropp'd, hardly ever recovering : It is the 

 bane of all our most hopeful timber. 



3. But shall I provoke you by an instance ? A 

 kinsman of mine has a wood of more than 60 years 

 standing ; it was, before he purchas'd it, expos'd and 

 abandon 'd to the cattel for divers years : Some of the 

 outward skirts were nothing save shrubs and miserable 

 starvlings ; yet still the place was dispos'd to grow 

 woody ; but by this neglect continually suppress'd. 

 The industrious gentleman has fenced in some acres 

 of this, and cut all close to the ground ; it is come in 

 eight or nine years, to be better worth than the wood 

 of sixty ; and will (in time) prove most incomparable 

 timber, whilst the other part (so many years advanc'd) 

 shall never recover ; and all this from no other cause, 

 than preserving it fenc'd : Judge then by this, how 

 our woods come to be so decryed : Are five hundred 

 sheep worthy the care of a shepherd ? and are not five 

 thousand oaks worth the fencing, and the inspection 

 of a Hay ward ? 



1 And shall men doubt to plant, and careful be ? 



Let us therefore shut up what we have thus laboriously 

 planted, with some good quick-set hedge ; which, 



8 All countries bear, in every ground 



As denizen, or interloper found : 



1 Et dubitant homines serere, atque impendere curam ? 



Georg. 2. 



7 Otnne solum natale est, intrat ubique 



Ardelio ; ilia quidem cultis excluditur agris 



W 



