CHAP, xx SYLVA 195 



thickets of furzes (viz. the vulgar) should yield them 

 more profit than a like quantity of the best wheat- 

 land of England ? for such is theirs : If this be 

 question'd, the scene is within a mile of Hereford, 

 and proved by anniversary experience, in the lands, 

 as I take it, of a gentleman who is now one of the 

 burgesses for that city. And in Devonshire (the 

 seat of the best husbands in the world) they sow 

 on their worst land (well plow'd) the seeds of the 

 rankest furzes, which in four or five years becomes 

 a rich wood : No provender (as we say) makes 

 horses so hardy as the young tops of these furzes; 

 no other wood so thick, nor more excellent fuel ; 

 and for some purposes also, yielding them a kind 

 of timber to their more humble buildings, and a 

 great refuge for fowl and other game : I am assur'd, 

 in Bretaigne 'tis sometimes sown no less than twelve 

 yards thick, for a speedy, profitable, and impenetrable 

 mound : If we imitated this husbandry in the dry and 

 hot barren places of Surrey, and other parts of this 

 nation, we might exceedingly spare our woods ; and 

 I have bought the best sort of French-seed at the 

 shops in London. It seems that in the more eastern 

 parts of Germany, and especially in Poland, this 

 vulgar trifle, and even our common Broom is so 

 rare, that they have desired the seeds of them out 

 of England, and preserve them with extraordinary 

 care in their best gardens ; this I learn out of our 

 Johnson's Herbal ; by which we may consider, that 

 what is reputed a curse, and a cumber in some 

 places, is esteem'd the ornament and blessing of 

 another : But we shall not need go so far for this, 

 since both beech and birch are almost as great stran- 

 gers in many parts of this nation, particularly North- 



