230 SYLVA BOOK ii 



to the roots, that penetrate into their meanders, and 

 winding recesses. But though they require this re- 

 freshing at first, yet do they perfectly abhor all ster- 

 coration ; nor will they much endure to have the 

 earth open'd about their roots for ablaqueation, or be 

 disturb'd : This is also to be understood of cypress. 

 A fir, for the first half dozen years, seems to stand, or 

 at least make no considerable advance, but it is when 

 throughly rooted, that it comes away miraculously. 

 That honourable and learned knight Sir Norton 

 Knatchbull, (whose delicious plantation of pines and 

 firs I beheld with great satisfaction) having assur'd 

 me, that a fir-tree of his raising, did shoot no less 

 than sixty foot in height, in little more than twenty 

 years ; and what are extant at Sir Peter Wentworth's 

 of Lillingston Lovel ; Cornbury in Oxfordshire, and 

 other places ; but especially those trees growing now 

 in Harefield Park in the county of Middlesex (be- 

 longing to Mr. Serjeant Nudigate) where there are 

 two Spanish or silver firs, that at 2 years growth from 

 the seed, being planted there an. 1603, are now 

 become goodly masts : The biggest of them from the 

 ground to the upper bough, is 8 1 feet, though forked 

 on the top, which has not a little impeded its growth : 

 The girt, or circumference below, is thirteen foot, 

 and the length (so far as is timber, that is, to six 

 inches square) 73 foot, in the middle 17 inches square, 

 amounting by calculation to 1 46 foot of good timber : 

 The other tree is indeed not altogether so large, by 

 reason of its standing near the house when it was 

 burnt (about 40 years since) when one side of the 

 tree was scorched also ; yet it has not only recovered 

 that scar, but thrives exceedingly, and is within eight 

 or nine foot, as tall as the other, and would probably 



