288 SYLVA BOOK ii 



set into the stoves, amongst the oranges and lemmons ; 

 when by long experience, I have found it equalling 

 our holley, in suffering the extreamest rigours of our 

 cruel frosts and winds, which is doubtless (of all our 

 English trees) the most insensible and stout. 



10. They are (both alaternus^ and this) raised of 

 the seeds, (though those of the philyrea will be long 

 under ground) and being transplanted for espalier 

 hedges, or standards, are to be govern'd by the shears, 

 as oft as there is occasion : The alaternus will be up 

 in a month or two after it is sown : I was wont to 

 wash them out of the berry, and drying them a little 

 in a cloath, commit them to the nursery-bed. Plant 

 it out at two years growth, and clip it after rain in 

 the Spring, before it grows sticky, and whilst the 

 shoots are tender ; thus will it form an hedge (though 

 planted but in single rows, and at two foot distance) 

 of a yard in thickness, twenty foot high (if you 

 desire it) and furnish 'd to the bottom : but for an 

 hedge of this altitude, it would require the friendship 

 of some wall, or a frame of lusty poles, to secure 

 against the winds one of the most delicious objects in 

 nature : But if we could have store of the philyrea 



j-olio leviter serrato (of which I have rais'd some very 

 fine plants from the seeds) we might fear no weather, 

 and the verdure is incomparable, and all of them 

 tonsile, fit for cradle-work and umbracula frondium : 

 a decoction of the angustifolia soveraign for sore 

 mouths. 



1 1 . The myrtil. The vulgar Italian wild myrtil 

 (though not indeed the most fragrant) grows high, 

 and supports all weathers and climates ; they thrive 

 abroad in Bretany, in places cold and very sharp in 

 Winter ; and are observ'd no where to prosper so 



