292 S Y L V A BOOK ii 



trouble or artifice ; and if they present us their 

 blushing double flowers for the pains of recision and 

 well pruning, (for they must diligently be purg'd of 

 superfluous wood) it is recompence enough ; tho' 

 placed in a very benign aspect, they have sometimes 

 produc'd a pretty small pome : It is a perdifolia in 

 Winter, and growing abroad, requires no extraordin- 

 ary rich earth, but that the mould be loosen'd and 

 eas'd about the root, and hearty compost applied in 

 Spring and Autumn : Thus cultivated, it will rise to 

 a pretty tree, tho' of which there is in nature none 

 so adulterate a shrub : 'Tis best increas'd by layers, 

 approch and inarching (as they term it) and is said 

 to marry with laurels, the damson, ash, almond, 

 mulberry, citron, too many I fear to hold. But after 

 all, they do best being cas'd, the mould well mixt 

 with rotten hogs-dung, its peculiar delight, and kept 

 to a single stem, and treated like other plants in the 

 Winter-shelter ; they open the bud and flower, and 

 sometimes with a pretty small fruit ; the juice 

 whereof is cooling ; the rest of an astringent quality: 

 The rind may also supply the gall for making ink, 

 and will tan leather. 



15. The syring [lilac] or pipe-tree, so easily propa- 

 gated by suckers or layers ; the flower of the white 

 (emulating both colour and flavor of the orange) I am 

 told is made use of by the perfumers ; I should not 

 else have named it among the evergreens ; for it loses 

 the leaf, tho' not its life, however expos'd in the 

 Winter : There are besides this the purple, by our 

 botanists call'd the Persian julsamine, which next 

 leads me to the other jasmines. 



1 6. The jasmine, especially the Spanish larger 

 flower, far exceeding all the rest, for the agreeable* 



