CHAP, iv S Y L V A 299 



famous town Hallifax, in York-shire, which imports 

 holy-hair : By this, and the like, may we estimate 

 what a world of impostures, have through craft and 

 superstition gained the repute of holy-places, abound- 

 ing with rich oblations (their de koto's], 



Pliny speaks of an old lotus tree in a grove near 

 Rome, which they call'd capital^ upon which the 

 vestals present (as our nuns) were us'd to hang their 

 hair cut off at their profession : Plin. lib. 16. c. 43. 

 But that is nothing to this. 



I may not in the mean time omit what has been 

 said of the true taxus of the ancients, for being a 

 mortiferous plant : Dr. Belluccio, President of the 

 Medical Garden at Pisa in Tuscany, (where they 

 have this curiosity) affirms, that when his gardners 

 clip it (as sometimes they do) they are not able to 

 work above half an hour at a time, it makes their 

 heads so ake : But the leaves of this tree are more 

 like the fir, and is very bushy, furnish'd with leaves 

 from the very root, and seeming rather an hedge than 

 a tree, tho' it grow very tall. 



6. This English yew-tree is easily produc'd of the 

 seeds, wash'd and cleans'd from their mucilage, then 

 buried and dry'd in sand a little moist, any time in 

 December, and so kept in some vessel in the house 

 all Winter, and in some cool shady place abroad all 

 the Summer, sow them the Spring after : Some bury 

 them in the ground like haws ; it will commonly be 

 the second Winter e're they peep, and then they rise 

 with their caps on their heads : Being three years 

 old, you may transplant them, and form them into 

 standards, knobs, walks, hedges, &c. in all which 

 works they succeed marvellous well, and are worth 

 our patience for their perennial verdure and durable- 



