CHAP, vi S Y L V A 303 



secret, and take notice of the effect : If you will sow 

 them in the berry, keep them in dry sand till March; 

 remove them also after three or four years ; but if 

 you plant the sets (which is likewise a commendable 

 way, and the woods will furnish enough) place'em 

 northwards, as they do quick. Of this, might there 

 living pales and enclosures be made, (such as the 

 Right Honourable my Lord Dacres, somewhere in 

 Sussex, has a park almost environed with, able to keep 

 in any game, as I am credibly inform'd) and cut into 

 square hedges, it becomes impenetrable, and will thrive 

 in hottest, as well as the coldest places. I have seen 

 hedges, or if you will, stout walls of holly, 20 foot 

 in height, kept upright, and the gilded sort budded 

 low, and in 2 or 3 places one above another, shorn 

 and fashion'd into columns and pilasters, architect- 

 onially shap'd, and at due distance; than which nothing 

 can possibly be more pleasant, the berry adorning the 

 intercolumniations, with the scarlet festoons and en- 

 carpa. Of this noble tree one may take thousands of 

 them four inches long, out of the woods (amongst 

 the fall'n leaves whereof, they sow themselves) and so 

 plant them ; but this should be before the cattle begin 

 to crop them, especially sheep, who are greedy of 

 them when tender : Stick them into the ground in a 

 moist season, Spring, or early Autumn ; especially the 

 Spring, shaded (if it prove too hot and scorching) till 

 they begin to shoot of themselves, and in very sharp 

 weather, and during our eastern etesians, cover'd with 

 dry straw or haume ; and if any of them seem to 

 perish, cut it close, and you shall soon see it revive. 

 Of these seedlings, and by this culture, I have rais'd 

 plants and hedges full four foot high in four years : 

 The lustier and bigger the sets are, the better, and if 



