CHAP, vii SYLVA 325 



envenomed teeth of goats, and other injuries ; the 

 entire stem smear'd over, without the least prejudice, 

 to my no small admiration : But for over-hot and 

 torrid land, you must sadden the mould about the 

 root with pond-mud, and neats-dung ; and by graffing 

 fruit trees on stocks rais'd in the same mould, as being 

 more homogeneous. 



13. Hollowness, is contracted, when by reason of 

 the ignorant, or careless lopping of a tree, the wet is 

 suffer'd to fall perpendicularly upon a part, especially 

 the head, or any other part or arms, in which the 

 rain getting in, is conducted to the very heart of the 

 stem and body of the tree, which it soon rots : In 

 this case, if there be sufficient sound wood, cut it to 

 the quick, and close to the body cap the hollow part 

 with a tarpaulin, or fill it with good stiff loam, horse- 

 dung and fine hay mingled, or with well-temper'd 

 mortar, covering it with a piece of tarpaulin : This 

 is one of the worst of evils, and to which the elm is 

 most obnoxious. Old broken boughs, if very great, 

 are to be cut off at some distance from the body, but 

 the smaller, close. 



14. Hornets and wasps, &c. by breeding in the 

 hollowness of trees, not only infect them, but will 

 peel them round to the very timber, as if cattle had 

 unbark'd them, as I observed in some goodly ashes at 

 Casioberry (near the garden of that late noble Lord, 

 and lover of planting, the Earl of Essex), and are 

 therefore to be destroy'd, by stopping up their 

 entrances with tar and goose-dung, or by conveying 

 the fumes of brimstome into their cells : Cantharides 

 attack the ash above all other bobs of the betle kind : 

 Chafers, ?c. are to be shaken down and crush'd, 

 and when they come in armies, (as sometimes in 



