328 SYLVA BOOK ii 



wash them off with water, in which some of the cater- 

 pillars themselves, and garlick have been bruis'd, or 

 the juice of rue, decoctions of colloquintida, hemp- 

 seed, worm-wood, tobacca, wall-nut-shells, when 

 green, with the leaves of sage, urine and ashes, and the 

 like aspersions. Take of two or three of the ingred- 

 ients, of each an handful in two pails of water ; make 

 them boil in it half an hour, then strain the liquor, 

 and sprinkle it on the trees infected with caterpillars, 

 the black-flea, 6fc. in two or three times it will clear 

 them, and should be us'd about the time of blossoming. 

 Another, is to choak and dry them with smoak of 

 galbanum, shoo-soals, hair ; and some affirm that 

 planting the pionie near them, is a certain remedy ; 

 but there is no remedy so facile, as the burning them 

 off with small wisps of dry straw, which in a moment 

 rids you. 



2 1 . Rooks do in time, by pinching off the buds and 

 tops of trees for their nests, cause many trees and 

 groves to decay : Their dung propagates nettles and 

 choaks young seedlings : They are to be shot, and their 

 nests demolished. The bullfinch and titmouse also 

 eat off and spoil the buds of fruit-trees ; prevented by 

 clappers, or caught in the wyre mouse-trap with teeth, 

 and baited with a piece of rusty bacon, also with lime- 

 twigs. But if cattle break in before the time, 

 conclamatum est, especially goats, whose mouths and 

 breath is poison to trees ; they never thrive well after ; 

 and Varro affirms, if they but lick the olive-tree, they 

 become immediately barren. And now we have 

 mention'd barrenness, we do not reckon trees to be 

 sterile, which do not yield a fruitful burden constantly 

 every year (as juniper and some annotines do) no more 

 than of pregnant women : Whilst that is to be ac- 



