i o S Y L V A BOOK in 



mischievous bordurers, who go always armed with 

 short hand-bills, hacking and chopping off all that 

 comes in their way; by which our trees are made full 

 of knots, stubs, boils, cankers, and deform'd bunch- 

 es, to their utter destruction : Good husbands should 

 be asham'd of it ; tho' I would have no wood-man 

 pretend to be without all his necessary furniture, 

 when he goes about this work ; which I (once for 

 all) reckon to be the hand-bill, hatchet, hook, hand- 

 saw, an excellent pruning-knife, broad chizel and 

 mallet, all made of the best steel and kept sharp ; and 

 thus he is provided for greater, or more gentle exe- 

 cutions, purgations, recisions, and coercions; and it is 

 of main concern, that the proper and effectual tool be 

 applied to every work, since heavy and rude instru- 

 ments do but mangle and bruise tender plants; and if 

 they be too small, they cannot make clear and even 

 work upon great arm and branches : The knife is for 

 twigs and spray ; the chizel for larger armes, and such 

 amputations as the ax and bill cannot well operate 

 upon. As much to be reprehended are those who 

 either begin this work at unseasonable times, or so 

 maim the poor branches, that either out of laziness, 

 or want of skill, they leave most of them stubs, and 

 instead of cutting the arms and branches close to the 

 bole, hack them off a foot or two from the body of 

 the tree, by which means they become hollow and 

 rotten, and are as so many conduits to receive the 

 rain and the weather, which conveys the wet to the 

 very matrix and heart, deforming the whole tree with 

 many ugly botches, which shorten its life, and utterly 

 mars the timber : I know Sir H. Platt tells us, the 

 elm should be so lopp'd, but he says it not of his 

 own experience as I do. And here it is that I am 



