CHAP, ii SYLVA 21 



body of the trees are wet, as after a soaking rain ; 

 yet so, as not to excorticate, or gall the tree, has 

 exceedingly accelerated its growth, (I am assured, to 

 a wonderful and incredible improvement) by opening 

 the pores, freeing them of 1 moss, and killing the 

 worm. 



8. Lastly, frondation, or the taking off some of 

 the luxuriant branches and sprays of such trees, 

 especially whose leaves are profitable for cattle 

 (whereof already) is a kind of pruning: And so is the 

 scarrifying and cross hatching of some fruit-bearers, 

 and others, to abate that ^vXXojuavm which spends all 

 the juice in the leaves, to the prejudice of the rest of 

 the parts. 



But after all this, let us hear what the learned and 

 experienc'd Esq ; Brotherton has observed upon this 

 article of pruning, and particularly of the taking of 

 the top ; that those trees which were so us'd, some 

 years before the severe frost of 1684, died: Those not 

 so prun'd, escap'd : And of other trees, (having but a 

 small head left) the rest of the boughs cleared ; the 

 tops flourish'd, and the loose branches shread, perish'd, 

 and the unprun'd escap'd : Moreover, when the like 

 pruning has been try'd on trees 20 foot high ; the 

 difference of the increase was visible the following 

 Summer ; but within 7 or 8 years time, the differ- 

 ence was exceeding great, and even prodigious, both 

 in bark and branch, beyond those trees that had been 

 prun'd. 



9. This, and the like, belonging to the care of the 

 wood-ward, will mind him of his continual duty ; 

 which is to walk about, and survey his young plant- 

 ations daily ; and to see that all gaps be immediately 



1 See cap. 7. book 2. 



