CHAP, v SYLVA 135 



19. If the season require it, all new plantations are 

 to be plied with waterings, which is better pour'd 

 into a circle at some distance from the roots, which 

 should continually be bared of grass, and if the water 

 be rich, or impregnated, the shoots will soon discover 

 it ; for the liquor being percolated through a quantity 

 of earth, will carry the nitrous virtue of the soil with 

 it ; by no means therefore water at the stem; because 

 it washes the mould from the root, comes too crude, 

 and endangers their rotting : But, 



20. For the cooling and refreshing tree-roots, the 

 congesting of rotten litter sprinkl'd over with fine 

 earth is good, or place potsheards, flints, or pibbles 

 near the foot of the stem, for so the poet : 



1 Lime-stones, or squalid shells, that may the rain, 

 Vapours, and gliding moisture entertain. 



But remember you remove them after a competent 

 time, else the vermine, snails, and insects which they 

 produce and shelter, will gnaw, and greatly injure 

 their bark, and therefore to lay a coat of moist rotten 

 litter with a little earth upon it, will preserve it moist 

 in Summer, and warm in Winter, inriching the show- 

 ers and dews that strain through it. 



21. Young plants will be strangled with corn, oats, 

 pease, or hemp, or any rankly growing grain, if a 

 competent circle, and distance be not left (as of near 

 a yard, or so) of the stem ; this is a useful remark : 

 But whether the setting, or sowing of beanes near 

 trees, make them thrive the more (as Theophrastus 



1 Aut lapidem bibulum, aut squallentes infode conchas, 

 Inter enim labentur aquae, tenuisque subibit 



Halitus 



Georg. 2. 



