CHAP, vii S YL V A 161 



that the timber-trees may be excellent, those after- 

 wards copp'ced, and the choicest stocks kept shreaded. 

 If an enclosure be sowed, the seeds may be (as was 

 directed) of all the species, not forgetting the best 

 pines, fir, fc. Whiles the yearly removal of very 

 incumbrances only, will repay the workmen, who fell 

 the quick, or reserve it to store other enclosures, and 

 soften the circumjacent grounds, to the very great 

 improvement of what remains. 



8. And how if in such fencing-works, we did 

 sometimes imitate what Quintus Curtius, lib. 6. has 

 recorded of the Mardorum gens, near to the confines 

 of Hyrcania, who did by the close planting of trees 

 alone upon the bordures, give so strange a check to 

 the power of that great conqueror Alexander ? They 

 were a barbarous people indeed, but in this worthy 

 our imitation ; and the work so handsomly, and 

 particularly describ'd, that I shall not grieve to recite 

 it. Ar bores densae sunt de industria consitae, quarum 

 teneros adhuc ramos manu flectunt^ quos intortos rursus in- 

 serunt terrae : Inde, velut ex alia radice laetiores virent 

 trunci: hos, qua naturafert, adolescere non sinunt ; quippe 

 alium alii quasi nexu conserunt : qui ubi multa fronde 

 vestiti sunt, operiunt terram. Itaque occulti ramorum 

 ve/ut laquei perpetud sepe iter claudunt^ &c. The trees 

 (saith he) were planted so near and thick together of 

 purpose, that when the boughs were yet young and 

 flexible, bent and wreath'd within one another, their 

 tops were bowed into the earth (as we submerge our 

 layers) whence taking fresh roots, they shot up new 

 stems, which not being permitted to grow as of them- 

 selves they would have done, they so knit and 

 perplex'd one within another, that when they were 

 clad with leaves, they even covered the ground, and 



uu 



