50 History of the English Landed Interest. 



to rely mainly for information on the works of the ancients. 

 These afforded an abundant source of valuable information on 

 all the various processes of nursing, transplanting, pruning, 

 and felling trees. The ground of the seminary for young 

 trees was prepared by the Romans with the plough and 

 harrow, manured, sown with acorns or other seed, and kept 

 both clean and friable with the hoe.^ The practice, destined 

 to survive till Evelyn's time, of trimming the root fibres, and 

 clearing away the earth whilst transplanting a nursling, 

 was deprecated by Theophrastus.^ Most of the ancients 

 agreed that the proper time for felling timber was when the 

 sap had ceased to run. Trees, said the same author, should 

 not be cut down till they have borne their fruit, " which must 

 always be proportionably later, as their fruits are ripe later 

 in the year, a third sort not till midwinter." Palladius wished 

 to postpone all felling till after November ; Cato, Vegetius, 

 and Columella till the winter solstice, the two last mentioned 

 fixing the time more definitely as between the fifteenth 

 and thirtieth days of the moon's age. 



Vitruvius had pointed out, " Quae seris hyberni vis com- 

 primit et consolidat arbores," and had recommended a "kerfe" 

 to be cut around the tree, through the sappy part, to the 

 heart, so that the superfluous juices might run forth whilst 

 it was alive and standing ; by which means, as Pliny expresses 

 it, timber will acquire a sort of eternity in its duration. 

 Seneca had also demonstrated that the timber most exposed 

 to the cold winds was more solid and strong than that obtained 

 from sheltered spots ; for which reason it is supposed that 

 Chiron made Achilles' spear of a mountain tree, and Homer 

 described Agamemnon's weapon as u4ve/j,0Tpe^e<i eyx^oq. It is 

 not so certain that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were thus 

 experienced, for if we are to believe the pictorial evidence of 

 the Cotton MSS., their practice was to fell timber in the height 

 of the summer.-^ 



These hints of classic experts were not overlooked by 

 English writers at a time when it had become of imperative 



' Rapinus, lib. ii. - De Causis, lib. iii. c. 7. 



3 Vide Part I., Kiujlish Landed Interest, p. 105. 



