OF FOREST-TREES. 29 



out of Pontus, (as the above-mentioned Filberts were,) did, after one cHAP. I. 

 hundred and twenty years, travel ad ultimos Britannos. 



3. We had our first Myrtles out of Greece, and Cypress from Crete, 

 which was yet a mere stranger in Italy, as Pliny reports, and most 

 difficult to be raised ; which made Cato to write more concerning the 

 culture of it than of any other tree : notwithstanding this, we have in our 

 country no less than three sorts, which are all of them easily propagated, 

 and prosper very well if they are rightly ordered ; and therefore I shall 

 not omit to disclose one secret, as well to confute a popular error, as for 

 the instruction of our gardeners. 



4. The tradition is, that the Cypress, being a symbol of mortality, 

 (they should say of the contrary,) is never to be cut for fear of kiUing it. 

 This makes them to impale and wind them about like so many Egyptian 

 mummies ; by which means the inward parts of the tree being heated, for 

 want of air and refreshment, it never arrives to any perfection, but is ex- 

 ceedingly troublesome and chargeable to maintain ; whereas, indeed, 

 there is not a more tonsile and governable plant in nature ; for the 

 Cypress may be cut to the very roots, and yet spring afresh, as it does 

 constantly in Candy: if not yielding suckers, as Bellonius affirms, I rather 

 think it is produced by the seeds, which the mother-trees shed at the 

 motion of the stem in the felling ; and this we find was the husbandry 

 in the isle of ^naria, where they used to fell it for copse. The Cypress 

 being raised in the nursery from seeds sown in September, or rather 

 March, and within two years after, transplanted, should at tAvo years' 

 standing more, have tlie master-stem of the middle shaft cut off some 

 hand-breadths below the summit ; the sides and smaller sprigs shorn into 

 a conic or pyramidal form, and so kept clipped from April to September, 

 as oft as there is occasion ; and by this regimen they will grow furnished 

 to the foot, and become the most beautiful trees in the world, without 

 binding or stake ; still remembering to abate the middle stem, and to 

 bring up the collateral branches in its stead, to what altitude you please. 

 Rut when I speak of shortening the middle shoot, I do not intend the 

 dwarfing of it ; and therefore it must be done discreetly, so as it may not 

 over hastily advance, till the foot thereof be perfectly furnished. But 

 there is likewise another expedient, no less commendable, to dress this 



Volume IL E 



