100 



A DISCOURSE 



I500K I r. Haw, and many other seeds, being invested with a very hard integument, 

 ^^"y^^ Avill now and then suffer imprisonment two whole years under the earth ; 



and our impatience at this does often frustrate the resuiTection of divers 

 seeds of tliis nature, so tliat we frequently dig up, and disturb the beds 

 wliere they have been sown, in despair, before they have gone tlieir full 

 time, which is also the reason of a very popular mistake in other seeds* 

 especially that of the Holly, concerning which there goes a tradition, 

 that they will not sprout till they be passed through the maw of a thrush ; 

 Avhence the saying, Tardus exitium suum cacat ; (alluding to the viscus? 

 made thereof;) but this is an error, as I am able to testify on experience. 

 They come up very well of the berries, treated as I have shewed in 

 book i. chap. xxi. and with patience : for as I affirmed, they will sleep 

 sometimes two entire years in their graves ; as will also the seeds of 

 Yew, Sloe, Phillyrea Angustifolia, and sundry others, whose shells are 

 very hard about the small kernels ; but which is wonderfully facilitated 

 by being, as we directed, prepared in beds, and magazines of earth or 

 sand, for a competent time, and then committed to the ground before 

 tlie full in March ; by which season they will be chitting, and speedily 

 take root. Others bury them deep in the ground all winter, and sow 

 them in February : and thus I have been told of a gentleman who has 

 considerably improved his revenue, by sowing Haws only, and raising 

 nurseries of Quicksets, which he sells by the hundred far and near : this 

 is a commendable industry. 



But Columella has another expedient for the raising of our Spinetum, 

 by rubbing the now mature Hips and Haws, Ashen-keys, &c. into the 

 crevices of bass-ropes, or wisps of straw, and then burying them in a 

 trench. Whether way you attempt it, they must {so soon as they peep^ 



inches between each plant. SuCh a hedge, if properly attended to, will in six years be 

 proof against sheep and cattle ; but if neglected for the first two years, especially if the land 

 be poor, much art will be required to form it afterwards into a good fence. 



Quickset hedges are of great antiquity. It appears from Homer, that, when Ulysses 

 returned to his father Laertes, the good old man had sent his servants into the woods to 

 gather young thorns, and was occupied himself in preparing ground to receive them. 

 Odyssey, lib. xxiv. Varro calls this sort of fence, Ttiicla naiuralis el viva. And Columella 

 prefers it before the structile one, or dead hedge, as being more lasting and less expensive. 

 P'elustisshni auctores vivam sepem slructili pr(xtiilerunt, quia non solum minorem impensam desi- 

 ieraret, verum etiam diuturnior immensis iemporibus permaneret, De R. R. lib. xi. 



