OF FOREST-TREES. 



101 



and as long as they require it) be sedulously cleansed of the weeds ; CHAP. VI. 

 which, if in beds for transplantation, had need be, at the least, three or ^■"'^^^^^ 

 four years ; by which time even your seedlings will be of stature fit to 

 remove : for I do by no means approve of the vulgar premature plant- 

 ing of sets, as is generally used throughout England ; which is to take 

 such only, as are the very smallest, and so to crowd them into three or 

 four files, which are both egregious mistakes. 



Whereas it is found by constant experience, that plants as big as one's 

 thumb, set in the posture, and at the distance which we spake of in the 

 Hornbeam, that is, almost perpendicular, (not altogether, because the rain 

 should not get in betwixt the rind and wood,) and single, or at most not 

 exceeding a double row, do prosper infinitely, and much out-strip the 

 densest and closest ranges of our trifling sets which make but weak 

 shoots, and whose roots do but hinder each other, and for being couched 

 in that posture, on the sides of banks and fences, (especially where the 

 earth is not very tenacious,) are bared of the mould which should enter- 

 tain them, by that time the rains and storms of one winter have passed 

 over them. In Holland and Flanders (where they have the goodliest 

 hedges of this kind about the counterscarps of their invincible fortifica- 

 tions, to the great security of their musketeers upon occasion) they plant 

 them according to my description, and raise fences so speedily, and so 

 impenetrable, that our best are not to enter into the comparison. Yet 

 that I may not be wanting to direct such as either affect the other way, 

 or whose grounds may require some bank of earth, as ordinarily the 

 verges of copses, and other enclosures do, you shall by line cast up your 

 foss of about three feet broad, and about the same depth, provided your 

 mould hold out : beginning first to turn the turf, upon which be careful 

 to lay some of the best earth to bed your quick in, and there lay or set the 

 plants, two in a foot space is sufficient ; being diligent to procure such 

 as are fresh gathered, straight, smooth, and well-rooted ; adding now and 

 then, at equal spaces of twenty or thirty feet, a young Oakling or Elm- 

 sucker, Ash, or the like, which will come in time, especially in plain 

 countries, to be ornamental standards, and good timber. If you will 

 needs multiply your rows, a foot, or somewhat less, above that, upon 

 more congested mould, plant another rank of sets, so as to point just in 

 the middle of the vacuities of the first, which I conceive enough : this 

 is but for the single foss ; but if you would fortify it to the purpose, do 

 Volume II. O 



