OF FOREST-TREES. 



223 



employments: what planks, what other scantlings, for so many spokes, cHAP. I If. 



naves, rings, pales, poles, spurs, &c. as suppose it were Ash, to set apart "^-^V""^ 



the largest for the wheel-wright, the smallest for the cooper, and that 



of ordinary scantling for the ploughs, and the brush to be kidded and 



sold by the hundred or thousand, and so all other sorts of timber, viz. 



large, middling, middling stuff, and poles, &c. allowing the waste for the 



charges of feUing, &c. all which you shall compute with greater certainty, 



if you have leisure, and will take the pains to examine some of the trees, 



either by your own fathom, or (more accurately,) by girting them about 



with a string, and so reducing them to the square, &c. by which means 



you may give a near guess ; or, you may mark such as you intend to fell ; 



and then begin your sale about Candlemas till the spring ; before which 



you must not (according as our custom is) lay the axe to the root; though 



some, for particular employments, as for timber to make ploughs, carts, 



axle-trees, naves, harrows, and the like husbandry tools, do frequently 



cut in October. 



Being now entering with your workmen, one of the first and principal 

 things is, the skilf id disbranching of the bole of all such arms and limbs 

 as may endanger it in the fall, wherein much forecast and skill is required 

 of the woodman, so many excellent trees being utterly spoiled for want 

 of this only consideration ; and therefore in arms of timber which are 

 very great, chop a nick underneath close to the bole, so meeting it with 

 downright strokes, the arm will be severed without splicing. 



We have shewed why some, four or five days before felling, bore the 

 tree cross-way ; others cut a kerf round the body, almost to the very pith 

 or heart, and so let it remain a while ; by this means to drain away the 

 moisture, which will distil out of the wounded veins, and is chiefly 

 proper for the moister sort of trees : and in this work the very axe will tell 

 you the difference of the sex, the male being so much harder and browner 

 than the female : but here (and wherever we speak thus of plants) you 

 are to understand the analogical, not proper distinctions. 



But that none may wonder why in many authors of good note, we find 

 the fruit-bearers of some trees called males, and not rather females, as 

 particularly the Cypress, I shall observe that this preposterous denomi- 

 nation had its som'ce from very ancient custom, and was fu'st begun in 



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