226 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK III. than tlie chips are worth. To convince them of this error, I shall refer 

 ''"''^'^^'^^ recommend them to the above-named author, and to what the in- 

 dustrious Mr. Cooke has so mathematically demonstrated : where also 

 of taking the altitude of trees, the better to judge of the worth of them, 

 with the measuring of woodlands, &c. together with necessary calcula- 

 tions for the levelling of ground, and removing of earth, drawing of 

 plots and figures ; all of which are very conducible to the several argu- 

 ments of this silvan work. But to proceed : 



If you are to remove your timber, let the dew be first off, and the 

 south wind blow before you draw it ; neither should you, by any means, 

 put it to use for three or four months after, (some not till as many years,) 

 unless great necessity urge you, as it did Duillius, who, in the first Punic 

 war, built his fleet of timber before it was seasoned, being not above two 

 months from the very felling to the launching ; the navy of Hiero was 

 forty-five days from the forest to the sea, and that of Scipio, in the second 

 Carthaginian war, only forty. July is a good time for bringing home 

 your felled timber ; but concerning the time and season of felling, a just 

 treatise might be written : let the learned, therefore, consult Vitruvius, 

 particularly on this subject, lib. ii. cap. ix. Also M. Cato, cap. xvii. 

 Plin. lib. xvi. cap. xxxix. Columella, lib. iii. cap. ii. but especially the 

 most ample Theophrastus cpulcov Igopiocg, lib. v. Note, that a ton of tim- 

 ber is forty solid feet, and a load fifty. 



To make excellent boards and planks, it is the advice of some, you 

 ' should bark your trees in a fit season, and so let them stand naked a full 

 year before the felling ; and in some cases and grounds it may be profit- 

 able : but let these, with what has been already said in the foregoing 

 chapters of the several kinds, suffice for this article. I shall add one 

 advertisement of caution to those noble persons and others who have 

 oToves and trees of ornament near their houses, and in their gardens in 

 London, and the circle of it, especially if they be of great stature, and 

 first publica- well-grown, (such as were lately the groves in the several inns of court, 

 couri''''most uay, evcu that comparatively new plantation in my Lord of Bedford's gar- 

 fncftreefhave dcu*, and whcrcver they stand in the more interior parts of this city,) that 

 ^nTthegrS thcybe not over hasty, or by any means persuaded to cut down any of their 

 old trees, upon hope of new more flourishing plantations, thickening or re- 



turned into 



streets, 



