OF FOREST-TREES. 



7 



PuUulat ab radice aliis densissima sylva ; 

 Ut cerasis, ulmisque : etiara Parnassia laurus 

 Parva sub ingenti matris se subjicit urabi-a. 

 Hos natura modos primutn dedit : his genus omne 

 Sylvarum fruticumque viret, nemorumque sacrorum. 

 Sunt alii, quos ipse via sibi repperit usus. 



Some trees their birth to bounteous Nature owe : 

 For some without the pains of planting grow. 

 With Osiers thus the banks of brooks abound. 

 Sprung from the wat'ry genius of the ground : 

 From the same principles gray Willows come ; 

 Herculean Poplar, and the tender Broom. 

 But some from seeds inclos'd in earth arise: 

 For thus the mast-ful Chestnut mates the skies. 

 Hence rise the branching Beech, and vocal Oak 

 Where Jove of old oi'aculously spoke. 

 Some from the root a rising wood disclose ; 

 Thus Elms, and thus the salvage Cherry grows. 

 Thus the green Bays, that binds the poet's brows, 

 Shoots, and is shelter'd by the mother's boughs. 

 These ways of planting Nature did ordain. 

 For Trees and Shrubs, and all the Sylvan reign. 

 Others there are, by late experience found :— 



Thus we see there are more ways to the wood than one, and Nature has 

 furnished us with variety of expedients. 



7. And here we might fall into a deep philosophical research, whether 

 the earth itself in some place thereof or other, even without seed, branch 

 or root, &c. would produce every kind of vegetable, as it manifestly does 

 divers sorts of grass and plants ; viz. the Trefoil, or Clover, in succulent 

 land ; in dry ground, May and Ragweeds ; in the very moist, Ros solis_, 

 Argentina, Flags, &c. ; and in the very barren. Fern, Broom, Heath, &c. 

 So Virgil notes sterile places for the Pitch-tree <i ; we our wet and uligi- 



^ Virgil, with great judgment, describes sterile grounds, by enumerating the plants that 

 naturally grow in such places : There, 



piceae tantum taxique nocentes 



Interdum, aut hederje pandunt vestigia nigra. georg. 

 Mr. Bell in his " Journey from St. Petersburgh to Ispahan," remarks, that those places in 

 the country of the Tongusi, on which the Scotch Fir naturally grows, are always fruitful 



INTROD. 



VIRG. GEORG. 11. 



