DENDROLOGI A. 



BOOK THE FIRST. 



CHAPTER I. 



Of the Earth, Soil, Seed, Ai?', and JVate?'. 



BOOK I. 1. It is not my intention here to speak of Earth, as one of the common 

 "^^J^g^p^ reputed elements, of which I have long since published an ample 

 account in an express treatise ^ which I desire my reader to peruse, 

 since it might well commute for the total omission of this chapter, did 

 not method seem to require something briefly to be said. And first, as 

 to that of Earth, we shall need at present to penetrate no deeper into her 

 bosom than paring off the turf, scarifying the upper mould, and digging 

 convenient pits and trenches, not far from the natural surface, without 

 disturbing the several strata and remoter layers, whether of clay, chalk, 

 gravel, sand, or other successive layers, and concretes fossil, (all of them 

 useful sometimes, and agreeable to our foresters, though few of them 

 what one would choose before the under turf, black, brown, gray, and 

 light, and breaking into short clods, and without any disagreeable scent, 

 and with some mixture of marl or loam, but not clammy,) of which I 

 have particularly spoken in that treatise. 



SOIL, 2. In the mean time, this of the Soil being of great importance for the 

 raising, planting, and propagation of trees in general, must at no hand 

 be neglected ; and is therefore, on all occasions, mentioned in almost 

 every chapter of our ensuing Discourse. I shall therefore not need to 

 assign it any part, when I have affirmed in general, that most timber- 



e This valuable treatise is entitled " Terra ; or a Philosophical Discourse of Earth and 

 was published at the request of the Royal Society in the year ] 679' It is republished at 

 the end of this Work, with Notes and Observations. 



