OF FOREST-TREES. 



105 



wonders, not only for the extirpation of roots, but the prostrating of huge CHAP, 

 trees. That small engine, which by some is called the German Devil, "-^^ 

 reformed after this manner, and duly applied, might be very expedient 

 for this purpose ; but this is to be practised only where you design a 

 final extirpation ; for some have drawn suckers from an old stub root ; 

 but they certainly perish by the moss which invades them, and are very 

 subject to grow rotten. Pliny speaks of one root which took up an 

 entire acre of ground, and Theophrastus describes the Lycean Platanus 

 to have spread an hundred feet ; if so, the argument may hold good for 

 their growth after the tree is come to its period. They made cups of the 

 roots of Oak heretofore ; and such a curiosity Atheeneus tells us was 

 carved by Thericleus himself; and there is a way so to tinge Oak, after 

 long burying and soaking in water, which gives it a wonderful politure, 

 as that it has frequently been taken for a coarse Ebony : Hence, even 

 by floating, comes the Bohemian Oak, Polish, and other northern timber, 

 to be of such excellent use for some parts of shipping : But the blackness 

 which we find in Oaks that have long lain under ground (and may 

 be called subterranean timber) proceeds from some vitriolic juice of the 

 bed in which they lie, which makes it very weighty ; but, as the excellent 

 naturalist, and learned physician. Dr. Sloane, observes, it dries, splits, 

 becomes light,, and soon impairs. 



15. There is not in nature a thing more obnoxious to deceit than the 

 buying of trees standing, upon the reputation of their appearance to the 

 eye, unless the chapman be extraordinarily judicious, so various are their 

 hidden and concealed infirmities till they be felled and sawn out ; 

 so, as if to any thing applicable, certainly there is nothing which does 

 more perfectly confirm it than the most flourishing outside of trees ; 

 fronti nulla fides. A timber tree is a merchant adventurer, — you shall 

 never know what he is worth till he be dead. 



16. Oaks, in some places where the soil is especially qualified, are 

 ready to be cut for copse in fourteen years^ and sooner ; I compute from 

 the first semination. Though it be told as an instance of high en- 

 couragement, (and as indeed it merits,) that a Lady in Northamptonshire 

 sowed acorns, and lived to cut the trees produced from them twice 

 in two and twenty years, and both as well grown as most are in sixteen 

 or eighteen. This yet is certain, that acorns set in hedge-rows have. 



Volume I. X 



