OF FOREST-TREES. 



135 



obnoxious to the worm neither of which can so confidently be said of cHAP. 

 the Beech : Yet La Cerda, too, seems guilty of the same mistake. But^ ^"^"^ 

 leaving this, there are of our Fagi two or three kinds, viz. the Mountain, 

 where it most affects to grow, which is the whitest, and most sought 

 after by the turner ; and the Campestrial, or wild, which is of a blacker 

 colour, and more durable. They are both to be raised from the mast, 

 and governed like the Oak, of which amply ; and that is absolutely the 

 best way of furnishing a wood ; unless you will make a Nursery, and 

 then you are to treat the mast as you are instructed in the chapter of 

 Ashes, sowing them in autumn, or later, even after January, or rather nearer 

 the spring, to preserve them from vermine, which are very great devourers 

 of them. But they are likewise to be planted of young seedlings, to be 

 drawn out of the places where the fruitful trees abound. In transplanting 

 them, cut off only the boughs and bruised parts two inches from the stem 

 to within a yard of the top, but be very sparing of the root ; this for 

 such as are of pretty stature. They make spreading trees, and noble 

 shades with their well-furnished and glistering leaves, being set at forty 

 feet distance ; but they grow taller and more upright in the forests, where 

 I have beheld them, at eight and ten feet, shoot into very long- poles ; 

 but neither so apt for timber nor fuel. The shade unpropitious to corn 

 and grass, but sweet, and, of all the rest, most refreshing to the weary 

 shepherd — lentus in Umbra — echoing Amaryllis with his oaten pipe. 

 Mabillon tells us, in his Itinerary, of the old Beech at Villambrosa to be 

 still flourishing, and greener than any of the rest, under whose umbrage 

 the famous Eremit Gaulbertus had his cell. 



This tree, planted in palisade, affords an useful and pleasant screen 

 to shelter orange and other tender case-trees from the parching- sun, &c. 

 growing very tall, and little inferior to the Horn-beam, or Dutch Elm. 

 In the valleys, where they stand warm and in consort, they will grow 

 to a stupendous procerity, though the soil be stony and very barren ; ^ 

 also upon the declivities, sides, and tops of high hills, and chalky 

 mountains especially : for, though they thrust not down such deep and 

 numerous roots as the Oak, and grow to vast trees, they will strangely 

 insinuate their roots into the bowels of those seemingly impenetrable 

 places, not much unlike the Fir itself^ which, with this so common tree, 

 the great Caesar denies to be found in Britain, " materia cujusque generis, 

 " ut in Gallia, prceter Fagum et Ahietem ;" but certainly from a grand 



