250 ' A DISCOURSE 



BOOK I. ten feet about,) and is fit to be planted on high banks, and ditch-sides 

 •^~Y^^ within reach of water, and the weeping sides of hills, because it extends 

 its root deeper than either Sallows or Willows. For this reason, you 

 should plant them at te)i or twenty feet distance; and though they grow 

 the slowest of all the twiggy trees, yet do they recompense it with the larger 

 crop, the wood being tough, and the twigs fit to bind strongl}' ; the very 



of the situation. Watery ground, by the sides of navigable rivers, planted in this manner, 

 will produce a greater price per acre ; because near such places there generally reside a 

 number of basket-makers, who, having the conveniency of water-carriage, can send their 

 work, with more ease, to distant places. 



Plantations of these kinds may not only be regularly made to great advantage on watery 

 land, by the sides of rivers^ bat the very islands, or any part where there is mud or earth, 

 may be planted this way, to the great profit of the proprietor. And here suffer me to give 

 one caution in the planting of these places : Let the rows, which should always run the 

 same way with the stream, be at a greater distance from each other, and the cuttings pro- 

 portionably closer in the rows. I advise the distance of the rows to be greater in these 

 places, that the floods may have free liberty to carry olF the sludge, which would otherwise 

 ^ be detained to the prejudice of the sets. Plantations of Willows to be cut down every 



six or seven years for poles, should l)e raised in the same manner, remembering that the 

 sets should be placed at a greater distance, viz. one yard ; but when designed for hurdles, to 

 be cut every second or third year, the distance need not be so great. 



In order to raise a Salictum, or Plantation of Willows for timber, the ground must be 

 dug or ploughed; and the cuttings for this purpose should be of the last year's shoot. 

 They ought to be a foot and a half long, and a foot of each should be thrust into the 

 ground, at the distance of three feet each way. The latter end of May, or the beginning 

 of June, the plantation should be looked over ; when such sets as have shot out too luxu- 

 riantly should have all the branches removed, except the strongest leading shoot. All 

 this summer and the next, the weeds must be kept down ; afterwards, the trees will demand 

 no farther care till the time of thinning, Avhich will be in about five or six years. When 

 the branches interfere with each other, the weakest tree should be grubbed up and taken 

 away, to make room for the remainder. In five or six years more they will require a second 

 thinning. In this manner they must he thinned as often as they touch one another, till 

 the trees are arrived to their full maturity. By planting the cuttings a yard asunder at 

 first, and afterwards thinning of them, they not only draw each other up, and by that means 

 aspire to a great height, but the plants taken away to make room for the strongest, will 

 bring in a considerable profit when sold as poles. 



The sorts used for plantations of these trees have hitherto been the common white and red 

 / Willow. These, however, seem now to give place to other kinds which have been lately 



introduced. 



Sets proper to be planted by the sides of ditches, &c. for pollards, should be nine feet 

 in length, two feet and a half of which must be thrust into the ground, having first pre. 

 pared the way by driving down a crow, or some such instrument, to prevent the bark from 



