252 



A DISCOURSE 



3. Sallows grow much faster, if they are planted within reach of water, 

 or in a very moorish ground, or flat plain ; and Avhere the soil is, by 

 reason of extraordinary moisture, unfit for arable or meadow ; for in these 

 cases it is an extraordinary improvement : in a word, where Birch and 

 Alder will thrive. Ikfore you plant them, it is found best to turn the 

 ground with a spade, especially if you design them for a flat. We have 

 three sorts of Sallows amongst us, (which is one more than the ancients 

 challenged, who name only tlie Black, and White, which was their 

 Nitellina,) the Vulgar Round-leaved, which proves best in drier banks, 

 and the Hopping Sallows, which require a moister soil, growing with 

 incredible celerity ; and a third kind, of a different colour from the other 

 two, having the twigs reddish, the leaf not so long, and of a more dusky 

 green ; more brittle whilst it is growing in twigs, and more tough when 

 arrived to a competent size. All of them useful for the Thatcher. 



4. Of these the Hopping Sallows are in greatest esteem, being of 

 a clearer terse grain, and requiring a more succulent soil : best planted 

 a foot deep, and a foot and a half above ground, (though some will allow 

 but a foot,) for then every branch will prove excellent for future settlings. 

 After three years' growth, being cropped the second and third, the first 

 year's increase will be betwixt eight and twelve feet long generally ; the 

 third year's growth, strong enough to make rakes and pike staves ; and 

 the fourth, for Mr. Blithe's trenching plough, and other like utensils of 

 the husbandman. 



5. If 3^ou plant them at full height, (as some do at four years' growth, 

 setting them five or six feet in length, to avoid the biting of cattle,) they 

 will be less useful for straight staves, and for settlings, and make less 

 speed in their growth ; yet this also is a considerable improvement. 



6. These would require to be planted at least five feet distance, (some 

 set them at much more,) and in the quincunx order : If they affect the 

 soil, the leaf will become large, half as broad as a man's hand, and 

 of a more vivid green, always larger the first year than afterwards : Some 

 plant them sloping, and cross- wise, like a hedge ; but this impedes their 

 wonderful growth ; and though Pliny seems to commend it, (teaching 

 us how to excorticate some places of each set, for the sooner production 

 of shoots,) it is but a deceitful fence, neither fit to keep out swine nor 



