260 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK I. whom we shall have occasion to mention, with great respect, in the 

 -^"^^"^ chapter of Quicksets. 



The considerable improvement which may be made in common fields 

 as well as inclosed grounds, he demonstrates by a little spot of meadow 

 of about a rod and half; part of which being planted, about fifty years 

 since, with Willows, (in a clump not exceeding four poles in length, 

 on one side about twelve,) several of them at the first and second lojjping, 

 being left with a straight top, run up, like Elms, to thirty or forty feet 

 in height ; which some years since yielded boards of fourteen or fifteen 

 inches broad, as good for flooring and other purjDoses within doors, 

 as deals, last as long, work finer, white and beautiful : [t is indeed 

 a good while since they were planted, but it seems the crop answered 

 his patience, when he cut up as many of them (the year 1700) as were 

 well worth ten pounds ; and since that another tree, for which, with 

 those that were left, a joiner offered him as much, which was more 

 by half than the whole ground itself was worth ; so as having made 

 twenty pounds of the spot, he still possesses it without much damage 

 to the grass. The method of planting was first by making holes with 

 an iron crow, and widening them with a stake of wood, fit to receive 

 a lusty plant, and sometimes boring the ground with an auger ; but 

 neither of these succeeding, (by reason the earth could not be rammed 

 so close to the sides and bottom of the sets as was requisite to keep 

 them steady, and seclude the air, which would corrupt and kill the 

 roots,) he caused holes, or little pits, of a foot square and depth 

 to be dug, and then making a hole with the crow in the bottom of the 

 pits to receive the set, and breaking the turf which came out of it, 

 rammed it in with the mould close to the sets, (as they would do to fix 

 a gate-post,) with great care not to gall the bark of it. He had divers 

 times before this miscarried, when he used formerly to set them in plain 

 ground, without breaking the surface, and laying it close to the sets ; 

 and therefore, if the soil be moist, he digs a trench by the side of the 

 row, and applies the mould which comes out of it about the sets; 

 so that the edge of the bank, raised by it, may be somewhat higher than 

 the earth next the set, for the better descent of the rain, and advantage 

 of watering the sets in dry weather ; preventing likewise their rooting 

 in the bank, which they would do if the ground next the plant or set 



