OF FOREST-TREES. 



261 



were made high, and sloped ; and being left unfenced, cattle would cHAP. xx. 

 tread down the bank, and lay the roots bare ; the ground should therefore "^^"y^^ 

 not be raised above two or three inches towards the body of the set. — 

 Now if the ground be dry, and want moisture, he chooses to bank them 

 round, the fosses environing the mound and hillock, being reserves 

 for the rain, cools and refreshes the sets. 



He farther instances, that Willows of about twenty years' growth have 

 been sold for thirty shillings, and speaks of one sold for three pounds, 

 which was well worth five pounds. He affirms, that the Willows planted 

 in beds between double ditches^ in boggy ground, may be fit to be cut 

 every five years, and pay as well as the best meadow-pasture ; which 

 is an extraordinary improvement, 



26. There is a sort of Willow of a slender and long leaf, resembling 

 the smaller Ozier, but rising to a tree as big as the Sallow, full of knots, 

 and of a very brittle spray, only here rehearsed to acknowledge the 

 variety. 



27. There is likewise the Garden- Willow, which produces a sweet and 

 beautiful flower, fit to be admitted into our hortulan ornaments, and 

 may be set for partitions of squares ; but they have no affinity with the 

 others. There is also in Shropshire another very odoriferous kind, 

 extremely fit to be planted by pleasant rivulets, both for ornament and 

 profit : It is propagated by cuttings or layers, and will grow in any dry 

 bottom, so it be sheltered from the south, affording a wonderful andt 

 early relief to the industrious bee. Vitruvius commends the Vite?^ 

 of the Latines (impertinently called Agnus Castus, the one being but the 

 interpretation of the other) as fit for building ; I suppose they had a sort 

 of better stature than the shrub growing among the curious with us, and 

 w^hich is celebrated for its cbaste effects, and for which the ancients 

 employed it in the rites of Ceres : I rather think it more convenient for 

 the sculptor, which he likewise mentions, provided we may, with safety, 

 restore the text, as Perrault has attempted, by substituting Levitatem for 

 the author's Rigiditatem ; stubborn materials being not so fit for that 

 curious art. 



