312 



A DISCOURSE 



noOK r. cident of singular remark, I thought fit to mention. JBoth Fir and Pine 

 (sociable trees) planted pretty near together, shred and dipt at proper 

 seasons, make stately, noble, and very beautiful skreens and fences to 

 protect Orange, INIyrtle, and other curious greens, from the scorching of 

 the sun and ruffling winds, preferable to walls. See how to be planted 

 and cultivated, with the dimensions of a skreen, in the rules for the de- 

 fence of gardens, annexed to De la Quintin, No. xv. by Mr. Loudon 

 and jMr. Wise. In the mean time, none of these sorts are to be mingled 

 in the taller woods or copses, in which they starve one another, and lose 

 their beauty. And now those who would see what innumerable trees 

 of this kind Scotland produces, should consult the learned Sir Robert 

 Slbbald. " 



14. For the many and almost universal use of these trees both sea and 

 land will plead ; 



dant utile lignum 



Navigiis Pinos • georg. il. 



The useful Pine for ships ' 



Hence Papinius VI. Thebaid. calls it Audax Abies. They make our best 

 masts, sheathing, scaffold-poles, &c. heretofore the Avhole vessel. It is 

 pretty, saith Pliny, to consider that those trees, which are so much sought 



they wei'e pi-obably also of the several other ancient forests ; the ruins of which furnish us 

 with the bog-wood of Staffordshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and other counties. But as the 

 Romans were not much in Wales, in the Isle of Man, or in Ireland, it is not to be supposed 

 that forests cut down by these people gave origin to the fossile wood found there i but 

 though they did not cut down these forests, others did : and the origin of the bog- 

 wood is the same with them as with us. Holingshead informs us, that Edward I. being 

 not able to get at the Welch, because of their hiding themselves in boggy woods, gave 

 orders at length that they should all be destroyed by fire and by the axe ; and, doubtless, the 

 roots and bodies of trees found in Pembrokeshire, under-ground, are the i-eraains of the 

 execution of this order. The fossile wood in the bogs of the Island of Man is doubtless of 

 the same origin, though we have not any accounts extant of the time or occasion of the 

 forests there being destroyed ; but as to the fossile trees of the bogs of Ireland, Ave are 

 expressly told, that Henry II. when he conquered that country, ordered all the woods to 

 be cut down that grew in the low parts of it, to secure his conquests, by cutting away the 

 places of resort of rebels. 



" Sibbaldi Scotia illustrata, sive Prodromus Histories Naturalise 



