3. But shall I provoke you by an instance? A kinsman of mine has a wood of more than 60 years standing; it was, before he purchas’d it, expos’d and abandon’d to the cattel for divers years: Some of the outward skirts were nothing save shrubs and miserable starvlings; yet still the place was dispos’d to grow woody; but by this neglect continually suppress’d. The industrious gentleman has fenced in some acres of this, and cut all close to the ground; it is come in eight or nine years, to be better worth than the wood of sixty; and will (in time) prove most incomparable timber, whilst the other part (so many years advanc’d) shall never recover; and all this from no other cause, than preserving it fenc’d: Judge then by this, how our woods come to be so decryed: Are five hundred sheep worthy the care of a shepherd? and are not five thousand oaks worth the fencing, and the inspection of a Hayward?
And shall men doubt to plant, and careful be?{ 177:1}
Let us therefore shut up what we have thus laboriously planted, with some good quick-set hedge; which,
.......All countries bear, in every ground As denizen, or interloper found: From gardens and till’d fields expell’d, yet there, On the extreams stands up, and claims a share. Nor mastiff-dog, nor pike-man can be found A better fence to the enclosed ground. Such breed the rough and hardy Cantons rear, And into all adjacent lands prefer, Though rugged churles, and for the battle fit; Who courts and states with complement or wit, To civilize, nor to instruct pretend; But with stout faithful service to defend. This tyrants know full well, nor more confide On guards that serve less for defence than pride: Their persons safe they do not judge amiss, And realms committed to their guard of Swiss.{ 177:2}
For so the ingenious poet has metamorphos’d him, and I could not withstand him.
4. The haw-thorn, (_oxyacantha vulgaris_) and indeed the very best of common hedges, is either rais’d of seeds or plants; but then it must not be with despair, because sometimes you do not see them peep the first year; for the haw, and many other seeds, being invested with a very hard integument, will now and then suffer imprisonment two whole years under the earth; and our impatience at this, does often fustrate the resurrection of divers seeds of this nature; so that we frequently dig up, and disturb the beds where they have been sown, in despair, before they have gone their full time; which is also the reason of a very popular mistake in other seeds; especially, that of the holly, concerning which there goes a tradition, that they will not sprout till they be pass’d through the maw of a thrush; whence the saying, _turdus exitium suum cacat_ (alluding to the _viscus_ made thereof, not the misselto of oak) but this is an error, as I am able to testifie on experience; they come up very well of the Berries, treated as I have shew’d in chap. 26. and with patience; for (as I affirm’d) they will sleep sometimes two entire years in their graves; as will also the seeds of yew, sloes, _phillyrea angustifolia_, and sundry others, whose shells are very hard about the small kernels; but which is wonderfully facilitated, by being (as we directed) prepar’d in beds, and magazines of earth, or sand for a competent time, and then committed to the ground before the full in March, by which season they will be chitting, and speedily take root: Others bury them deep in the ground all Winter, and sow them in February: And thus I have been told of a gentleman who has considerably improv’d his revenue, by sowing haws only, and raising nurseries of quick-sets, which he sells by the hundred far and near: This is a commendable industry; any neglected corners of ground will fit this plantation. Or were such places plow’d in furrow about the ground, you would fence, and sow’d with the mark of the cyder-press, crab-kernels, &c. kept secure from cattel till able to defend it self; it would yield excellent stocks to graff and transplant: And thus any larger plot, by plowing and cross-plowing the ground, and sowing it with all sorts of forest-seeds; breaking and harrowing the clods, and cleansing it from weeds with the haugh, (till the plants over-top them) a very profitable grove may be rais’d, and yield magazin of singular advantage, to furnish the industrious planter.