Sylva Part 25

14. Hornets and wasps, &c. by breeding in the hollowness of trees, not only infect them, but will peel them round to the very timber, as if cattle had unbark'd them, as I observed in some goodly ashes at Casioberry (near the garden of that late n.o.ble Lord, and lover of planting, the Earl of Ess.e.x), and are therefore to be destroy'd, by stopping up their entrances with tar and goose-dung, or by conveying the fumes of brimstome into their cells: _Cantharides_ attack the ash above all other bobs of the betle kind: Chafers, &c. are to be shaken down and crush'd, and when they come in armies, (as sometimes in extraordinary droughts) they are to be driven away or destroy'd with smoaks; which also kills gnats and flies of all sorts: Note, that the rose-bug never, or very seldom, attacks any other tree, whilst that sweet bush is in flower: Whole fields have been freed from worms by the reek and smoak of ox-dung wrapt in mungy straw, well soak'd with strong lie.

15. Earwigs and snails do seldom infest forest-trees, but those which are fruit-bearers; and are destroy'd by setting boards or tiles against the walls, or the placing of neat-hoofs, or any hollow thing upon small stakes; also by enticing them into sweet waters, and by picking the snails off betimes in the morning, and rainy evenings; I advise you visit your cypress-trees on the first rains in April; you shall sometimes find them cover'd with young snails no bigger than small pease: Lastly, branches, buds and leaves extreamly suffer from the blasts, jaundies, and catterpillars, locusts, rooks, &c. Note, that you should visit the boards, tiles and hoofs which you set for the retreat of those insects, &c. in the heat of the day, to shake them out, and kill them.

16. The blasted parts of trees (and so should gum) be cut away to the quick; and to prevent it, smoak them in suspicious weather, by burning moist straw with the wind, or rather the dry and superfluous cuttings of aromatic plants, such as rosemary, lavender, juniper, bays, &c. I use to whip and chastise my cypresses with a wand, after their winter-burnings, till all the mortified and scorch'd parts fly-off in dust, as long almost as any will fall, and observe that they recover and spring the better. Mice, moles and pismires cause the jaundies in trees, known by the discolour of the leaves and buds.

17. The moles do much hurt, by making hollow pa.s.sages, which grow musty, but they may be taken in traps, and kill'd, as every woodman knows: It is certain that they are driven from their haunts by garlick for a time, and other heady smells, buried in their pa.s.sages.

18. Mice, rats, with traps, or by sinking some vessel almost level with the surface of the ground, the vessel half full of water, upon which let there be strew'd some hulls, or chaff of oats; also with bane, powder of orpiment in milk, and aconites mix'd with b.u.t.ter: _Cop'ras_ or green-gla.s.s broken with honey: Morsels of sponge chopp'd small and fry'd in lard, &c. are very fit baits to destroy these nimble creatures, which else soon will ruin a semination of nuts, acorns and other kernels in a night or two, and rob the largest beds of a nursery, carrying them away by thousands to their cavernous magazines, to serve them all the Winter: I have been told, that hop-branches stuck about trees, preserve them from these theivish creatures.

19. Destroy pismires with scalding water, and disturbing their hills, or rubbing the stem with cow-dung, or a decoction of _t.i.thymale_, washing the infested parts; and this will insinuate, and chase them quite out of the c.h.i.n.ks and crevices, without prejudice to the tree, and is a good prevention of other infirmities; also by laying soot, sea-coal, or saw-dust, or refuse tobacco where they haunt, often renew'd, especially after rain; for becoming moist, the dust and powder harden, and then they march over it.

20. Caterpillars, by cutting off their webs from the twigs before the end of February, and burning them; the sooner the better: If they be already hatched, wash them off with water, in which some of the caterpillars themselves, and garlick have been bruis'd, or the juice of rue, decoctions of _colloquintida_, hemp-seed, worm-wood, tobacca, wall-nut-sh.e.l.ls, when green, with the leaves of sage, urine and ashes, and the like aspersions. Take of two or three of the ingredients, of each an handful in two pails of water; make them boil in it half an hour, then strain the liquor, and sprinkle it on the trees infected with caterpillars, the black-flea, &c. in two or three times it will clear them, and should be us'd about the time of blossoming. Another, is to choak and dry them with smoak of _galbanum_, shoo-soals, hair; and some affirm that planting the pionie near them, is a certain remedy; but there is no remedy so facile, as the burning them off with small wisps of dry straw, which in a moment rids you.

21. Rooks do in time, by pinching off the buds and tops of trees for their nests, cause many trees and groves to decay: Their dung propagates nettles and choaks young seedlings: They are to be shot, and their nests demolish'd. The bullfinch and t.i.tmouse also eat off and spoil the buds of fruit-trees; prevented by clappers, or caught in the wyre mouse-trap with teeth, and baited with a piece of rusty bacon, also with lime-twigs. But if cattle break in before the time, _conclamatum est_, especially goats, whose mouths and breath is poison to trees; they never thrive well after; and Varro affirms, if they but lick the olive-tree, they become immediately barren. And now we have mention'd barrenness, we do not reckon trees to be sterile, which do not yield a fruitful burden constantly every year (as juniper and some annotines do) no more than of pregnant women: Whilst that is to be accounted a fruitful tree which yields its product every second or third year, as the oak and most forresters do; no more may we conclude that any tree or vegetable are dest.i.tute of seeds, because we see them not so perspicuously with our naked eyes, by reason of their exility, as with the nicest examination of the microscope.

22. Another touch at the winds; for though they cannot properly be said to be infirmities of trees; yet they are amongst the princ.i.p.al causes that render trees infirm. I know no surer protection against them, than (as we said) to shelter and stake them whilst they are young, till they have well establish'd roots; and with this caution, that in case any goodly trees (which you would desire especially to preserve and redress) chance to be prostrated by some impetuous and extraordinary storm; you be not over-hasty to carry him away, or despair of him; (nor is it of any ominous concern at all, but the contrary) _fausti ominis_, as Pliny says; and gives many ill.u.s.trious instances: And as to other strange and unusual events following the accidental subversion of trees; concerning omens; and that some are portentous, others fortunate, of which see{329:1} Pierius, speaking of a garden of the Duke of Tuscany, belonging to a palace of his at Rome, a little before the death of Pope Leo; and before this, about the time of our country-man, Pope Adrian the IVth. First then, let me perswade you to pole him close, and so let him lie some time; for by this means, many vast trees have rais'd themselves by the vigour only of the remaining roots, without any other a.s.sistance; so as people have p.r.o.nounc'd it miraculous, as I could tell you by several instances, besides what Theophrastus relates, l. 5. c. 19. of that huge _plata.n.u.s_, which rose in one night in his observation; which puts me in mind of what I remember the very learned critic Palmerius affirms of an oak, subverted by a late tempest near Breda, (where this old soldier militated under Prince Maurice, at the town when besieg'd by the famous Marq. Spinola) which tree, after it had lain prostrate about 2 months, (the side-branches par'd off) rose up of it self, and flourish'd as well as ever. Which event was thought so extraordinary, that the people reserved sprigs and boughs of it, as sacred reliques; and this he affirms to have seen himself. I take the more notice of these accidents, that none who have trees blown down, where it may cause a deform'd gap in some avenue near their seats, may not altogether despair of their resurrection, with patience and timely freeing them.

And the like to this I find happen'd in more than one tree near Bononia in Italy, _anno_ 1657. when of late a turbulent gust had almost quite eradicated a very large tract of huge poplars, belonging to the Marchioness Elephantucca Spada, that universally erected themselves again, after they were beheaded, as they lay even prostrate.{330:1} What says the naturalist? _Prostratas rest.i.tui plerumque, & quadam terrae cicatrice reviviscere, vulgare est_: 'Tis familiar (says Pliny) in the _plata.n.u.s_, which are very obnoxious to the winds, by reason of the thickness of their branches, which being cut off and discharged, restore themselves. This also frequently happens in wall-nuts, olive-trees, and several others, as he affirms, l. 16. c. 31. But we have farther instances than these, and so very lately as that dreadful storm happening 26 Nov. 1703, when after so many thousand oaks, and other timber-trees were quite subverted, a most famous and monstrous, oak growing at Epping in Ess.e.x, (blown down) raised it self, and withstood that hurricane. These (amongst many others) are the infirmities to which forest-trees are subject, whilst they are standing; and when they are fell'd, to the worm; especially if cut before the sap be perfectly at rest: But to prevent or cure it in the timber, I commend this secret as the most approv'd.

23. Let common yellow sulphur be put into a cucurbit-gla.s.s, upon which pour so much of the strongest _aqua-fortis_, as may cover it three fingers deep: distil this to dryness, which is done by two or three rectifications: Let the sulphur remaining in the bottom (being of a blackish or sad-red colour) be laid on a marble, or put into a gla.s.s, where it will easily dissolve into oil: With this, anoint what is either infected, or to be preserved of timber. It is a great and excellent _arcanum_ for tinging the wood with no unpleasant colour, by no art to be washed out; and such a preservative of all manner of woods; nay, of many other things; as ropes, cables, fishing-nets, masts of ships, &c.

that it defends them from putrefaction, either in waters under or above the earth, in the snow, ice, air, Winter or Summer, &c. It were superfluous to describe the process of the _aqua-fortis_; It shall be sufficient to let you know, that our common _coperas_ makes this _aqua-fortis_ well enough for our purpose, being drawn over by a retort: And for sulphur, the Island of St. Christophers yields enough, (which hardly needs any refining) to furnish the whole world. This secret (for the curious) I thought fit not to omit; though a more compendious, three or four anointings with linseed-oyl, has prov'd very effectual: It was experimented in a wall-nut-table, where it destroy'd millions of worms immediately, and is to be practis'd for tables, tubes, mathematical-instruments, boxes, bed-steads, chairs, rarities, &c. Oyl of wall-nuts will doubtless do the same, is sweeter, and a better varnish; but above all, is commended oyl of cedar, or that of juniper; whilst oyl of spike does the cure as effectual as any.

But after all these sweeping plagues and destructions inflicted on trees, (braving all humane remedies) such frosts as not many years{332:1} since hap'ned, left such marks of their deadly effects, not sparing the goodliest and most flourishing trees, timber, and other of the stoutest kind; as some ages will hardly repair: Nay, 'twas observ'd, that the oak in particular (counted the most valiant and st.u.r.dy of the whole forest) was more prejudic'd with this excessive cold, and the drowth of the year ensuing, than any of the most nice and tender const.i.tution: Always here excepting (as to a universal _strages_) the hurricane of Sept. 1703, which begins the epocha of the calamities, which have since follow'd, not only by the late tempest about August{332:2} last, but by that surprizing blast, accompany'd doubtless with a fiery spirit, which smote the most flourishing foresters and fruit trees, burning their buds and leaves to dust and powder, not sparing the very fruit. This being done in a moment, must be look'd upon as a plague not to be prevented: In the mean time, that the malignity proceed no farther, it may be advisable to cut, and top the summities of such tender mural trees, rare shrubs, &c. as have most suffer'd, and are within reach, rubbing off the scorchings in order to new spring.

There was in my remembrance, certain prayers, litanies and collects, solemnly us'd by the parish-minister in the field, at the limits of their perambulations on the Rogation-days; from an ancient and laudable custom of above 1000 years, introduc'd by Avitus the pious bishop of Vienna, in a great dearth, unseasonable weather, and other calamities, (however in tract of time abus'd by many gross superst.i.tions and insignificant rites, in imitation of the pagan _robigalia_) upon which days, (about the Ascension, and beginning of Spring especially) prayers were made, as well deprecatory of epidemical evils, (amongst which blasts and s.m.u.t of corn were none of the least) as supplications for propitious seasons, and blessings on the fruits of the earth. Whether there was any peculiar _Office_, (besides those for Ember-weeks) appointed, I do not know: But the pious and learned bishop of Winchester, [Andrews] has in his _Devotions_, left us a prayer so apposite and comprehensive for these emergencies, that I cannot forbear the recital.

Remember, O Lord, to renew the year with thy goodness, and the season with a promising temper: For the eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord: Thou givest them meat; thou openest thy hand, and fillest all things living with thy bounty. Vouchsafe therefore, O Lord, the blessings of the heavens, and the dews from above: The blessings of the springs, and the deep from beneath: The returns of the sun, the conjunctions of the moon: The benefit of the rising mountains, and the lasting hills: The fullness of the earth, and all that breed therein.

A fruitful season, Temperate air, Plenty of corn, Abundance of fruits, Health of body, and Peaceable times, Good, and wise government, Prudent counsels, Just laws, Righteous judgments, Loyal obedience, Due execution of justice, Sufficient store for life, Happy births, Good, and fair plenty, Breeding and inst.i.tution of children:

That our sons may grow up as the young plants, and our daughters may be as the polished corners of the Temple: That our garners may be full and plenteous with all manner of store: That our sheep may bring forth thousands: That our oxen may be strong to labour: That there be no decay; no leading into captivity; no complaining in our streets: But that every man may sit under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree, in thankfulness to thee; sobriety and charity to his neighbour; and in whatsoever other estate, thou wilt have him, therewith to be contented: And this for Jesus Christ his sake, to whom be glory for ever, Amen.

24. Thus. .h.i.therto I have spoken of trees, their kinds, and propagation in particular; with such prescriptions for the cure and healing their infirmities, as from long and late experience have been found most effectual. Now a word or two concerning the laws relating to forest-trees, casting such other accidental lessons into a few aphorisms, as could not well be more regularly inserted.

Lastly, I shall conclude with some more serious observations, in reference to the main design and project of this discourse, as it concerns the improvement of the royal forests, and other timber-trees, for the honour, security, and benefit of the whole kingdom; with an historical account of standing-groves, which will be the subject of the next books.

FOOTNOTES:

{316:1} See Cap. 3 lib. 3 sect. 25.

{317:1} See Cap. 2 Book 1.

{329:1} _Hierog._ l. 50.

{330:1} See cap. 4. lib. 2. of a cypress.

{332:1} 1683.

{332:2} 1705.