..............Nec bella fuerunt,
Faginus adstabat dum scyphus ante dapes.
Tibul.
Sic qui vecturus longinqua per æquora merces
Molitur tellure ratem, vitamque procellis
Objectare parat, fagos metitur, & alnos,
Ad varium rudibus silvis accommodat usum, &c.
..........Silva domus, cubilia frondes.
Juvenal.
CHAPTER VI.
Of the Horn-beam.
1. Ostrys the horn-beam, (by some called the horse-beech, from the resemblance of the leaf) in Latin (ignorantly) the Carpinus, is planted of sets; though it may likewise be rais’d from the jülas and seeds, which being mature in August, should be sown in October, and will lie a year in the bed, which must be well and carefully shaded so soon as they peep: But the more expeditious way is by layers or sets, of about an inch diameter, and cut within half a foot of the earth: Thus it will advance to a considerable tree. The places it chiefly desires to grow in are in cold hills, stiff ground, and in the barren and most expos’d parts of woods. We have it no where more abounding in the south, than in the woods of Hartfordshire; very few westward.
2. Amongst other uses which it serves for, as mill-cogs, &c. (for which it excels either yew or crab) yoak-timber (whence of old, and for that it was as well flexible as tough, ’twas call’d ζυγία) heads of beetles, stocks and handles of tools: It is likewise for the turners use excellent; good fire-wood, where it burns like a candle, and was of old so employ’d;
Carpinus tædas fissa facesque dabit.
(For all which purposes its extream toughness and whiteness commends it to the husbandman.) Being planted in small fosses or trenches, at half a foot interval, and in the single row, it makes the noblest and the stateliest hedges for long walks in gardens, or parks, of any tree whatsoever whose leaves are deciduous, and forsake their branches in winter; because it grows tall, and so sturdy, as not to be wronged by the winds: Besides, it will furnish to the very foot of the stem, and flourishes with a glossie and polish’d verdure, which is exceeding delightful, of long continuance, and of all other the harder woods, the speediest grower; maintaining a slender, upright-stem, which does not come to be bare and sticky in many years; it has yet this (shall I call it) infirmity, that keeping on its leaf till new ones thrust them off, ’tis clad in russet all the winter long. That admirable espalier-hedge in the long middle walk of Luxemburgh garden at Paris (than which there is nothing more graceful) is planted of this tree; and so was that cradle, or close-walk, with that perplext canopy which lately covered the seat in his Majesty’s Garden at Hampton-Court, and as now I hear, they are planted in perfection at New-park, the delicious villa of the Noble Earl of Rochester, belonging once to a near kinsman of mine, who parted with it to K. Charles the First of Blessed Memory. These hedges are tonsile; but where they are maintain’d to fifteen or twenty foot height (which is very frequent in the places before mention’d) they are to be cut, and kept in order with a syth of four foot long, and very little falcated; this is fix’d on a long sneed or streight handle, and does wonderfully expedite the trimming of these and the like hedges: An oblong square, palisado’d with this plant, or the Flemish ormus, as is that I am going to describe, and may be seen in that inexhaustible magazine at Brompton Park (cultivated by those two industrious fellow-gardiners, Mr. London, and Mr. Wise) affords such an umbraculum frondium, the most natural, proper station and convenience for the protection of our orange-trees, myrtles, (and other rare perennials and exoticks) from the scorching darts of the sun, and heat of summer; placing the cases, pots, &c. under this shelter, when either at the first peeping out of the winter concleave, or during the increasing heat of summer, they so are ranged and disposed, as to adorn a noble area of a most magnificent paradisian dining-room to the top of hortulan pomp and bliss, superior to all the artificial furniture of the greatest prince’s court: Here the Indian narcissus, tuberoses, Japan-lillies, jasmines, jonquills, lalaes, periclymena, roses, carnations, (with all the pride of the parter) intermixt between the tree-cases, flowry vasas, busts and statues, entertain the eye, and breath their redolent odors and perfumes to the smell: The golden fruit and apples of Hesperides, gratifie the taste, with the delicious annanas, affecting all the sensories; whilst the chearful ditties of canorus birds, recording their innocent amours to the murmurs of the bubling fountain, delight the ear, and with the charming accents of the fair and vertuous sex, (preferable to all the admired composure of the most skilful musitians) join consort in hymns and hallelujahs to the bountiful and glorious Creator, who has left none of the senses, which he has not gratify’d at once, with their most agreeable and proper objects.