Tunc alnos primum fluvii sensêre cavatas.
Georg. 1.
Nec non & torrentem undam levis innatat alnus
Missa Pado .................
2.
CHAPTER XIX.
Of the Withy, Sallow, Ozier, and Willow.
1. Salix: Since Cato has attributed the third place to the salictum, preferring it even next to the very ortyard; and (what one would wonder at) before even the olive, meadow, or corn-field it self (for salictum tertio loco, nempe post vineam, &c.) and that we find it so easily rais’d, of so great, and universal use, I have thought good to be the more particular in my discourse upon it; especially, since so much of that which I shall publish concerning them, is derived from the long experience of a most learned and ingenious person, from whom I acknowledge to have received many of these hints. Not to perplex the reader with the various names, Greek, Gallic, Sabin, Amerine, Vitex, &c. better distinguish’d by their growth and bark; and by Latin authors all comprehended under that of salices; our English books reckon them promiscuously thus; the common-white willow, the black, and the hard-black, the rose of Cambridge, the black-withy, the round-long sallow; the longest sallow, the crack-willow, the round-ear’d shining willow, the lesser broad-leav’d willow, silver sallow, upright broad-willow, repent broad-leav’d, the red-stone, the lesser willow, the strait-dwarf, the long-leav’d yellow sallow, the creeper, the black-low willow, the willow-bay, and the ozier. I begin with the withy.
2. The withy is a reasonable large tree, (for some have been found ten foot about) is fit to be planted on high banks, and ditch-sides within reach of water and the weeping sides of hills; because they extend their roots deeper than either sallows or willows. For this reason you shall plant them at ten, or twenty foot distance; and though they grow the slowest of all the twiggie trees, yet do they recompence it with the larger crop; the wood being tough, and the twigs fit to bind strongly; the very peelings of the branches being useful to bind arbor-poling, and in topiary-works, vine-yards, espalier-fruit, and the like: And we are told of some that grow twisted into ropes of 120 paces, serving instead of cables. There are two principal sorts of these withies, the hoary, and the red-withy, (which is the Greek) toughest, and fittest to bind, whilst the twigs are flexible and tender.
3. Sallows grow much faster, if they are planted within reach of water, or in a very moorish ground, or flat plain; and where the soil is (by reason of extraordinary moisture) unfit for arable, or meadow; for in these cases, it is an extraordinary improvement: In a word, where birch and alder will thrive. Before you plant them, it is found best to turn the ground with a spade; especially, if you design them for a flat. We have three sorts of sallows amongst us, (which is one more than the ancients challeng’d, who name only the black and white, which was their nitellina) the vulgar round leav’d, which proves best in dryer banks, and the hopping-sallows, which require a moister soil, growing with incredible celerity: And a third kind, of a different colour from the other two, having the twigs reddish, the leaf not so long, and of a more dusky green; more brittle whilst it is growing in twigs, and more tough when arriv’d to a competent size: All of them useful for the thatcher.
4. Of these, the hopping-sallows are in greatest esteem, being of a clearer terse grain, and requiring a more succulent soil; best planted a foot deep, and a foot and half above ground (though some will allow but a foot) for then every branch will prove excellent for future setlings. After three years growth (being cropped the second and third) the first years increase will be ’twixt eight and twelve foot long generally; the third years growth, strong enough to make rakes and pike-staves; and the fourth for Mr. Blithe’s trenching plow, and other like utensils of the husbandman.
5. If ye plant them at full height (as some do at four years growth, setting them five or six foot length, to avoid the biting of cattel) they will be less useful for streight staves, and for setlings, and make less speed in their growth; yet this also is a considerable improvement.
6. These would require to be planted at least five foot distance, (some set them as much more) and in the quincunx order: If they affect the soil, the leaf will come large, half as broad as a man’s hand, and of a more vivid green, always larger the first year, than afterwards: Some plant them sloping, and cross-wise like a hedge, but this impedes their wonderful growth; and (though Pliny seems to commend it, teaching us how to excorticate some places of each set, for the sooner production of shoots) it is but a deceitful fence, neither fit to keep out swine nor sheep; and being set too near, inclining to one another, they soon destroy each other.