7. The worst sallows may be planted so near yet, as to be instead of stakes in a hedge, and then their tops will supply their dwarfishness; and to prevent hedge-breakers, many do thus plant them; because they cannot easily be pull’d up, after once they have struck root.
8. If some be permitted to wear their tops five or six years, their palms will be very ample, and yield the first and most plentiful relief to bees, even before our abricots blossom. The hopping-sallows open, and yield their palms before other sallows, and when they are blown (which is about the exit of May, or sometimes June) the palms (or ὠλεσίκαρποι frugiperdæ, as Homer terms them for their extream levity) are four inches long, and full of a fine lanuginous cotton. Of this sort, there is a salix near Dorking in Surrey, in which the julus bears a thick cottonous substance. A poor body might in an hour’s space, gather a pound or two of it, which resembling the finest silk, might doubtless be converted to some profitable use, by an ingenious house-wife, if gather’d in calm evenings, before the wind, rain and dew impair them; I am of opinion, if it were dry’d with care, it might be fit for cushions, and pillows of chastity, for such of old was the reputation of the shade of those trees.
9. Of these hopping sallows, after three years rooting, each plant will yield about a score of staves, of full eight foot in length, and so following, for use, as we noted above: Compute then how many fair pike-staves, perches, and other useful materials, that will amount to in an acre, if planted at five foot interval: But a fat and moist soil, requires indeed more space, than a lean or dryer; namely, six or eight foot distance.
10. You may plant setlings of the very first years growth; but the second year they are better, and the third year, better than the second; and the fourth, as good as the third; especially, if they approach the water. A bank at a foot distance from the water, is kinder for them than a bog, or to be altogether immers’d in the water.
11. ’Tis good to new-mould them about the roots every second, or third year; but men seldom take the pains. It seems that sallows are more hardy, than even willows and oziers, of which Columella takes as much care as of vines themselves. But ’tis cheaper to supply the vacuity of such accidental decays, by a new plantation, than to be at the charge of digging about them three times a year, as that author advises; seeing some of them will decay, whatever care be used.
12. Sallows may also be propagated like vines, by courbing, and bowing them in arches, and covering some of their parts with mould, &c. Also by cuttings and layers, and some years by the seeds likewise.
13. For setlings, those are to be preferr’d which grow nearest to the stock, and so (consequently) those worst, which most approach the top. They should be planted in the first fair and pleasant weather in February, before they begin to bud; we about London begin at the latter end of December. They may be cut in Spring for fuel, but best in Autumn for use; but in this work (as of poplar) leave a twig or two; which being twisted archwise, will produce plentiful sprouts, and suddenly furnish a head.
14. If in our copp’ces one in four were a sallow set, amongst the rest of varieties, the profit would recompence the care; therefore where in woods you grub up trees, thrust in trunchions of sallows, or some aquatic kind. In a word, an acre or two furnish’d with this tree, would prove of great benefit to the planter.
15. The swift growing sallow is not so tough and hardy for some uses as the slower, which makes stocks for gard’ners spades; but the other are proper for rakes, pikes, mops, &c. Sallow-coal is the soonest consum’d; but of all others, the most easie and accommodate for painters scribbets, to design their work, and first sketches on paper with, &c. as being fine, and apt to slit into pencils.
16. To conclude, there is a way of graffing a sallow-trunchion; take it of two foot and half long, as big as your wrist; graff at both ends a fig, and mulberry-cyon of a foot long, and so, without claying, set the stock so far into the ground, as the plant may be three or four inches above the earth: This (some affirm) will thrive exceedingly the first year, and in three, be fit to transplant. The season for this curiosity is February. Of the sallow (as of the lime-tree) is made the shooe-maker’s carving or cutting-board, as best to preserve the edge of their knives, for its equal softness every way.