17. Oziers, or the aquatick and lesser salix, are of innumerable kinds, commonly distinguish’d from sallows, as sallows are from withies; being so much smaller than the sallow, and shorter liv’d, and requiring more constant moisture, yet would be planted in rather a dryish ground, than over moist and spewing, which we frequently cut trenches to avert. It likewise yields more limber and flexible twigs for baskets, flaskets, hampers, cages, lattices, cradles, the bodies of coaches and wagons, for which ’tis of excellent use, light, durable, and neat, as it may be wrought and cover’d: for chairs, hurdles, stays, bands, the stronger for being contus’d and wreathed, &c. likewise for fish wairs, and to support the banks of impetuous rivers: In fine, for all wicker and twiggy works:
Viminibus salices.............
18. But these sort of oziers would be cut in the new shoot: For if they stand longer, they become more inflexible; cut them close to the head (a foot, or so above earth) about the beginning of October; unless you will attend till the cold be past, which is better; and yet we about London, cut them in the most piercing seasons, and plant them also till Candlemas, which those who do not observe, we judge ill husbands, as I learn from a very experienc’d basket-maker; and in the decrease, for the benefit of the workman, though not altogether for that of the stock, and succeeding shoot: When they are cut, make them up into bundles, and give them shelter; but such as are for white-work (as they call it) being thus faggotted, and made up in bolts, as the term is, severing each sort by themselves, should be set in water, the ends dipped; and indeed all peel’d wares of the viminious kind, are not otherwise preserved from the worm; but for black and unpeel’d, shelter’d under covert only, or in some vault or cellar, to keep them fresh, sprinkling them now and then in excessive hot weather: The peelings of the former, are for the use of the gard’ner and cooper, or rather the splicings.
19. We have in England these three vulgar sorts; one of little worth, being brittle, and very much resembling the fore-mentioned sallow, with reddish twigs, and more greenish and rounder leaves: Another kind there is, call’d perch, of limber and green twigs having a very slender leaf; the third sort is totally like the second, only the twigs are not altogether so green, but yellowish, and near the popinjay: This is the very best for use, tough and hardy. But the most usual names by which basket-makers call them about London, and which are all of different species (therefore to be planted separately) are, the hard-gelster, the horse-gelster, whyning or shrivell’d-gelster, the black-gelster, in which Suffolk abounds. Then follow the golstones, the hard and the soft golstone, (brittle, and worst of all the golstones) the sharp and slender top’d yellow-golstone; the fine-golstone: Then is there the yellow ozier, the green ozier, the snake, or speckled ozier, swallow-tayl, and the Spaniard: To these we may add (amongst the number of oziers, for they are both govern’d and us’d alike) the Flanders-willow, which will arrive to be a large tree, as big as one’s middle, the oftner cut, the better: With these our coopers, tie their hoops to keep them bent. Lastly, the white-sallow; which being of a year or two growth, is us’d for green-work; and if of the toughest sort, to make quarter-can-hoops, of which our seamen provide great quantities, &c.
20. These choicer sorts of oziers, which are ever the smallest, also the golden-yellow, and white, which is preferr’d for propagation, and to breed of, should be planted of slips of two or three years growth, a foot deep, and half a yard length, in moorish grounds, or banks, or else in furrows; so that (as some direct) the roots may frequently reach the water; for fluminibus salices.......... though we commonly find it rots them, and therefore never chuse to set them so deep as to scent it, and at three or four foot distance.
21. The season for planting is January, and all February, though some not till Mid-February, at two foot square; but cattle being excessively liquorish of their leaves and tender buds, some talk of a graffing them out of reach upon sallows, and by this, to advance their sprouting; but as the work would consume time, so have I never seen it succeed.
22. Some do also plant oziers in their eights, like quick-sets, thick, and (near the water) keep them not more than half a foot above ground; but then they must be diligently cleansed from moss, slab, and ouze, and frequently prun’d (especially the smaller spires) to form single shoots; at least, that few, or none grow double; these they head every second year about September, the autumnal cuttings being best for use: But generally
23. You may cut withies, sallows and willows, at any mild and gentle season, between leaf and leaf, even in Winter; but the most congruous time both to plant and to cut them, is crescente luna vere, circa calendas Martias; that is, about the new moon, and first open weather of the early Spring.
24. It is in France, upon the Loire, where these eights (as we term them) and plantations of oziers and withies are perfectly understood; and both there, and in divers other countries beyond seas, they raise them of seeds contain’d in their juli, or catkins, which they sow in furrows, or shallow trenches, and it springs up like corn in the blade, and comes to be so tender and delicate, that they frequently mow them with a scyth: This we have attempted in England too, even in the place where I live, but the obstinate and unmerciful weed did so confound them, that it was impossible to keep them clean with any ordinary industry, and so they were given over: It seems either weeds grow not so fast in other countries, or that the people (which I rather think) are more patient and laborious.
Note, that these juli, are not all of them seed-bearers, some are sterile, and whatever you raise of them, will never come to bear; and therefore by some they are called the male sort, as Mr. Ray (that learned botanist) has observed. The ozier is of that emolument, that in some places I have heard twenty pounds has been given for one acre; ten is in this part an usual price; and doubtless, it is far preferable to the best corn-land; not only for that it needs but once planting, but because it yields a constant crop and revenue to the world’s end; and is therefore in esteem of knowing persons, valu’d in purchase accordingly; consider’d likewise how easily ’tis renew’d when a plant now and then fails, by but pricking in a twig of the next at hand, when you visit to cut them: We have in the parish near Greenwich, where I lately dwelt, improv’d land from less than one pound, to near ten pounds the acre: And when we shall reflect upon the infinite quantities of them we yearly bring out of France and Flanders, to supply the extraordinary expence of basket-work, &c. for the fruiterers, lime-burners, gardeners, coopers, packers-up of all sorts of ware, and for general carriage, which seldom last above a journey or two, I greatly admire gentlemen do no more think of employing their moist grounds (especially, where tides near fresh rivers are reciprocal) in planting and propagating oziers. To omit nothing of the culture of this useful ozier, Pliny would have the place to be prepared by trenching it a foot and half deep, and in that, to fix the sets, or cuttings of the same length at six foot interval. These (if the sets be large) will come immediately to be trees; which after the first three years, are to be abated within two foot of the ground. Then in April he advises to dig about them: Some raise them abundantly, by laying poles of them in a boggy earth only: Of these they formerly made vine-props, juga, as Pliny calls them, for archwise bending and yoaking, as it were, the branches to one another; and one acre hath been known to yield props sufficient to serve a vine-yard of 25 acres.