25. John Tradescant brought a small ozier from S. Omers in Flanders, which makes incomparable net-works, not much inferior to the Indian twig, or bent-works which we have seen; but if we had them in greater abundance, we should haply want the artificers who could employ them, and the dexterity to vernish so neatly.
26. Our common salix, or willow, is of two kinds, the white and the black: The white is also of two sorts, the one of a yellowish, the other of a browner bark: The black willow is planted of stakes, of three years growth, taken from the head of an old tree, before it begins to sprout: Set them of six foot high, and ten distant; as directed for the poplar. Those woody sorts of willow, delight in meads and ditch-sides, rather dry, than over-wet (for they love not to wet their feet, and last the longer) yet the black sort, and the reddish, do sometimes well in more boggy grounds, and would be planted of stakes as big as one’s leg, cut as the other, at the length of five or six foot or more into the earth; the hole made with an oaken-stake and beetle, or with an iron crow (some use a long auger) so as not to be forced in with too great violence: But first, the trunchions should be a little stop’d at both extreams, and the biggest planted downwards: To this, if they are soaked in water two or three days (after they have been siz’d for length, and the twigs cut off ere you plant them) it will be the better. Let this be done in February, the mould as well clos’d to them as possible, and treated as was taught in the poplar. If you plant for a kind of wood, or copp’ce (for such I have seen) set them at six foot distance, or nearer, in the quincunx, and be careful to take away all suckers from them at three years end: You may abate the head half a foot from the trunk, viz. three or four of the lustiest shoots, and the rest cut close, and bare them yearly, that the three, four or more you left, may enjoy all the sap, and so those which were spared, will be gallant pearches within two years. Arms of four years growth, will yield substantial sets, to be planted at eight or ten foot distance; and for the first three years well defended from the cattle, who infinitely delight in their leaves, green, or wither’d. Thus, a willow may continue twenty, or five and twenty years, with good profit to the industrious planter, being headed every four or five years; some have been known to shoot no less than twelve foot in one year, after which, the old, rotten dotards may be fell’d, and easily supply’d. But if you have ground fit for whole copp’ces of this wood, cast it into double dikes, making every foss near three foot wide, two and half in depth; then leaving four foot at least of ground for the earth (because in such plantations the moisture should be below the roots, that they may rather see, than feel the water) and two tables of sets on each side, plant the ridges of these banks with but one single table, longer and bigger than the collateral, viz. three, four, five or six foot high, and distant from each other, about two yards. These banks being carefully kept weeded for the first two years, till the plants have vanquish’d the grass, and not cut till the third; you may then lop them traverse, and not obliquely, at one foot from the ground, or somewhat more, and they will head to admiration; but such which are cut at three foot height, are most durable, as least soft and aquatick: They may also be graffed ’twixt the bark, or budded; and then they become so beautiful, as to be fit for some kind of delightful walks; and this I wish were practis’d among such as are seated in low and marshy places, not so friendly to other trees. Every acre at eleven or twelve years growth, may yield you near a hundred load of wood: Cut them in the Spring for dressing, but in the Fall for timber and fuel: I have been inform’d, that a gentleman in Essex, has lopp’d no less than 2000 yearly, all of his own planting. It is far the sweetest of all our English fuel, (ash not excepted) provided it be sound and dry, and emitting little smoak, is the fittest for ladies chambers; and all those woods and twigs would be cut either to plant, work with, or burn in the dryest time of the day.
To confirm what we have advanc’d in relation to the profit which may be made by this husbandry, see what comes to me from a worthy person whom we shall have occasion to mention, with great respect, in the next chapter, when we speak of quicksets.
The considerable improvement which may be made in common fields, as well as inclosed grounds, he demonstrates by a little spot of meadow, of about a rod and half; part of which being planted about 50 years since with willows (in a clump not exceeding four pole in length, on one side about 12) several of them at the first and second lopping, being left with a strait top, run up like elms, to 30 or 40 foot in height; which some years since yielded boards of 14 or 15 inches broad as good for flooring, and other purposes within doors, as deals, last as long, work finer, white and beautiful: ’tis indeed a good while since they were planted, but it seems the crop answer’d this patience, when he cut up as many of them (the year 1700) as were well worth 10l. And since that another tree, for which a joyner offer’d him as much for those were left, which was more by half than the whole ground it self was worth; so as having made 20l. of the spot, he still possesses it without much damage to the grass. The method of planting was first by making holes with an iron crow, and widening them with a stake of wood, fit to receive a lusty plant, and sometimes boaring the ground with an auger; but neither of these succeeding, (by reason the earth could not be ramm’d so close to the sides and bottom of the sets, as was requisite to keep them steady, and seclude the air, which would corrupt and kill the roots) he caus’d holes, or little pits of a foot square and depth to be dug, and then making a hole with the crow in the bottom of the pits, to receive the set, and breaking the turf which came out of it, ramm’d it in with the mould close to the sets (as they would do to fix a gate-post) with great care not to gall the bark of it. He had divers times before this miscarry’d, when he us’d formerly to set them in plain ground, without breaking the surface, and laying it close to the sets; and therefore, if the soil be moist, he digs a trench by the side of the row, and applies the mould which comes out of it about the sets; so that the edge of the bank raised by it, may be somewhat higher than the earth next the set, for the better descent of the rain, and advantage of watering the sets in dry weather; preventing likewise their rooting in the bank, which they would do if the ground next the plant or set were made high, and sloped; and being left unfenc’d, cattel would tread down the bank, and lay the roots bare: The ground should therefore not be raised above 2 or 3 inches towards the body of the set. Now if the ground be dry, and want moisture, he chuses to bank them round, (as I have described it in my Pomona, cap. VII.) the fosses environing the mound and hillock, being reserves for the rain, cools and refreshes the sets.
He farther instances, that willows of about 20 years growth, have been worth 30s. and another sold for 3l. which was well worth 5l. and affirms, that the willows planted in beds, between double ditches, in boggy ground, may be fit to be cut every five years, and pay as well as the best meadow-pasture, which is of extraordinary improvement.
27. There is a sort of willow of a slender and long leaf, resembling the smaller ozier; but rising to a tree as big as the sallow, full of knots, and of a very brittle spray, only here rehears’d to acknowledge the variety.
28. There is likewise the garden-willow, which produces a sweet and beautiful flower, fit to be admitted into our hortulan ornaments, and may be set for partitions of squares; but they have no affinity with other. There is also in Shropshire another very odoriferous kind, extreamly fit to be planted by pleasant rivulets, both for ornament and profit: It is propagated by cuttings or layers, and will grow in any dry bottom, so it be sheltred from the south, affording a wonderful and early relief to the industrious bee: Vitruvius commends the vitex of the Latines (impertinently called agnus castus, the one being but the interpretation of the other) as fit for building; I suppose they had a sort of better stature than the shrub growing among the curious with us, and which is celebrated for its chast effects, and for which the Ancients employ’d it in the rites of Ceres: I rather think it more convenient for the sculptor (which he likewise mentions) provided we may (with safety) restore the text, as Perrault has attempted, by substituting lævitatem, for the author’s regiditatem stubborn materials being not so fit for that curious art.
29. What most of the former enumerated kinds differ from the sallows, is indeed not much considerable, they being generally useful for the same purposes; as boxes, such as apothecaries and goldsmiths use; for cart-saddle-trees, yea gun-stocks, and half-pikes, harrows, shooe-makers lasts, heels, clogs for pattens, forks, rakes, especially the tooths, which should be wedged with oak; but let them not be cut for this when the sap is stirring, because they will shrink; pearches, rafters for hovels, portable and light laders, hop-poles, ricing of kidney-beans, and for supporters to vines, when our English vineyards come more in request: Also for hurdles, sieves, lattices; for the turner, kyele-pins, great town-tops; for platters, little casks and vessels; especially to preserve verjuices in, the best of any: Pales are also made of cleft willow, dorsers, fruitbaskets, canns, hives for bees, trenchers, trays, and for polishing and whetting table-knives, the butler will find it above any wood or whet-stone; also for coals, bavin, and excellent firing, not forgetting the fresh boughs, which of all the trees in nature, yield the most chast and coolest shade in the hottest season of the day; and this umbrage so wholsome, that physicians prescribe it to feaverish persons, permitting them to be plac’d even about their beds, as a safe and comfortable refrigerium. The wood being preserved dry, will dure a very long time; but that which is found wholly putrified, and reduc’d to a loamy earth in the hollow trunks of superannuated trees, is, of all other, the fittest to be mingled with fine mould, for the raising our choicest flowers, such as anemonies, ranunculus’s, auriculas, and the like.
What would we more? low broom, and sallows wild,
Or feed the flock, or shepherds shade, or field
Hedges about, or do us honey yield.[175:1]
30. Now by all these plantations of the aquatick trees, it is evident, the lords of moorish commons, and unprofitable wasts, may learn some improvement, and the neighbour bees be gratified; and many tools of husbandry become much cheaper. I conclude with the learned Stephanus’s note upon these kind of trees, after he has enumerated the universal benefit of the salictum: nullius enim tutior reditus, minorisve impendii, aut tempestatis securior.