2. Suckers shall be duly eradicated, and with a sharp spade dexterously separated from the mother-roots, and transplanted in convenient places for propagation, as the season requires.
Here note, that fruit graffed upon suckers, are more dispos’d to produce suckers, than such as are propagated upon good stocks.
3. Fern, is best destroy’d by striking off the tops, as Tarquin did the heads of the poppies: This done with a good wand, or cudgel, at the decrease in the Spring, and now and then in Summer, kills it (as also it does nettles) in a year or two, (but most infallibly, by being eaten down at its spring, by Scotch-sheep) beyond the vulgar way of mowing, or burning, which rather encreases, than diminishes it.
4. Over-much wet is to be drain’d by trenches, where it infests the roots of such kinds as require drier ground: But if a drip do fret into the body of a tree by the head (which will certainly decay it) cutting first the place smooth, stop and cover it with loam and hay, or a cerecloth, till a new bark succeed. But not only the wet, which is to be diverted by trenching the ground, is exitial to many trees, but their repletion of too abundant nourishment; and therefore sometimes there may be as much occasion to use the lancet, as phlebotomy and venaesection to animals; especially if the hypothesis hold, of the superfluous moisture’s descent into the roots, to be re-concocted; but where, in case it be more copious than[316:1] can be there elaborated, it turns to corruption, and sends up a tainted juice, which perverts the whole habit of the tree: In this exigence therefore, it were perhaps more counsellable to draw it out by a deep incision, and to depend upon a new supply, than upon confidence of correcting this evil quality, by other medications, to let it perish. Other causes of their sickness (not always taken notice of) proceed from too liberal refreshments and over-watering in dry and scorching seasons; especially in nurseries: The water should therefore be fitly qualify’d, neither brackish, bitter, stagnat, or putrid, sower, acrimonious, vitriolic, arenous and gravelly, churlish, harsh and lean; (I mention them promiscuously) and whatever vicious quality they are perceptibly tinctur’d and impregnate with, being by no means proper drink for plants: Wherefore a very critical examen of this so necessary an element (the very principle, as some think, and only nutriment of vegetables)[317:1] is highly to be regarded, together with more than ordinary skill how to apply it: In order to which, the constitution and texture of plants and trees are philosophically to be consider’d; some affecting macerations with dung and other mixtures (which I should not much commend) others quite contrary, the quick and running spring, dangerous enough, and worse than snow-water, which is not in some cases to be rejected: Generally therefore that were to be chosen, which passing silently through ponds and other receptacles, exposed to the sun and air, nearest approaching to that of rain, dropping from the uberous cloud, is certainly the most natural and nursing: As to the quantity, some plants require plentiful watering, others, rather often, than all at once; all of them sucking it in by the root for the most part, which are their mouths, and carry it thence through all the canales, organs and members of the whole vegetable body, digested and qualified so as to maintain and supply their being and growth, for the producing of whatever they afford for the use of man, and other living creatures.
5. The bark-bound are to be released by drawing your knife rind-deep from the root, as far as you can conveniently, drawing your knife from the top downwards half-way, and at a small distance, from the bottom upwards, the other half; this, in more places, as the bulk of the stem requires; and if crooked, cut deep, and frequent in the ham; and if the gaping be much filling the rift with a little cow-dung; do this on each side, and at Spring, February or March: Also cutting off some branches is profitable; especially such as are blasted, or lightning-struck: If (as sometimes also) it proceed from the baking of the earth about the stem, lighten, and stir it.
6. The teredo, cossi, and other worms, lying between the body and the bark, (which it separates) poyson that passage to the great prejudice of some trees; but the holes being once found, they are to be taken out with a light incision, the wound covered with loam; or let the dry-part of the wood (bark and all) be cut: applying only a wash of piss and vinegar twice or thrice a week during a month: The best means to find out their quarters, is to follow the wood-pecker, and other birds, often pitching upon the stem (as you may observe them) and knocking with their bills, give notice that the tree is infected, at least, between the bark. But there are divers kinds of these ξυλόφαγοι of which the τερηδὼν or tarmes we have mentioned, will sometimes make such a noise in a tree, as to awaken a sleeping man: The more rugous are the cossi, of old had in deliciis amongst the epicures, who us’d to fatten them in flower; and this, (as Tertullian, and S. Hierom tells us) was the chief food of the hierophantae Cereris; as they are at this day a great regalo in Japan: In the mean time, experience has taught us, that millipedes wood-lice (to be plentifully found under old timber-logs, being dry’d and reduc’d to powder, and taken in drink) are an admirable specific against the jaundies, scorbut, &c. to purifie the blood, and clarifie the sight.
There is a pestilent green-worm which hides it self in the earth, and gets into pots and cases, eating our seedlings, and gnawing the very roots, which should be searched out: And now we mention roots, over-grown toads will sometimes nestle at the roots of trees, when they make a cavern, which they infect with a poysonous vapour, of which the leaves famish’d and flagging give notice, and the enemy dug out with the spade: But this chiefly concerns the gardners mural fruit-trees; though I question not but that even our forest-trees suffer by such pernicious vapours, rats, and other stinking vermine making their nests within them. But of all these, let our industrious planter, (especially the learned favourers of the most refined parts of horticulture) consult the Discourses and experiments of Sign. Fran. Redi, Malphigius, Levenhock, Swamerdam, &c. with our own learned Doctors, Lyster, Sloane, Hook, (and other sagacious naturalists) to shew, that none of these diseases and infirmities in plants proceed from any pure accidental, but real cause; flatus, venemous liquor, and infections: Which some, even of the minutest animals, are provided with instruments to pierce the very solid substances of trees and plants, and infuse their pestiferous taint; where likewise they leave their eggs, boaring those nestling places with a certain terebra, where we find those innumerable perforations which we call worm-eaten; the wider latebrae are made by erucae, caterpillars, ants, and bigger insects, raising morbid tumors and excrescences, and preying upon the fruit, as well as on the leaves, buds and flowers, so soon as their eggs are hatch’d, when they creep out of their little caverns in armies, like the Egyptian locusts, invading all that’s green, and tender rudiments first, and then attacking the tougher and solider parts of vegetables: To those learned persons above, we may not forget the late worthy and pious Mr. Ray, where in the second part of his treatise, of the Wisdom of God in the Creation, we have a brief, but ingenious account of what concerns this subject, together with what is added about spontaneous productions of these despicable animals, to which I refer the curious.
Trees (especially fruit-bearers) are infested with the measels, by being burned and scorched with the sun in great droughts: To this commonly succeeds lousiness, which is cur’d by boring an hole into the principal root, and pouring in a quantity of brandy, stopping the orifice up with a pin of the same wood.
Crooked trees are reform’d by taking off or topping the præponderers, whilst charg’d with leaves, or woody and hanging counterpoises.
Excorticated and bark-bared trees, may be preserved by nourishing up a shoot from the foot, or below the stripped place, and inserting it into a slit above the wounded part; to be done in the Spring, and secur’d from air, as you treat a graff: This I have out of the very industrious Mr. Cook, p. 48. But Dr. Merret brought us in this relation to the Royal Society, that making a square section of the rinds of ash, and sycomore (March 1664,) whereof three sides were cut, and one not, the success was, that the whole bark did unite, being bound with pack-thread, leaving only a scar: But being separated intirely from the tree, namely several parts of the bark, and at various depths, leaving on some part of the bark, others cut to the very wood it self, being tied on as the former, a new rind succeeded in their place; but what was cover’d over beyond the places of incision with diachylon plaister, and also bound as the rest, did within the space of three weeks, unite to the tree, tho’ with some shriveling and scar: The same experiment try’d about Michaelmas, and in the Winter, came to nothing: Where some branches were decorticated quite round, without any union, a withering of the branch beyond the incision, ensu’d: Also a twig separated from a branch, with a sloping cut, and fastn’d to it again in the same posture, bound and cover’d with the former plaister, wither’d in three days time: Among other easie remedies, a cere-cloth of fresh-butter and hony, apply’d whilst the wound is green, (especially in Summer) and bound about with a thrum-rope of moist hay, and rubb’d with cow-dung has healed many: But for rare and more tender trees, after pruning, take purely refined tallow, mingled and well harden’d with a little loamy earth, and horse-dung newly made.