The manner of raising, ordering, and improving forrest-trees also, how to plant, make and keep woods, walks, avenues, lawns, hedges, &c. : with several figures proper for avenues and walks to end in, and convenient figures for lawns : also rules by M. Cook.

CHAP. XII. (Book 12)

Of Raising and Ordering the Ash. (Book 12)

AND as for Raising the Ash, I shall give you the same Rules as I did to the aforesaid Honourable Person the same time, before the Discourse of Forrest-trees was written.

Let your Keyes be thorow ripe, which will be about the middle or end of October, or November: When you have gathered them, lay them thin to dry, but gather them off from a young straight thriving Tree: My Reason to gather them off a young thriving tree, is, because there will the Keyes, or seeds in the Keyes, be the larger and solider, therefore by consequence they are the abler to shoot the stronger, and to maintain themselves the better and longer: Though I know by ex∣perience that the seeds of some old Plants will come up sooner (so the seed be perfect) than the seed of young Plants; and also that old seed, (so it will but grow) will come up sooner than new Seed. My afore∣said Reasons do in part demonstrate this: Or thus, Nature finding her self weak, doth (like a provident Mother) seek the sooner to provide for her weak Children: for Nature is one in divers things, and yet va∣rious in one thing.

Now if you gather them off from a straight tree, 'tis the likelier they will run more up, and grow straighter than those which be gather∣ed off a Pollard or crooked tree: for it is well known, and might be proved by many Instances, that Nature doth delight in Imitation, and the Defects of Nature may be helped by Art; for the great Altera∣tions which many times we find visible in many Vegetables of the same species, they all proceed either from the Earth, the Water, or the Heavenly Influences; but the last is the greatest Author of Alteration, both in Sensibles, Vegetables and Animals. However, Like still pro∣duceth its Like; and since there is such plenty of Forrest-trees that bear seed, you may as well gather all sorts of Keyes and Seeds off or under such Trees, as not.

As for the time of sowing them, let it be any time between the lat∣ter end of October, and the last of January; for they will lie till Spring come twelve Months before they appear: if your ground be not very subject to great weeds, you may sow them with Oats, if you be

minded to make a Wood of it; and in your VVoods on the top of your Ground; but if they be prepared before-hand, they will be much more certain of growing: therefore if you would be sure to raise good store of them for to make VValks, or furnish your VVoods with, &c. having gathered your Keyes, and ordered them as is aforesaid, pre∣pare some sifted Earth, or Sand, which is better by keeping an equal warmth and moysture, to prepare them for spearing. Having prepa∣red your sand, and a house to lay them in, where the Air may freely come, then in this House lay one Laying of Sand and a Laying of Keyes, parting your Keyes well; so doe till you have (Laying after Laying) covered all your Keyes in the Couch, any time in VVinter, as is be∣fore directed: Let your Sand be pretty moyst, and so keep it all that year; and having prepared your Ground by often digging, and a ten∣der Soyl, (which the Ash loves) then about the latter end of January sowe them on this Bed, covering them about one Inch, or an Inch and a half thick: Do not let them lie too long uncovered when you take them out of their Couch; for then they will be speared, and if they lie too long in the Aire, it will spoyl them: Do not sowe them in frosty weather; but if Frosts be, stay till they be over.

Mind to keep them clean from weeds the first year, for they will shoot but little the first year, but the second they will shoot strongly: the VVinter after you may transplant them upon Beds, pruning the little side-shoots, and topping the tap-root. Keep them with digging and pruning every year on these Beds, and in few years they will be fit for Walks, Woods, &c. and one of these thus ordered, shall be worth ten taken out of VVoods, for they will be taper and fine trees. VVhen you remove an Ash, take not off his head, if he be not too top-heavy, that you can possibly help it; for an Ash and a VValnut are two of the worst Trees I know to head, they having such a great Pith: but the side-boughs you may be bold to take off, provided you take them off close, and the Boughs not very great. It is not very apt to break much into side-boughs, and heals over the wound as well as any tree except the Beech; then why will you have low Timber-trees of Ashes, when you may as well have high ones? Therefore prune up your young Ash-trees well and often: And if you follow but these Rules, you may raise them as easily as Barley, and as thick.

As touching the several Kinds, some Authors will have two sorts, the Male and Female: but there is no such thing as Male and Female among Plants, though some Plants are so called; for what Act of either do any two Plants communicate to each other? The greatest

difference that ever I observed in young Ashes, among the many thousands that I have raised, was in their Bark; for I have had some that have had blackish Bark, some reddish, the Leaves alike, but what difference there will be in the Keyes and Timber, I yet know not.

The Ash is not fit to be set near fine Gardens, for the Leaves turn to soyl suddenly, and so spoyl your VValks; also the Roots run so shallow that they will rob your Borders, and spoyl your Fruit-trees: They are as bad by your plow'd Ground, for the Roots will so draw the strength of the Ground from the Corn, that it will languish and pine away. And this I have observed, that the Summer after a Tree is lopped, it shall rob the Corn more than another bigger standing by it, as may be visible by the growth of the Corn: I have wilfully experienc'd it, and I conceive the Reason to be this; the Sap riseth into the head of the Pollard (as usually it did) and so into the Boughs, but finding the Boughs cut off, it filleth the Head so full, that it causeth it to swell in the Spring; and this is the reason Pollard-heads are bigger than any other part of the body of the Tree; the head being so full that it can contain the sap no longer, it then breaketh out in∣to abundance of young shoots, and when they set once a growing they grow apace, and so the Bark of them being thin and open for the Sap to run in, they receive as much as the Roots can possibly provide for them▪ and endeavour to enlarge the Head to that mag∣nitude as it was at before.

But though the Ash doth harm to grow near or upon plowed Ground, yet it is the usefullest wood that growes, for the Plough and other uses belonging to the Plough-man. It is a quick-growing wood, and will grow pretty well on most sorts of Grounds, provi∣ded they be not too wet, or very shallow: It grows best on such Grounds as have their surface of a loose Nature, so that it be not too shallow. It produceth excellent Timber for several uses, and is such a quick-grower, that from a Key, in Forty years, one Ash was sold for Thirty pounds sterling, as witnesseth the ingenious Author of the Discourse of Forrest-trees, pag. 22. And this I can tell, which my Lord and I measured, of the shoot of an Ash that stood between the Wood-yard at Hadham-Hall, and a place where I used to raise Me∣lon plants; that the second years shoot was Eight foot within two Inches; which had it shot but a few years at this rate, it would soon have been a very great Tree, and worth a like price.

Of all the VVood that I know, there is none burns so well green

as the Ash; and that is one Reason that many a fine Pollard is spoyl∣ed: For your bad Husbands (as they are tearmed) are as unkind to Trees as they are to themselves: For their want of Wood early in the VVinter, makes them flie to the Ash, whence they hack off the Boughs, and thus leave him all Winter; in which time the wood be∣ing not very hard, that drinks in the wet at these wounded places, and before the Spring comes to heal it over, decayes, and so by that means every Winter receiveth the wet more and more, till it hath de∣stroyed Root, Body and Branch.

On the other side, there are some which will not lop their Trees till they bear very great Boughs; and then lop off them, (smooth and well cut off) though it be in the Spring; yet in such great wounds, before the Sap can cover the place, the wet makes a hole in some or many of these places; and so you lose both Body and Lops in a few years. Besides the lopping of Trees young, that is, at ten or twelve years at the most, by so doing you keep your Tree much the longer alive; and you shall have shoots of Trees at first felling, grow more into wood in one year, than they do when old Lops in two or three, and in all Respects are as usefull for the Fire: Then I intreat you be not so wilfull, as to make you and yours poor, and also spoyl your trees.

Therefore in lopping of Pollards, especially soft wood, let it be towards the Spring, and let not your Lops grow so great, as to spoyl your trees and lose the use of your Money. If once you find your Pollard grow much hollow at the Head, down with it as soon as may be, for it then decayes more in the Body than the Lop comes to; and if your Timber-trees be dead-topt, or most of the Head dead, or that you find Wood-peckers, or Nihills make holes in them, then fell them as soon as the season is, (which is from October to February) for when they begin to decay, they decay apace.

I know it is the Opinion of most men, that these Birds spoyl their Trees; but let me tell you, they rarely make holes in sound Timber, therefore Learn of them, and fell the trees of which they give you warning by making holes in them: the sooner the less Timber lost.