The country-mans recreation, or The art of [brace] planting, graffing, and gardening, [brace] in three books. The first declaring divers waies of planting, and graffing, and the best times of the year, with divers commodities and secrets herein, how to set or plant with the root, and without the root; to sow or set pepins or curnels, with the ordering thereof, also to cleanse your grafts and cions, to help barren and sick trees, to kill worms and vermin, and to preserve and keep fruit; how to plant and proin your vines, and to gather and presse your grape; to cleanse and mosse your trees, to make your cider and perry, with many other secret practises which shall appear in the table following. The second treateth of the hop-garden, with necessary instructions for the making and maintenance thereof, ... with some directions for tabaco. Whereunto is added, The expert gardener, containing divers necessary and rare secrets belonging to that art, ... hereunto is likewise added the Art of angling.

CHAP. II. Treateth how one shall set again the small wilde Trees, which come of Pepins, when they be first pluckt up.

FOr the Bastard or little wilde Trees incontinent assoon as they be pluckt up, ye must have of other good earth well trimmed and dunged, and to be well in the Sunne, and well prepared and drest, as it is said in the other part before of the Pepins.

How to dung your Bastard or wilde young Trees which come of Pepins.

ABout Advent before Christmas, ye must digge and dung well the place whereas ye will set them, and make your square of earth even and plain, so large as ye shal think good, then set your wilde trees so farre one from another as yee think meet to be graft, so that they may be set in even ranks and in good order, that when need shall require, ye may re∣move or renue any of them, or any part thereof.

How ye ought in replanting or setting to cut off in the middest, the principall great roots.

IN what part soever yee doe set any Trees, yee must cut off the great master root, within a foot of the stock, and all other big roots, so that ye leave a foot long thereof, and so let them be set, and make your ranks crosse-wise one from another half a foot, or thereabouts, and ye must also see that there be of good dung more deep and lower than ye doe set your Trees, to comfort the said roots withall.

How you ought to set your Trees in rank.

YE shall leave between your ranks, from one rank to an∣other, one foot, or thereabouts, so that yee may set them with good fat earth all over the roots.

How to make the space from one rank to another.

YE shall leave between your ranks, from one rank to an∣other, one foot, or thereabouts, so that ye may passe between every rank, for to cleanse them if need require, and also to graffe any part or parcell thereof when time shall be meet. But yee must note, in making thus your ranks, ye shall make as many allies as ranks. And if ye think it not good to make as many allies, then divide those into quarters of five foot broad, or thereabouts, and make and set four ranks (in each quarter of the same) one foot from ano∣ther as ye use to set great Cabbage, and assoon after as ye have set them in ranks and in good order, as is aforesaid, then shal ye cut off all the sets even by the ground. But in this doing, see that ye do not pluck up or loose the earth that is about them: or if you will, ye may cut them before ye doe set them in ranks. If ye do so, see that yee set them in such good or∣der, and even with the earth, as is aforesaid. And it shal suffice also to make your ranks as ye shall see cause. And look that ye furnish the earth all over with good dung, without ming∣ling of it in the earth, nor yet to cover the said Plants with∣all, but strowed betwixt; and ye must also look well to the

cleansing of weeds, grasse, or other such things which, will be a hurt to the growth of the Plants.

How to water plants when they wax dry.

IT shall be good to water them when the time is dry: in the first Year. Then when they have put forth of new Ci∣ons, leave no more growing but that Cion which is the principall and fairest, upon every stock one: all the other cut off hard by the stock, and ever as they do grow small twigs about the stock, ye shall (in the Moneth of March and Aprill) cut them all off hard by the stock. And if ye then stick by every Plant a pretty wand, and so bind them with Willow bark, Bryer, or Ofiers, it shall profit them much in their groweth. Th••n after five or six years groweth, when they be so big as your finger, or thereabouts, ye may then remove any of them whereas ye will have them grow and remain.

How one ought to remove Trees, and to plant them again.

THe manner how ye ought to remove trees, is shewed in the sixt Chapter following: then about two or three years after their removing, ye shall graffe them, for then they will be the better rooted. As for the others, which ye leave still in ranks, ye may also graffe them whereas they stand, as ye shall see cause good. When ye have plucked up the fairest to plant in either places (as is aforesaid) also the manner how to graffe them, is shewd in the fift Chapter following. But af∣ter they shall be so graft, in what place soever it be, ye shall not remove or set them in other places again, untill the Graffes be well closed upon the head of the wild stock.

When the best time is to replant, or remove.

WHen the head of the stock shall be all over closed about the graffs, then ye may, when ye wi••l, trans∣plant and remove them (at a due time) where they shall con∣tinue,

For with often removing, ye shall do them great hurt in their roots, and be in danger to make them dye.

Of negligence and forgetfulnesse.

IF peradventure ye forget (through negligence) and have let small Cions two or three years grow about the roots of your stocks unplucked up, then if you have so done, ye may well pluck them up and set them in ranks as the o∣ther of the Pepins. But ye must set the ranks more larger that they may be removed without hurting of each others roots: and cut off all the small twigges about as need shall require, though they be set or graffed. Order them also in all things as those small Cions of a years growth.

It is not so convenient to Graffe the Service Tree as to set

WHereas ye shall see young Service Trees, it shall be most profit in setting them, for if ye do graffe them, I believe ye shall win nothing thereby.

The best is onely to pluck up the young Bastard Trees when they are as great as a good walking-staffe: then proin or cut off their branches and carry th••m to set whereas they may be no more removed, and they shall profit more in set∣ting then in graffing.

Some Trees without graffing bring forth good fruit, and some other being graffed be better to make Syder of.

IT is here to be marked, that though the Pepins be sown of the Pomes of Peares and good Apples, yet ye shall find that some of them do love the tree whereof they came, and those be right, which have also a smooth bark and as fair as those which be graffed: the which if ye plant or set them thus growing from the master-root without graffing, they shall bring as good fruit, even like unto the P••pin whereof he first came. But there be other new sorts commonly good to eat, which be as good to make Syder of, as those which shall be graffed for that purpose.

When you list to augment and multiply your Trees.

AFter this sort ye may multiply them, being of divers sorts and diversities, as of Pears or Apples, or such like. Notwithstanding, whensoever ye shall finde a good Tree thus come of the Pepin, as is aforesaid, so shall ye use him. But if ye will augment trees of themselves, ye must take Graffes, and so graffe them.

Of the manner and changing of the fruit of the Pepin-tree.

WHensoever ye do replant or change your Pepin trees from place to place, in so removing often the stock, the fruit thereof shall also change; but fruit which doth come of graffing, doth alwayes keep the form and nature of the Tree whereof he is taken: for as I have said, as often as the Pepin trees be removed to a b••tter ground, the fruit thereof shall be so much amended.

How one ought to make good Syder.

HEre is to be noted, if ye will make good Syder of what fruit soever it be, bearing Pears or Apples, but specially of good Apples, and wild fruit, have alwayes a re∣gard unto the ryping thereof, so gathered dry, then put them in dry places, on boards in heaps, covered with dry straw, and whensoever ye will make Syder thereof, choose out all those which are black bruised, and rotten Apples, and throw them away, then take and use the rest for Syder: But here to give you understanding, do not as they do in the Countrey of Mentz, which do put their fruit gathered, into the mid∣dest of their Garden, in the rain and mislings, upon the bare earth, which will make them to lose their force and vertue, and doth make them also withered rough, and lightly a man shall never make good Syder that shall never come to any purpose or good profit thereof.

To make an Orchard in few Years.

SOme do take young straight slippes, which do grow from the roots, or of the sides of the Apple Trees, about

Michaelmasse, and do so plant or set them (with Otes) in good ground, whereas they shall not be removed, and so graffe (be∣ing well rooted) thereon. Othersome do take and set them in the Spring time, after Christmas, in like wise, and doe graffe thereon when they be well rooted: and both do spring well. And this manner of way is counted to have an Orchard the soonest. But these Trees will not endure past twenty or thirty years.