the place of conjuncture it is there forc'd to undergoe a total corruption and lapse into the Bed of its first matter from whence by a new generation there arises a new sap begot in the Tree by a specifick faculty which in a Pear graff may be call'd a Pear-sap-making-power and so in all the rest And for the commendation of this last way of Resolution I must express this its excellency that it is equally applyable to all things in the world each thing being made and the cause as easily believed by some such thing-making power Or it might not be amiss to entitle Diva Colchodea the grand-general form-making-intelligence to the production of all these effects and in Romantick guise to place her as it were in a non-erring chair sitting in the very place of conjuncture of Cyon and Stock and working by ways and arts belonging to her own Trade and therefore as her proper mysteries not to be revealed to the forming in most occult and admirable maner of the appearing effect CHAP. VI. Of the ways for and Seasons of setting Plants ALl Trees and Shrubs of Woody substance that have Bodies able to endure the cold are best set before the Winter assoon as the Leaves begin to fall A Quickset of this season will far outgrow the like planted in the Spring Artichocks and Asparagus Roots do exceeding well being planted at this Season if set in a rich warm mould and well defended in the ensuing Winter from the violence of the frosts Artichokes are with us set above an Ell distance and thereby in the Winter a Trench being made between the rows the Mould is cast up on ridges for the defence of the Roots and in the Summer Cole-flowers or other Garden-stuff is set in the distances For Herbs and choice Plants especially those that are set without Roots it is most fit and usual that they be set in the Spring as Hysope Time Savory Marjerome Wall-flowers Pincks Gilly-flowers and Carnations with this Caution That by how much more tender each Plant is in regard of cold the later it requires to be set and in the warmer place For all bulbous and tuberous rooted Plants it is accounted the best way for their preservation and improvement that they be taken up every year out of the ground and kept some time out of the ground The Universal and Catholick order of all Bulbous Plants says Laurembergius is that about St. James cyde they be taken out of the ground and put in a place cold and dry of a free air not in the Sun nor covered with Sand or Earth or accessible to Mice let them abide so a Moneth or thereabluts then set them again when they are taken up cut off the Fibres that grow from under the head nor need any thus take them up every year unless it be for the transplantation of the off-sets by which forbearance the stock of Tulips is very much increased Ferrarius more particularly forbids the abiding of Anemones in the Earth all the Summer as being found prejudicial to them by his experience But Fritellaries and Peonies and the Crown Imperial he will not have removed from their Beds unless into a Cellar in a pot of Earth Nor are all taken at the same time as he seems to intimate for Narcisses and Crocusses are commonly taken up first generally when the flower is gone the leaf withered and the Bulb full it is the best season to take them up some keep them out of the ground longer as till Christmass or after as this year being in London my best Tulips Anemones and Ranunculus's were in the House till the beginning of February and yet did well enough But commonly we re-plant them about Michaelmass or thereabouts some great Florists keep them out of the ground no longer than till they grow dry some replant them in June some in July or August some take not up their Ranunculus Roots at all Those Gardiners whose Beds are apt to be over-flowed or soaked with cold water in the Winter the later they set I believe their Bulbous and Tuberous Roots will prove the better The ordinary time to plant Anemones says Mr. Parkinson is most commonly in August which will bear Flowers some peradventure before Winter but usually in February March and April few or none abiding until May But if you will keep some Roots out of the ground un-planted till Febr. March April and plant some at one time and some at another you shall have them bear Flowers according to their planting those that are planted in Febr. will flower about the middle or end of May and so the rest accordingly thus you have the pleasure of these Plants out of their seasons which is not permitted to be enjoyed by any other that I know Nature not being so prone to be furthered by Art in other things as in this yet regard is to be had that in keeping your Anemones out of the ground for this purpose you neither keep them too dry nor too moist for sprouting or rotting and in planting them you set them not in too open a Sunny place but where they may be somewhat shadowed N. 2. Of the setting of Woods Fruit-Trees and Plants uncultivated Concerning Plants that are ordinarily set abroad and are not cultivated in Gardens or Orchards few observations can be made that are not very vulgar 't is greatly his interest that mindes the thriving of his Trees that they be set that the Roots may run just under the Turf in the surface of the Earth the higher the better if they are kept moist at the root with wet straw or the like and defended from injuries the first year I have seen soom plants so buried in a depth of thick clay or gravel that they could not shoot for many years a sprig of a Span long whereas others set orderly in the same place did thrive abundantly And those that think to amend the matter by digging a hole a yard deep or more and putting in the Tree with a little good earth do but cheat themselves for the Tree would thrive as well upon a Stone Wall that is washed with rain Water as in that hole when once the Root is come to the sides thereof This I speak generally and not of such particular Trees as delight in a fingular Minera of Earth And for Orchards it is a very necessary requisite that the Roots of Fruit-trees stand above the Gravel Clay or Rock if any such be provision for which I have known made two ways the usual and most common is to plant with such Standards which have no down-right Roots which may be gotten in any well ordered Nurseries for in such the Seedling Plants are taken up the second year and the down-right Roots being cut off short they are set in beds for grafting and by this means shoot their Root rather in compass then directly downwards The second way is a more unusual experiment viz. To set the Fruit-Tree on the top
greater that in the planting you give them the more roome to be distant one from another or else the one will hinder if not rot the other The seed of the Precoces do not thrive and come forward so fast as the Media's or Serotines nor do give any off-sets in their running down as the Media's do which usually leave a small Root at the head of the other that is run down every yeare and besides are more tender and require more care and attendance then Media's and therefore they are the more respected This is a generall Rule in all Tulips that all the while they beare bud or leafe they will not beare flower whether they be seedlings or the off-sets of elder Roots or the Roots themselves that have heretofore borne flowers but when they beare a second leafe breaking out of the first it is a certain signe that it will then bear a flower unlesse some casualty hinder it as Frost or Raine to spoile or nip the bud or other untimely accident befall it To set or plant the best and bearing Tulips some what deeper then other Roots I hold it the best way For if the ground be either cold or lye too openly in the cold Northern aire they will be the better defended therein and not suffer the frost or cold to peirce them so soon for the deep frosts and snowes do pinch the Precoces cheifly if they be too neer the uppe most crust of the earth and therefore many with good successe cover over their ground before winter with either fresh or old rotten dung and that will marvellously preserve them The like course you may hold with seedlings to cause them to come on the forwarder so that it be after the first yeares sowing and not till then To remove Tulips after they have shot forth their Fibres or small springs which grow under the greater round Roots that is from September untill they be in flower is very dangerous for by removing them when they have taken fast hold in the ground you do hinder them in the bearing out their flower and besides put them in hazard to perish at least to be put back from bearing a while after as often I have proved by experience but when they are now risen to flower and so for any time after you may safely take them up if you will and remove them without danger if you have any good regard to them unlesse it be a young bearing Root which you shall in so doing much hinder because it is yet tender by reason it beareth now the first flower but all Tulip Roots when their stalke and leaves are dry may most safely then be taken out of the ground and be so kept so that they lye in a drye and not in a moist place for six moneths without any great harme yea I have known them that have had them nine moneths out of the ground and have done reasonable well but this you must understand withall that they have not beene young but elder Roots and have beene orderly taken up and preserved the dryer you keep a Tulip Root the better so as you let it not lye in the Sun or the Wind which will pierce and spoile it Num. 5. Of annoyance by Plants growing too thick and neer together and of the remedy thereof and improvement by pruning Trees and setting them at great distances plucking off the yong Germens of Garden-flowers to make the rest more fair of the sizing of Turneps Carrots Parsneps of Weeding There is no greater hindrance to the growth and thriving of all Vegetables than to be so crowded together that their Roots Branches and Leaves interfere one with another and therefore in all Orchard and Garden-plants whose Fruit and Flowers you require fair and whose growth you would have considerable provide that they keep their distances Apple-Trees Pear-Trees Plum-Trees Cherries and other Plants are of diverse statures both in regard of one another and of their own kinde Some Apple-Trees grow to much greater growth than some other Pears to a greater growth then Apples so that it is hard to appoint a certain distance for Trees in an Orchard twenty Foot is space little enough for Standards of common Apples or Pears but a certain rule is to provide that one Tree shade not another and therefore let the lowest Trees if you intend to make the most of your ground be set South and the highest Pear-trees stand to the North for should the higher Trees stand South they would cast their shade over the rest of the Orchard This Doctrine of setting Trees at such distances the Husbandman hates for two reasons one is Because it takes too much of his pasture from his Cattle and the other is That by this means he can have but little Fruit in his Orchard for many years Therefore to gratifie his covetousness I shall propose him this practicable way of following and prosecuting my intention to the utmost profit without putting him to the mentioned grievances For first I shall order that he plant his Orchard full of Trees within three yards distance one of another or somewhat nearer if he please these shall bear him after a year or two as many apples as a well grown Orchard usually carries then let him set this ground to a gardiner that it may be digged and dunged seasonably to bring Kitchin Plants for from this Culture the Trees will receive great advantage When the Trees are big enough with the defence of a strong stake and some Bushes to be secured from Cattle let him transplant them into Pastures of the best Soyl where they may stand at great distances to be shelter to Cattle and no prejudice to the Grass One Tree at such distance shall bear as much as ten in some Orchards and thus continue removing as your Trees grow big enough I count five or six inches about to be a good Size the bigger they are the more care must be taken in their removal that the Root be transplanted entire as may be without much dis-branching it or cutting away the spurs And it is convenient that in the heat of the first Summer wet Straw be laid upon the ground about the Root If you have no pasture to transplant into sell your Trees to those that have or set your Standards of strong Trees at twenty foot distance and fill up the rest of the ground with Kentish Codlings Nurse Gardens Burts which are cheap Plants being propagated by Suckers or with dwarf Trees made by Circumposition which may be cut down when the other Orchard thickens too much and in the mean time are very plentiful bearers Pruning Trees is used likewise chiefly to this intent that the Rays of the Sun may have passage to all parts of the Tree so that 't is a good way for the Pruner to look upward from the North side of the Tree upon the South and East and to cut off or rather make thin such boughs which he findes so thick as to
What advantage our Nation might have by propagation of exotique plants by seed brought new from severall Countryes beyond the Seas t is hard to ghesse that theâ—e would be advantage t is certain I remember that Bellonius a man very diligent and much employed about knowing the nature of plants growing in other Countrys than his own which was France wrote a whole book to shew the possibility and advantage of this improvement to perswade Merchants to furnish gentlemen with seed and them to use it T is known that Peaches Aprecots Nectarins were lately not only strangers to England but to France likewise Mulbery is likewise on Exotique plant and by King James his Command sent for over and propagated by seed â—xotique Seeds are good not only to propagate plants yet not with us but likewise to make a more plentifull production then can with ease be made from any other way of propagation of such we already have Care must be had in sowing seed or at least in setting them where you intend that they shall thrive that the ground bear the best proportion may be to the places and the particular Minera of the places where such plants in other parts use to grow not to put mountainous plants in low and moist grounds Why the Taurick Cedars were they planted in Walles should not grow I know no reason It were worth the while to consider in all seeds whether there be noe distinguishable difference in the seed that may be of use as to sooner or greater growth In the same bed divers seeds being sowed of one kind particularly Apples Peares Plummes Cherrys or Peaches some Apple seedlings will in the same mould and distances much outshoot the rest of the same kind and so in the Pears and other kernels it might here be enquired whether the great or lesse send bigger plants and of speedier growth as it is by some observed in buds that the fairer the bud is upon the sheild and stronger the better thrives the inoculation and not only growes more certainly but more lustily 2. Whether the Canker in pippins arise not from an incongruous grafting and it were not better to bring them up from kernells or graft them on a more mild stock than that of a Crab. Whether there might not be gotten diverse years sooner trees of stature from kernells of great bodyed and quick growing Apple trees and such whose kernells vary not much their kindes than from Crabbs which is a wood of a slow growth and harsh Nature N. 8. The manner of growing by seed The seed is considered either as allready made or as it is under the hands of Nature imperfect yet in the way to be made In it made there are considerable first the Coates and cotton that cover it about and preserve it from injuries secondly the essentiall and proper parts of the seed it self Many seeds have two Coates above the Cotton and one thinne one under next investing the seed such are Sicamores All seeds that I know have within their Covers actually a Neb which answers to a roote which is joyned to leaves more or lesse in number betwixt the stalks of or amidst these leaves there is a bud eye or Germen just opposite to the Neb or initiall Roote but by reason of its smallnesse it is scarce discernable in many seeds till it begins to spring 1. Most plants have only two leaues actually joyned to the Neb which are commonly very unlike the proper leaves of the plant of this sort are the flowers of the Sunne Ediffarum Clypeatum Cucumbers Melons Amaranthus Thistles Thlaspyes Mallows of divers kinds Arch-angells Spurges Nettles Clary Orach Dill Parsely hath two leaves dissimilar but not much soe Melilot two dissimilar and one if I mistake not similar 2. Many plants have more Leaves in the arising from the Neb as Cresses have six 3. Some plants have but one dissimilar leafe as Anemones Tulips Fritellaryes and all bulbous spring flowers that I have observed Wheat Barley Rye all grain and grasses that I know have a germen wrap â—ped up att one end of the grain in a hose or sheath which germen consists of leaves wrapped about the bud by a plica or folding made the long way of the leafe not overthwart as in Sicamores Maples and other complicated leaves of seeds Nor doth the whole corn divide it selfe into leaves and coates or huske as in those examples but the greater part thereof containes a meale which by the heat and moisture of the soyl is turned into a pappy substance not unlike the Chyle found in the lacteals of animal bodyes and may be as I suppose reposed nourishment for the young blade at such time as the earth would prove but a dry Nurse I have taken notice that Carriations come up sometimes with three sometimes with four leaves though the most have but two and it is Mr. Bobarts observation that such as come up with more leaves than two prove double flowers which if it generally holds true it were a compendious way to weed out all the rest at the first coming up to avoid the labour of culture of such plants as in the end will not prove advantageous for profit or pleasure Beanes Pease Kidney-beanes Lupined have this peculiarity that the grain being clert each half is as one of these dissimular leaves which is usually contained in every seed and between these thick leaves are contayned other similar leaves or such as differ but in growth oâ— bignesse from the true leaves of the Plant. 'T is to be observed in all these great seeds that though the pulse or thick part of the grain perish yet if the Neb and smal leaves are entire the seed may prosper as I have seen Feild-beanes that have been eaten through with wormes prove good thriveing seed But t is reported that Pismires have learned the wit to spoyl the seed from growing in their store-houses by biting off the very Neb before they repose the grain The growth of the plant from the seed is thus by convenient moysture and heat the Neb stricks through the Covers and goes directly down if not impeded in earth or water 〈◊〉 convenient way ordinarily two or three inches in which time the leaves either rowled up or otherwise inclosed break their bonds and expl … te themselves 〈◊〉 being lifted commonly a litle higher by the growth of the stalk or lengthned Neb and you may observe that the growth above ground at the first motion upward is nothing proportionable to the motion downward After the root is well made and fastned betwixt the leaves that were actually contained in the seed there arises into more plain sight and appearance that litle â—ermen before in many plants scarce-seen like to that bud which is left on plants in winter which springing brings forth the true leaves and Branche of the plant sowen If I am enquired of whether each seed has a compleat essence and distinct form of its own Nay further whether it be
of them are ordinarily green and many rootes that are by nature of a peculiar colour as Radishes yet the point of the roote that is deepest in the ground retaines a whitenesse as well as otherroots being in that part of the roote removed from the aire the red part commonly standing above or just in the furface of the earth Hence also it may be that those leaves of Cabbages Lettuce that are expanded in the free aire are green those that being covered with their fellowes and secluded from the blasts of wind and weather and kept in a warme Covert become as white as any thing that is artificially blanch't True it is that there be plants that grow in the bottome of waters and so cannot be supposed to have this help from the aire otherwise than as the aire chills the water and the water having received this qualitie from the aire makes the like impression upon its domestique plants Chap. 2. Of Propagation by offsets N. 1. A Catalogue of Plants which may be propagated by offsets and suckers arising with Roots from the stool and Roote of the Mother Plant. Aconite or Wolfes-bane Adders-tongue Alexanders Anemones Angelica Aristolochias Artichockes Asphodels Asarum Asparagus Avens Barberies Barrenworth Bawme Bears-eares water and wood Betony Bistort Spanish Broome Butchers Broome Brooklime Briony Burts and such like Apples Buglosse Burdocke Burnet Calamus aromaticus which requires moisture Camomill Caltha or March Marigold Cherryes where the stock is not grafted Chives Cinquefoyle Clownes all-heal Costmary Cowslips Comfrey Cowslips of Jerusalem Coltsfoote Columbines The Crown imperiall Crowfoot Cuckowpints Dames violet Daysyes Dens Leonis bulbosus Dittander Dockstooth Dockes Dorias his wound wort Dragons Dulcamara or woody night-shade Egrimony Elmes Elic ampane Everlasting Vetch Ewe Fernes Feverfew Figtrees Filbeards Filipendula Flowers-de-Luct Fleuellen or Speedwell Galingall Garliques Gentianella Germander Goosberryes Golden-rod Ground Jvy Haselnuts Harts tongue Herbaparis Helleborine Hellebores Hercules all heal Hyacinths Horsradish Houseleeke Horsemints Hops Horsetaile Jasmine Jerusalem Artichoke Kontish Codlings Knapweed Lovage Lady's bed straw Lilyes Lilium convallium Lunaria Lungwoort Mandrakes for often there may be takeÌ„ from them particles of their roots which will grow well though the usuall way of their propagation is by seed Marshmallowes Masterwort Madder Mints Moly Monkshood Mulberryes Mugwort Nurse-gardens All sorts of Orchis or Docks-stone Petasitis Periwincle Peony Pease Pilewort Poplars Potatoes Prunella Primroses Pulsatillas Raspes Radix cava Reeds Roses of most kindes Ruscus or Butchers broome Rubarbs Satyrions Saponoria Sanicle Scabious Sedum Serpillum Setfoyle Skirrets though seeds will produce better Smallage Sorrells Solidago Saracenica Solomons Seal Some Spurges Stitchwort Strawberryes Sword flags Tarragon Tansey Tnistles All soâ—ts of Tulips Valerians Some Vetches Vervaine Times Violets except the yellow Water mints Water Lillyes and most of the other water plants Winter Cherryes Willow weeds Woolfes bane Wormewood Yarrow N. 2. The way of making Offsets by Art Nature usually provides this help of propagation without the wit or industry of men called to her assistance but that not generally in all plants nor alwayes in any one and therefore I esteeme it well deserving any mans learning who delight in Gardeus to know any meanes to enlarge this way of propagation beyond the bounds it is carryed to by natures course There is a pretty way which in truth I first learned from Mr. Bobart our Physique Gardiner for the making Offsets where nature never intended them which is done by bareing the root of plants of woody substance and then making a cut of the same fashion with that which is made in laying Into this cleft a stone must be put or something that will make the root gape then cover the roote over three inches with mould and the lip that is lifted up will sprout into branches the roote of the old tree nourishing it When the branches are growen cut off this plant with its Roote to live of its self If you can leave an eye on the lip of your roote which you after the incition lift up for the branches will then more speedily and certainly issue out of the root so cut In Bulbous Rootes Ferrarius makes offsets thus If sayes he a Bulbous roor is barren of Offsets either put it in better earth or cut it upon the bottom in the crown of the roote whence the fibres spring and that but lightly with your naile and sprinkle some drydust as a medicine to the wound and the effect he affirms to be this that so many wounds as you shall make into so many offsets shall the genitall vertue dispose it self N. 3. Rules for direction in taking off Suckers or Offsets Care must be had that the Damme be not destroyed in her delivery from her new brood which may easily be done if too great a wound be made upon the stoole or mother-plant by tearing off the Suckers T is Ferrarius his peculiar precept about Anemonyes That they be sure as to take off such Offsets that will scarce hang on so not to teare off such as hold fast to the mother-plant for that would be to the peril both of the offset and motherplant Yet I have seen the very substance of Sowbreads to have beene divided with a knife through the heart and yet grow well on either part when they have not afterward been over glutted with wet Flaggs Beares eares Primroses and Cowslips and generally all rootes that are not Bulbous or tuberous must have and doe require a violent separation but the lesse the wound is the better shall your plant thrive and be lesse subject to corrupt by the moisture in the earth In the replantation there is required the generall care of young sets all plants of fibrous rootes are assured in their growth by convenient watering but for bulbous and tuberous the Gatdiners hand is and ought to be more sparing because that moisture is a peculiar enemy to these plants and often rots them if it get into any crany of their rootes N. 4. Examples of planting by Offsets Licorice requires the richest most forced ground very deep that there may be roome for the downright roote light without stones or gravell and dry from moisture The sets are made either from the runners that creep along the upper part of the ground from the roote or else are taken from the Crown of the master-roote and are set at a foot distance or lesse in February or March according to custome though I suppose any time in the winter might as well serve the turn the richer the ground is the further they may be set apart Hoppes require to be planted in a very rich well soyled land and not moorish unlesse the bog be first well dreyned the stronger the setts are the more immediately will proffit arise from the Garden if three or four inches about they are so much the better let the center of the hills be ten foot removed each from other that you may put the more
Neighbors I decide not the question nor can reconcile the Gardiner to Weeds whilest he findes his strongest Plants destroyed by them I have seen many Trees in a well grown Nursery spoiled by the Grass that grew amidst them and as I remember the very Bark of the Trees themselves was rotted by a dew cast upon them from the Grass I have likewise observed a strongly grown Quickset of White Thorn to have been destroyed by Alexanders which it is at the Readers choice to account as a Weed or cultivated Plant. The time of pruning generally is the dead of Winter for such Plants as consist of a Woody substance Pompions are deprived of their superfluous creepers and other Gourds likewise at their first time of springing and divarication of their Branches The season of pruning for acceleration of ripeness is when the fruit is made and begins to grow to some bigness as generally they are about Mid-Summer Some have a third time of pruning Wall-Fruit viz. at the time when the Fruit is taken off as they do Roses likewise when the Flowers are newly gone To cut the Branches or Sprigs of a Flower or Tree quite off cannot properly be called pruning yet sometimes it proves an useful operation for such Plants as are stunted as they call it in their growth Trees that are crooked or have been bitten with Cattle or are grown old Thus Wood-men count it best to cut those Stools of under-Wood down to the Root that it may begin to shoot afresh that have been much browsed by Cattle and cut down their hedges to the Roots when they grow old and Mossy Gardiners likewise if by reason of a sharp Winter their Anemone's are pinched with cold and starved let them not immediately run to flower but cut off the first Springs to the ground that in a better Season they may lay a stronger Foundation for the bearing of fuller and fairer Flowers N. 6. Of Pismires Earwigs Canker and rottenness in choice Plants Catterpillars Mossiness Bark-binding Bursting of Gilly-flowers There are many other annoyances to Vegetables and generally sooner reckoned than remedyed a word or two I shall speak of as many of them as come into my minde Pismires especially those of the black kinde are exceeding troublesome in some Gardens for they climb the highest Trees and spoil the Fruit are commonly esteemed remediless Bellonius who took exceeding pains for improvement by Vegetables commends the decoction of Broath made of any sort of Spurge as very efficacious for this purpose Some draw them to one place by burying Carryon where they most resort and then scalld them with seething liquor To divers choice Flowers but Carnations and Gilly-flowers especially Ear-wigs are a great annoyance Mr. P's way of setting Beasts Hoofs among the Flowers upon sticks to take them is used of every Body here and generally lik'd Some that set their Flowers in Pots set the Pots in Earthen Plates with double Verges containing water or water mingled with soot in the outward verge to drown the Vermine that shall attempt the pots and rain water in the second which may pass through the holes of the pots to water the earth therein contained The rottenness and hollowness that through age too much moisture bulbous and tuberous roots and the best Anemones especially are subject too is thus provided for the disease must be laid open and the rottenness cut out so that in the root there be no capacity left to hold water which I have often mentioned to be a great Enemy both to them and Tulips Ferrarius and some others prescribe Plaisters of Rosin Turpentine and Wax to apply to the Cicatrices of the wounded Root which notwithstanding I have no great regard for The same Author says that in moist Winters Anemones do best in pots in dry better in beds With us they are seldom potted but the borders for these Plants are usually laid on pretty high ridges as Husbandmen lay their Corn Land in deep and moist ground to prevent the mischiefs that usually happens by too much wet Mr. Parkinson says That if you perceive that your Gilly-flower leaves change any of their Natural fresh colour and turn yellowish or begin to wither in any part it is a sure sign that the Root is infected with some canker or rottenness which will soon shew it self in all the rest of its branches and therefore betime else 't is in vain advises that you cover all or most of the Branches with fresh Earth or else take the fairest slips from it or according to Art lay it This way of Mr. P. may be applyed unto other Vegetables I know no better way to destroy Catterpillars Palmer worms and other Vermine of that kinde then by crushing their Eggs as soon as they are laid upon the leaf by the Fly some brush them off with wet cloathes 'T is observed that the little Fly that usually blows upon the Cabbage chooses such Plants as are yongest and especially those that were raised in hot beds or endured least of cold in the Winter preceding Mossiness of Trees comes generally either from the barrenness or coldness of the ground and therefore I count it vain to attempt the removal of it without taking away the cause and making the ground better which being done it will be proper enough to rub down the Trees in a wet day with an hair cloath Trees likewise are sometimes Bark-bound especially such the grain of whose Bark runs round the body of the Tree as in Cherry-trees and not straight upward according to the grain of the Tree as in Apples Pears c. For the Bark is not generally as I suppose nourished by apposition of a new rinde to it as the substance of the Tree is but by interposition of particles amidst the particles of the rinde already made which if it be so hard as not to admit other Particles for its enlargement there can be no new addition of a new coat of wood which ought to accrue every year to the Tree for there will be no space wherein the sap may ascend which is to be hardned into such new wood unless by renting the whole coat of Bark which sometimes happens The remedy for this disease both in Cherry-trees and other Trees those chiefly whose Barks are hardned and groâ—n crusty by long standing in shadowy places or barren ground is that the year after their removal or upon addition of better soil in streight grained Barks and without either removal or addition of soil in Cherry-trees and other cross grained Barks or in any Trees whose Barks rend of their own accord the Barks be slit from the top of the Tree to the bottom of the stock and that according to the bigness of the Tree in one two or three places This is a Chyrurgical remedy that never fails and is easily performed Carnations and Gilly-flowers happen to be often deformed especially those which are of the largest sorts by bursting the Calyx Cellar or Case wherein
the Autumne but I have seen it with good success sowen in the Spring and harrowed in after the manner of sowing Barley the crop being as good as any other times upon the same ground after the usual country procedure Some seeds must be sowen dry not after raine or watering Of this kind is Myrrhis seed Basil Scorzonera and all such as being wet run to a Muscilage Many times they sow divers seeds in a Bed together as Radishes and Carrots that by such time as the Carrots come up the Radishes may be gone Upon beds newly set with Licorice they sow Onions or Radish or Lettice if their Licorice plants or ground be but weak so as not quickly to cause a shadow with their leaves London Gardiners sow Radish Lettice Parsley Carrots on the same bed gathering each in their seasons and leaving the Parsnips till the Winter before which time they are not esteemed good or wholsome Note that where your grounds are very warm by reason of hedges hot beds dunghils c. that may abate the power of the frost seeds may be ventured into the ground much sooner than otherwise in ordinary places Cabbage seeds and Coleflowers are sowed in August or so timely as to be exactly well rooted plants before winter and this is the best way Or are sowed after so that they are transplanted in the time of cold This way is hazardous in the winter by reason of the nipping Frosts and chargeable in that they require much attendance and covering and uncovering which those plants that are confirmed before winter doe not Secondly they are more subject to Caterpillars in the Summer but the way of raising of them by hot beds in the Spring for Cabbages is the worst way of all and most subject to the peril of that vermine Those Plants of the Spring sowing that you sow later than ordinary require to be the more watered and shadowed from the heat Those in the Spring that are sowed earlyer than ordinary require the more to be defended from the cold Those in the Autumne that you prematurely sow are to be watered and shadowed the more Those which you sow late are to be better defended from the Winter till they have gotten strength N. 4. Examples of Sowing with some particular directions for some choice Vegetables Examp. 1. From Mr. Parkinson directing skillfully the ordering of Tulips in their propagation by seed The first example I shall give you out of Mr. Parkinson The time sayes he and manner of Sowing Tulip-seed is thus you may not sow them in the Spring of the year if you hope to have any good of them but in the Autumne or presently after they be through ripe and dry yet if you sow them not untill the end of Octob. they will come forward never the worse but rather the better for it is often seen that over-early sowing causeth them to spring out of the ground over-early so that if a sharp spring chance to follow it may goe near to spoile all or most of the seed We usually sow the same years seed yet if you chance to keep of your own or have of others such seed as is two years old they will thrive and doe well enough Especially if they were ripe and well gathered you must not sow them too thick for so doing hath lost many a Peck of seed for if the seed lie one upon another that it hath not roome upon the sprouting to enter or take root in the earth it perisheth by and by Some use to tread down the ground where they mean to sow their seed and having sowen them thereon doe cover them over the thickness of a mans Thumb with fine fifted earth and they think they doe well and have good reason for it For considering the nature of young Tulip roots is to runne down deeper into the ground every year more then other they think to hinder their quick descent by the fastness of the ground that so they may increase the better This way may please some but I doe not use it nor can find the reason sufficient for they doe not consider that the stifness of the earth doth cause the roots of the young Tulips to be long before they grow great in that the stiffe ground doth more hinder the well thriving of the Roots then a loose doth and although the roots doe runne down deeper in a loose earth yet they may easily by transplanting be holpen and rais'd up high enough I have also seen some Tulips not once removed from their sowing to their flowering but if you will not loose them you must take them up while their leaf or stalk be fresh and not withered for if you doe not follow the stalk down to the root be it never so deep you will leave them behind you The ground also must be respected for the finer softer and richer the mould is wherein you sow the seed the greater shall be your increase and variety Sift it therefore from stones and rubbish and let it be either fat naturall ground of it self or being muckt let it be throughly rotten some I know to mend their ground doe make such a mixture of grounds that they mar it in the making Ferrarius bids that the seed be sowen in Septemb. as soon as rain shall make the ground fit half a fingers breadth in good Garden mould not to be removed in two years after at which time they are to be removed and placed in severall beds according to their seveâ—all bigness where in 4 or 5 years they will bear their flowers Example 2. Of Anemone's Within a moneth after the seed of Anemone's is gather'd and prepared in August saies Ferrarius or three dayes before the full Moon in Septemb. it must be sown for by that means you shall gain a year in the growing over that you should doe if you sowed it the next spring If there remain any Wooliness in the seed pull it asunder as well as you can and then sow your seed reasonably thinne upon a plain smooth bed of fine earth or rather in pots or tubs and after the sowing sift or gently strew over them some fine good fresh mould about one fingers thickness at the most for the first time and about a month after their springing up sift or strew over them in like manner this is a necessary circumstance another fingers thickness of fine earth and in the mean time if the weather prove dry you must water them gently and often and thus doing you shall have them spring up before winter and grow pretty strong able to abide the sharp winter in their Nonage in using some little care to cover them loosly with Fearne furze or Bean-straw or any such things which must neitherly close to nor too farre from them The next Spring after the sowing or which is better the next August you may remove them and set them in order by Rowes with sufficient distance one from another where they may abide until
you see what manner of flower they will bear Many of them being thus ordered if your mould be fine loose and fresh not stony clayish or from a middin will bear flowers the second year after the sowing and most or all of them the third year if your ground be frêe from smoaks and other annoyances Nay Mr. Austen of Wadham Coll. a skillfull florist assured me that he has had Anemones from the seed sowed in summer that were in flower within ten moneths of the time of their sowing N. 3. Clovergrasse being esteemed as great an improvement as any our ground is capable of I shall adde such speciall directions as are given for the ordering thereof Sir Richard Westons observations and rules are as falloweth Clovergrasse-seed thrives best when you sow it in the worst and barrennest ground Such as our worst heath ground in England The ground is thus prepar'd for seed First pare of the heath then make the paring into little hills you may put to one hill as much paring as comes off from a Rod or Pole of ground which is the square of sixteen feet and a half The hill being sufficiently made and prepared as they doe in Devonshiring as we call it are to be fired and burnt into ashes And unto the ashes of every hill you must put a peck of unslake Lime the Lime is to be covered over with the ashes and so to stand til Rain comes and slakes the lime After that mingle your ashes and Lime together and so spread it over your land This done either against or shortly after rain plough and sowe ploughing not above foure inches deep and not in furrowes but as plain as you can and to make it yet plainer harrow afterwards and that with bushes under your Harrowes The ground being thus prepared you may sow your seeds An Acre of ground will take about ten pounds of Clover-grasse-seed which is in measure somwhat more then half a Peck The chief season for sowing it is April or the latter end of March. About the fift of June it will be ready to be cut It yeelds excellent hay The time of cutting it will be more exactly knowne by observing when it begins to knot for that is the time And ere the year be done it will yeild you three of those crops all of them very good hay and after you have thus cut it the third time you may then feed the ground with Cattle all the winter as you doe other ground But if you intend to preserve seed then must you expect but two crops that year and you must cut the first according to the foresaid directions but the second growth must be let stand till the seed of it be come to a full and dead ripenesse and then must you cut it and thresh the tops and so preserve the seed you shall have at least five bushells of seed from every Acre This seed thus threshed off there will be left long stalks these your Cattle will eat but when they grow old and hard you are to boile those stalks and make a mash of them and it will be very nourishing either for Hogs or any thing that eat thereof After the second cutting for seed you must cut that year no more but as it springs again feed it with Cattle One Acre of it will feed you as many Cowes as six ordinary Acres and you will find your milke much richer which induces some not to cut it at all but onely to graze it for their Dayry Being once sowed it will last five years and then being plowed it will yeild three or four years together rich crops of wheat and after that a crop of Oats And as the Oats begin to come up then sow it with Clover-seed which is in it self excellent Manure for your need not bestow any new dressing upon the ground and by that time you have cut your Oates you will find a delicare grasse grown up underneath upon which if you please you may graze with Cattle or Horse all that year after and the next year take your crop as before at pleasure To prevent mistake I must give this advertisement that whereas Sir Richard Weston commends heathy ground he is not to be understood of such dry and barren ground without its best Manure by chalk lime and the like artifices of husbandry For otherwise it has failed in the growth improvement thereby expected Mr. Blith commends ground naturally good betwixt ten and twenty shillings an Acre giving this generall Rule that no land can be too good for Clover that is not too good for Corn. Hempe and Flax are vsed to have the same culture and the best husbandry that I have observed of them has been in Staffordshire where this procedure is generally observed About the beginning or middle of Aprill the flax seed is sowen upon new broken ground immediately upon its being broken up The seed they either have from their own Crop or buy it from a warmer Country Mr. Blith reports the true East-Country seed to be farre the best who for tryall of both sowed on the same land the Ridge or Middle with our Country seed and both the furrowes with Dutch or east-country seed such as is bought in the seedsmens shops at Billingsgate in London the effect was that our seed though on the ridge it had the advantage of the ground was encompassed with the Dutch as with a wall about it so much the Easterne seed did out grow it He likewise for warmer parts as Essex and Kent thinks mid-March a convenient feason for sowing it If weeds grow therein they carefully weed their crop and pull it in dry weather when it lookes yellow lest growing over ripe it blacken and mildew and tye it up in handfulls that it may perfectly dry Then they ripple it is that they get out the seeds by drawing it through an â—ngine like an iron double tooth combe which they call a Ripple the boles of seed pulled off they lay on a boarded or playsterd floore to dry it being dryed they lay it up and thresh it not out of the boles till March when they winnow it clean from the huskes The watering of it is thus The Flax being well dryed they bind up about 20 handfulls in a bundle and putting many of these bundles together they stake them down in the water that they may not be carryed away by the Streame The flax abides in water 4 or 5 dayes and nights then they spread it on the grasse that it may dry turning it every 3 dayes and when it is full dryed they lay it up and house it and when they see their occasion they use their Brake and Crack instruments devised for the purpose to bring the Tow from the Flax. The whole Government and husbandry of hemp from the seed to the distaffe is so like this of Flax that the same example and rule may very well serve for both Woad according to Mr. Bliths directions is
best sowed where you sow your Barly or Oates upon that very husbandry or tilth about the middle of March and may grow up among the Corn because it groweth not fast the first summer but after the Corn is cut it must be preserved it requires a rich and warme soil This plant is of great use to Dyars and coloureth the bright yellow or lemon colour It abates the strength and superrichnesse of land and may prepare for Corn in land of its own Nature too rich which is as Mr. Blith observes sometimes a fault though not so frequently as the contrary extreme Beans require a low deep ground and Waterish not dry sandy or gravelly soyle This is true of feild beanes though I first Tooke notice of the great difference in our London Gardens where the labourers for their own eating would give one part in three more for a measure of beanes from the former than from the latter soyl who assured me that from the same seed and care garden beans have much more meale pulpe or kernell and thinner skins in the moist than in the dryer and lesse waterish ground N. 4. The Generall observations for the manner of sowing Besides the Examples aforesaid I shall adde some rules such as by Gardiners are usually observed This is generall that all seeds must be covered with the earth which is done either by sowing the ground and turning the seed in under the furrow or by drawing trenches in the soyle and then drawing the earth over them with a hoe or sowing the beds ready drest and hacking in the seed with the same instrument or by harrowing raking with a rake or drawing bushes over the sowed ground to cover the seed or to set the single seeds with a stick or lastly to sow the ground and afterwards to sift or strow fine mould thereon The two laste wayes are for choice seeds when the workeman desires to loose none for want of burying the sowing under furrow is for such seeds as must endure the winter the depth of ground being part of their security against the winter colds nor are all seeds of strength to shoot their germen through so so much earth The sowing intrenches is used for Pease there being thereby spaces left between the rowes of half a yard more or lesse to gather them as they ripen and roome whence to draw mould to the roots which frequently done is very advantageous to them It is likewise handsome for Spinach Endive Thyme Savory or other garden herbs to grow in rowes after this manner of sowing Moisture is absolutely necessary for the growth of all plants two or three dayes after a great rain is accounted a good season in dry weather two dayes after rain say the London Gardiners agreably to that of Ferrarius Nec tamen simulac magnis imbribus terra permaduit seres sed tantisper expectabis dum pluvius ille mador modice exsiccetur ne madenti limosoque in solo statutae radices exputrescant de Fl. cult l. 3. c. 1. Seeds that are apt to run to a Muscilage are unfit to endure moisture upon that account as els where I noted I prescribe nothing concerning the observation of the faces of the moone because I much doubt of any effect therefrom Neither doe Gardiners that work nor Authors that write prescribe alike rules but contradict each other in their direction for the particular observation of this Planet as to any intended production Nor is it agreeable to my reason that the moones being in the full at the first explication of the two dissimilar leaves or germination of the plant should cause a double flower this germination according to this present History differing little from other augmentations of the same plant in opposite quarters immediately ensuing so that if a full moone be proper I see no reason why it may not be effectuall by vertue of the same phasis the third as the first or the twelveth as the sixt day of the seedlings augmentation The meliorating of ground belongs to the head of Improvement here I shall only observe that where ground is very light as in some London and Kentish gardens it is found profitable after sowing to tread in the seed Some steep all garden seed before they sow them to make the germination the more speedy but seeing there be no better wayes of infusion than in Farth and Water why the same bosome of a well watered ground should not be most fit for this operation I see not In seeds that are long in coming up the seed bed is not to be digged up the first winter For I know diverse seeds that will for a great part of them ly under ground the first year and come up the second of this Nature is the Ash-key sometimes the Peach Malecotone and some Plums N. 5. Of variety of kindes different in colour taste smell and other sensible qualities proceeding from some seeds and what plonts they are that bring seeds yeild-such va riety In Carnations you have seeds that give admirable Variety from the Orange-tawny Carnation and all his strip't kinds that are double and keepe their tawny in them in any measure The white Tawny and Carnations darkly spotted Ferrarius commends for producing variety of colours and stripes Kernells of divers Apples and Peares bring variety of kinds different in taste smell colour and hardnesse and are as often promoted to better as the degenerate to worst as I am very credibly informed by persons that professe themselves to have seen the experience The kernells of the Burgundy Pear has brought a noble alteration and produceth a pear farre beyond that excellent kind Peaches and Malecotones doe ordinarity the like so that by seed is thought to be their best propagation Our Gardiners in choosing the seed of stock-Gylli-flowers to make them bring double stocks take their seed from such tops as bring fine leaves in their flower of ecially if it be one strip't but Mr. P. sayes those that bear double seeds cannot be distinguished from the other and I have reason to beleive him for such as chuse their seed this way doe not find that it answers their expectation For Tulips that are early or Praecoces the purple says Mr. Parkinson I have found to be the best next thereto is the purple with white edges and so likewise the red with yellow edges but each of them will bring most of their own Colours For the Media's take those colours that are light rather white then yellow and purple then red yea white not yellow purple not red but these again to be spotted is the best and the more the better but withall or aboveall in these respect the bottome of the flower which in the precox Tulipa you cannot because you shall find no other ground in them but yellow for if the flower be white or whitish sported or edged and straked and the bottome blew or purple which is found in the Holias and in the Cloath of Silver this is
beyond all other the most excellent and out of question the choisest of an hundred to beget the greatest and most pleasant variety and raritie and so in degree the meaner in beauty you sow the lesser shall your ple sure in varieties be Bestow not your time in sowing red or yellow Tulipa-seed or the diverse mixtures of them they will as I have found by experience seldome be worth your paines The Serolina being not beautifull brings forth no speciall varietye Ferrarius lib. 3 chap. 7. commends the Serolina for seed but I find he makes but two sorts Praecoces and Serolin's and among them the white with the black purple or blew bottomes or Scarlet with skycoloured bottome inclining to purple for both them will sayes he bring Tulips mark't with varietye and handsomnesse But Tulips without a blackish bottome are noe good breeders of various coloured flowers The two lesser Spanish bastard Daffodills the leaves of which are of a whitish green colour one alittle broader then the other and the flowers pure white bending down their their heads that they almost touch the Stalk again give Seed from which springs much varietye few or none keeping either colour or height with their mother plant The seeds of divers Son breads by name the Roman Sowbred with round leaves the Autumnall Ivy leaved Sowbread some flowers-de-lis and many sorts of Bears-eares doe the like in produceing admirable variety As for Anemones take 't from Mr. P. and our common dayly experience that there is not so great variety of double flowers raised from the seeds of thinne leave'd Anemones as from the broad leaved ones Of the Latifolias the double Orange-rawny seed being sowen yeildeth pretty varietyes but the purples or reds or crimsons yeild small varietyes but such as draw nearest to their originall although some be a little deeper or lighter then others But the light colours are they that are chief for choice as white ash-colour blush or Carnation light Orange Simple or party-coloured single or double if they bear seed which must be carefully gathered and that not before it be fully ripe which you shall know by the head for when the seed with the woollinesse beginneth a little to rise of it self at the lower end then must it be quickly gathered lest the wind carry it all away after it is thus carefully gather'd it must be layd to dry for a week or more which then being gently rubbed with a little dry sand or earth will cause the seed to be better separated although not throughly from the wooliness or downe that compasseth it In the seed of the Mervayle-of-the-world take notice that if you would have variable flowers you must chuse out such flowers as be variable while they blow that you may have their seed for in this plant if the flower be of a single colour the seed will likely bring the same N. 6. Some other relations of transmutation and the possibility of a change of ones species into another examined I have often heard persons affirme that they have sowed Barley or some other grain and in the ground the seed has been so altered as to send forth Oates insteed of corn according to its own species I am as yet farre from giving any assent to this their History The Reasons why I disbeleive them are first because the Relators affirme whole fields to be thus varied and that to one species viz of Oates which is different from Barley in the straw eare and grain it selfe Whereas in the variation of seed in those vegetables in which the change is undoubted the colour only or some other easily alterable accidents such as the sensible qualities are generally found are transmuted and this transmutation ends not at all in another divers kind but in severall small diversities of the same kind The storyes of Wheat turned to Mustard-seed were as likely to be true and is a fit parallell to create a right beleife of the true cause of the mentioned effect Secondly I knew a Gentleman who plowed a piece of land in the spring and then sowed it not but after it was harrowed and prepared for seed left it to its own Genius and nature to produce what it was inclined to The Ground was off its own Nature apt to bring forth wild-Oates amidst the Corn now in defect of Corn there grew as many wild-Oates unmixt from any other weeds as the land could carry This was tryed in a great peice of land and much proffit was made of the Oates the Gentleman having cut them green for Fodder Anno 1657. My judgment therefore is That the fallacy which befell my above named Relators was that they mistook the cause of the production of the Oates mentioned for to me it is much more easie to conceive that by some evill accident as it often happens the seed corn being corrupted and perish't in the ground the ground it 's self from its own Seminary sent out the supposititious Crop of Oates or Mustard than that there should be a variety of so strange a Nature and declension from its property in the issue of any species It is indeed growen to be a great question whether the transmutation of a species be possible either in the vegetable Animal or Minerall kingdome For the possibility of it in the vegetable I have heard Mr. Bobart and his Son often report it and proffer to make oath that the Crocus and Sladiolus as likwise the Leucoium and Hyacinths by a long standing without replanting have in his garden changed from one kind to the other and for satisfaction about the curiosity in the presence of Mr. Boyle I tooke up some bulbs of the very numericall roots whereof the relation was made though the alteration was perfected before where we saw the diverse bulbs growing as it were on the same stoole close together but no bulb half of the one kind and the other half of the other But the change-time being past it was reason we should beleive the report of good artists in matters of their own faculty Mr. Wrench a skilfull and industrious gardiner for fruit and kitching-plants told me that the last year there was a change betwixt the kinds of the Coleflower and the cabbage Others I know who as from their experience most confidently affirme that they have prime-roses of the milk white colour the root whereof before in another ground bare Oxelips and it is usually beleived that divers single flowers may be changed into double by frequent transplantations made into better grounds I knew those that have had the wood Anemonies and Colchiums double who affirme that they took them into their garden wild and fingle and that that change was made by the soyle and culrure of the place For the animall Kingdome the instances of transmutation are in silkwormes cadiz and all caterpillars which after a long sleep from the reptile turne into the volatile kind The minerall Kingdom is supposed to be famous and fruitfull in these
changes the hope of the Philosophers stone or perfecting medicine requiring this beleife Yet I am perswaded that in many of their changes they rather separate and bring to apparence a latent minerall than produce it by the transmutation of another into that nature Sennertus recants those writtings of his that affirmed iron to have been turned into copper by naturall and artificiall waters of Vitrioll The effect only in his second and more mature judgment being the separation of a copper before latent in the Vitrioll and the precipitation of it by the parts of the iron and I have seen some experiments made by the honorable Person for whom I am now writing that have added strength to my former perswasion particularly the supposed transmutation of quicksilver into lead published as real by the learned Vintzerus and others and to be made by dissolving the quicksilver in aqua fortis precipitating it by the tincture of Minium proved but sophisticall the Lead produced that way being indeed not made of the Mercury but only reduced out of the tincture of Minium wherein it lurck't as that Gentleman doth more circumstantially set down in his own papers and others of the like nature which it were not proper here further to insist on It is a question whether there be any reall transmutation from the vegetable to the minerall kingdome in petrifaction of any sort of wood those petrifactions which I have seen in England are made thus some particles of stone that impregnate the body of water make a crust about the stick that is to be petrified and enter into the pores thereof as fast as they are layed open by the water washing through the stick wherein there interceeds noe change of the same parts but by addition of some and substraction of others if I imagine aright the new effect is wrought The proof whereof may be that the fibres of wood appear visible and to the touch and taste amidst the body of the stone In Ireland there is a Lake wherein as that Noble Person I but now mentioned hath related to me there is soe great a petrifying faculty that the best wherstones used in that nation are made of wood cast therein to be petrified In which stones though all the lineaments of the woody fibres remain yet they are indued with the hardnesse and other qualities of an exact stone And Corall the entire stonynesse thereof noe man can doubt may well be imagined to be originally a vegetable bearing root stalk and leafe and that afterward it is turned into its hardnesse by the peculiar property of the water whether these operations of nature are likewise perfected by addition and substraction of parts only or whether it be required that some parts for the production of this effect be transmuted I shall not determine And for the deciding the whole question if the form be specificall and so made by the aggregation of a certain number of accidents those accidents that number must be assigned that are thought enough to compleat a new form before we may begin to judge in this matter for that very many accidents maybe changed it appears by the above named instances in vegetables in other bodyes many more Vinegerand Wine are the same parts transposed and yet there seemes to be more difference between them than between Endive and Cichory Maidenhaire and Scolopendrium Rubarb and Dockes which are in Vegetables esteemed for diverse species formally or specifically distinguished N. 7. Of Provision for seed Many Rootes are to be transplanted at the latter end of the year and will bring forth perfect seeds as Carrets Parsneps Turneps Cabbages are to be layd in Cellars all winter the roote and Cabbage being replanted in the spring or the seed may be got though not in so plentifull a manner from the stalks of Cabbages whence in the season the Cabbage was taken either replanted or standing in their old places Coleflowers give their seed from the like care that is bestowed on the Cabbage I have seen Gardiners that provide Cabbage-seed in great quantitie for the shops in London upon their course ground to sow Cabbage seed which without transplantation shall bring forth Coleworts for boyling hearbs and then a crop of seed many plants that bear fruit bring their seed every year in their fruits so Apples Peares Plumes Peaches Aprecots Wheat Barley Rye Pease Beanes and many that beare no fruit doe the like so Lettuce Radish all grasses so that unlesse some peculiar plants which require to be excepted Yucca Indica bears neither flower nor seed in lesse than four years time 't is generall that each seed will ripen every year and the best generall token of maturity is its loosness from the pedall by which it s joyned to the stock so as kernells in ripe Apples grow loose from the core Those persons that make Verjuce or Cider can best furnish him that intends a Nursery for notwithstanding both the violence of Mill or Presse the kernells escape entire enough for Vegetation but care must be had that they be immediately sowen after the pressing lest being layd on a heap they heat in the manner of wet Hay and burn the germen of the seed which in the moisture of the bruised fruit by that heat will prematurely sprout forth to its own perishing In providing Lettuce seed mark the plants that you see strongest for seed and after they have begun to shoot stalks strip away the lowest leaves for two or three hâ—nds breadth above the ground that by them the stalk be not rotted Let Carnation and Gilly flower-Cods of seed stand upon the Roote so long as you may for danger of frost then cut the stems off with the Cods on them and dry them so as not to loose the seeds The drynesse of the Cods and blackness of the seed is an Argument of ripenesse Ferrarius Lib. 3. Cap. 15. Reports that the bottome of every Cod brings the best seed and the largest flowers The seed of Crocus's are only or at least best taken from the ordinary stript vernall Crocus the great purple Crocus the great blew Crocus of Naples the stript purple the lesse purple flame coloured the purple with small leaves the yellow stript the cloath of Gold Clovergrasse and seeds of that nature are provided by letting the grasse run timely to seed particularly by moving it about May and thence abstaining till theseed is through ripe Such seeds as are weighty and sinke in water are best the contrary are usually languid and unfit for propagation Out-Landish seeds are used for such plants whose seeds cannot be got here for want of Maturity or any other reason The Spanish-Muske-Melon-seed is accounted best though we use our own with good successe few Gardiners here will use their own Onion-seed for they find it runnes to Scallions Myrtle with us comes not to seed nor Mulbery For the sensitive plant the Amaracoc or Passion flower c. we send for seed to the Barbado's
poleson a hill and both the sun and plow may have free passage between them those that have less ground make lesse distances and toyle their garden with the spade and put but three poles to a hill whereas such as plant 9 or 10 foote distance use four at the least if not five In planting which is thought to be best done when the frosts are past some prescribe April for the season there is nothing required but that they be set about the center of the place intended for the Hill upon the plain surface of the ground in good mould about three four or five in number according to the bigness of the Hill intended and ordered with the usuall care of offsets besides this particular that as the sets grow the hill must be raised to their heads Saffron delights in a reasonable good and dry light ground not extreamly soyled or moist 't is planted chiefly in some parts of Essex Suffolke and between that and Cambridge at Saffron-Walden They are set in the manner of bulbous roots being taken when the bulbe is at the fullest commonly about Midsummer the bulbs are set by a line that the beds may be weeded with a hoe and that either with a setting stick or by trenches made in the manner of those wherein garden pease are usually sowed This beares in the middle of the flower three chives which is the Saffron to be gathered every morning early and dryed for use every second or third year at the furthest the beds must be replanted and the offsets drawn away The generall way of this propagation is to take the offsets that rise from the bulbous and tuberous rooted plants as Tulips Anemones Narcisses Crocus's c. the suckers which from the roots of poplars Elmes Nuttrees Peares Burts Nursgardens Kentish Codlings Gooseberryes Roses Ruscus Calamus Aromaticus are very plentifully are drawn and more or less from all mentioned in the Catalogue N. 1. Chap. 2. and to replant them in the seasons of setting which are related in the proper chapter for that operation into proper beds and in convenient distances for their future education and growth N. 3. Variety of colours in what flowers from what offsets Our Gardiners respect most the roots of widdowes for that they find by experience that they multiply the variety of Tulips not only from seeds but from the offsets of these widdows I my self have seen admirable declensions of them from their naturall purple and white The royall Crocus striped gives now and then very pretty variety from its offsets as sometimes I have seen on the same roote an ordinary striped Crocus and another of a perfect flame colour though the variery here be not so great as in Tulips Concerning the manner of growth by Offsets there is little to be spoken particularly their roots being actually made while they remaine upon the mother plant and their growth being like that of other well rooted vegetables CHAP. 3. Of propagations by stemmes cuttings or slippes N. 1. A Catalogue of plants this way propagable Abrotonum Vnguentarium Balsamita Barberyes Basil Basilmint Bay Baume Box. Brooklime Burts and generally all such plants as break out into protuberances like warts upon the bark Bugle Cornelian Cherry Many Crowfootes Donas his woodwort being cut off neer the roote Elder Evergreen-Privet Germanders Gilliflowers Hyssope Jasmine Kentish Codlings Knotgrasse Lavander Lawrell Marjerome Marsh-mallowes being taken up neer the roote Mastique Mulberyes Nursgardens Penny-royall Periwincle Pincks Polium monstanum Prunella or Selfe heale Quinces Some Roses as the ever-green Rose Rosemary Rue Sage both English and French Savory Savin in moist ground and shadowy Scordium Southernwood Spearmints Strawberies and generally all plants that have joynts upon creeping strings Thime Tripolium Veronica erecta Vines Violets Wall flowers Watercresse in water Withy Willow Woodbine N. 1. Explication of the Manner of propagation by stemmes cut off from the Mother-plant or slip't by example and Rules for particular direction For example I shall chuse to instance in Gilliflowers or Carnations for which flowers observe this order Seeke out from the stemmes such shoots onely as are reasonable strong but yet young and not either too small or slender or having any second shoots from the joynts of them or run up into a spindle cut these slips off from the stem or roote with a knife either close to the maine branch if it be short or leaving a joynt or two behind if it be long enough at which it may shoote anew when you have cut off your slips you may either set them by and by or else as the best Gardiners use to doe cast them into a tub of water for a day or two then in a bed of rich and fine mould first cutting off your slip close at the joynt and having cut away the lowest leaves close to the stalke and the uppermost even at the top with a litle stick make a little hole in the earth and put your slip therein so deep that the upper lease may be wholly above the ground some use to cleave the stalk in the middle and put a little earth or clay or chickweed which we more use within the cleft this is Mr. Hills way in Sir Hugh Plat but many good and skilful Gardiners doe not use it then close the ground unto the stemme of the plant As for the time If you slip and set them in September as many use to doe or yet in August as some may think will doe well yet unlesse they be the most ordinary sorts which are likely to grow at any time and in any place the most of them if not all will either assuredly perish or never prosper well the season indeed is from the beginning of May to the middle of June at furthest Ferrarius Lib. 2. c. 15. sayes that from the moneth of February to the middle of March viz in the time of their germination is the best time to slip this flower He neither will have them slipt nor twisted in the Roote nor Barly put under them to raise adulterous fibres but only advises that they be cut off in a joynt The truth is both the Spring and Autumne are good Seasons for makeing out Roots the latter requires that the slip be so early set as that they may have time enough to take Roote before the coldness of winter The former that the plant set in the spring may have taken Roote before the Sun rises to emit violent and parching heats which are generall Rules for Vernall and Autumnall settings Woody plants that bear leaves must be taken off planted some time between the fall of the leafe and the spring some preferre the planting them in the beginning some at the going out of the winter about the beginning of February Immediately when the great frosts breake at the first towardnesse to spring is a good season according to generall beleife Experiments made of the succcsse of the cuttings off diveâ—s plants set in water Because in
of the ground without any hole dig'd to lay a load of such dirt as is found in streets to the root upon the Turf yet so that the rain may abide and not by reason of the banck run from the root of the new set fruit-tree For Wall-Trees it is convenient the Roots be set at such distance from the foundation of the Walls that they may have room in the Earth for their roots a foot is a convenient space generally for then the heads will without difficulty be drawn to the Wall and the Roots not be prejudiced Those Wall-Fruits that are set abroad as Vines c. being-kept shorn in their Branches and not suffered to climb become good bearers especially if they are set near the reflection of Gravel-Walks or upon other Ground kept bare from Weeds For the planting of Woods in general for increase of under Wood Mr. Blith's way is generally approved to cast up double Dirches and plant any sorts of Wood in the form of a Quick-set Some sow seed on the Bancks in orderly rows and set likewise on the top as well as both sides of the Bank The time is assoon as the Leaf is fallen in any Weather or Season The Plants in a more sound ground are Ash Oak Elm Sycamore Maples Crabs Thorns in a more moist Ground as a drained Bog Poplar Willow Sallow Osier which grow by Truncheons In which watery soils the way of raising Ditches is most necessary For neither Willow Sallow Osier nor any other Plant will grow in a Bog without soundness of ground What Plants grow by cuttings what by laying for the more ready thickning of Woods may be seen above in the proper Chapter There is a story freely defended and frequently both in discourses Printed and spoken that the chips of Elm being sowed will grow but that is somewhat like Kirchers experiments before-mentioned in the Chapter of cuttings and not a whit more true otherwise to sow those Chips would be a good profitable and frugal way for thickning Woods The cause of the Countrey mans mistake for I suppose not that this error arose from Philosophers I imagine to be this At the felling of great Elms many chips must needs be scattered and flie round about the Tree and be covered in Grass thereabouts now the next year after the fall there arise generally great numbers of Suckers from the Toots of the old Tree which roots must emit all the sap they gather up into these Suckers the great Trunck being removed And these Suckers are easily mistaken to arise from the chips because they always come upon the felling of Elms where chips are found and grow at such distance as chips are ordinarily scattered N. 3. Whether any Vegetables may be set so as to grow in the Air. There is a question now-adays frequently proposed Whether there be more Soils then the ordinary Turf or surface of the Earth tempered with some water soyl being meant for the ground in which things may be set to grow I need not speak much upon it as to Water which by Experiments related in the Chapter concerning Propagation by cuttings appears to have a property to elicite Roots and make them where they were not and nourish the Plants by them after they were made to which I must adde this circumstance not before mentioned that Periwinckle and divers others continued their growth by this nourishment alone from year to year not dying in the Winter How long they might have continued I can't assert for being absent this Winter and no fires being kept near the water in the Glasses was so raryfied by the Frost that the sides could not contain it but were forced asunder thereby and so the Plants perished whereas otherwise they being set in a â—oom over my Laboratory I question not had many of them continued till now Some put forward that the Air might have the faculty of nourishing Vegetables ascribed to it And no wonder when Paracelsus makes it a sufficient nourishment for men and brings instances for the proof of his assertion But I finde That Onions Tulips and all Bulbous Roots though they shoot out a green leaf yet do very much lessen in their weight and it appears that this growth is but the motion of the same parts or some few of them to settle and gather in another place and another order or scituation in relation to each other for the Onion particularly hath the thicker coverings of the Bulb very much stretched out and each covering as it increaseth in length and breadth by rising into a leaf so the thickness considerable while it covered the Bulb onely decreaseth proportionably and is molden into a thinner and more largely extended Vestment I have hung up divers Sedums Orpines Tithymalls and other such Plants which I imagined most likely to grow by the Air onely and to encrease and be augmented thereby and found that by all my endeavors though the Plant grew well yet they always lost weight and never got the fourth part of a grain Aloes likewise though being hang'd up in the air with a cloath dipped in Sallat Oyl it sends forth for many years new leaves yet it always grows less and less in weight till at last the oldest leaves falling off and new coming up it grows to nothing CHAP. VII Of the means for the Improvement and best culture of Corn Grass and other Vegetables belonging to Husbandry and of the ways for removing the several annoyances that usually hinder such advantage Num. 1. Of the Annoyances to Land and the Impediments that usually distemper it to the disadvantage of the Husbandman THe Impediments that with us hinder the Husbandmen from making the greatest advantage of their ground are either the distempers of the ground it self or some evil accidents that occasionally happen thereto or to the vegetables growing thereon The distempers are generally caused either by the abounding of water above all other principles which causes coldness and a Dropsical disposition in the Earth or by the abounding of a dry Earth or Mineral and the want of moisture and saltness and that Spirit which should cause that motion in the insensible particles of the Earth which is proper for the exciting the Seeds of all things and so stirring the ground that the several particles may be at liberty to enter the Bodies of Vegetables fit for them the accidents come by blasting Winds rapacious Fowls Vermine and Weeds Fearn Heath Broom and other improfitable Vegetables of these and the usual remedies against them somewhat and the best that at the present occurs I shall speak in this Chapter N. 2. Of the remedies proper to cure the excessive coldness and moisture in Lands and the ways of Improvement thereby in Grounds subject to these distempers by draining Pigeons and Poultry dung Urine Soot Ashes Horse and Sheep dung Of Ground cold and dry and how these Soyls may be applyable thereto Bogginess and obstruction of Springs more or less is generally the cause of
good a crop of Wheat as ever was seen in England and afterward three Crops a year of Clover exceeding good one whereof was equal in value to a Crop of Wheat This being matter of Fact I believe it as to improvement by fertility because the Brine works very considerably in small proportion and Lime in this juncture may do well both to fertility and defence of the Grain against Grubs and Insects and Worms that abide in the Earth but surely as to blasting and Crows and Birds that spoil the Corn in the Ear it has no influence Moles by watering are drowned or driven up to so narrow a compass that they may be easily taken I have known them to have been forc'd to leave their holes to run upon the Turf to save their lives from the Water-flood Mr. Blith relates That one Spring about March one Mole-catcher and his Boy in about ten days time in a ground of ninety Acres being just laid down from Tillage took about three Bushels old and yong they were not to be numbred most of them being yong and naked and this he onely did by casting up their Nests which are always built in a great heap of double bigness to the rest most easily discerned and then the old ones would come to look their yong which he would snap up presently also At another Season then March which is their time of breeding such success is not to be expected In other times the best way is if there be any Hedges near to set the Gins or Traps there for their ordinary roads are in such Hedges and other places they cast up are but of uncertain use as when they intend forage for one time though it may be that they minde the use of that passage no more at all Bellonius advises to bury Moles in those places whence you would drive the rest of that Vermine and there may be somewhat in that remedy For many living Bodies have a great dislike to and antipathy against the putrified Bodies of their own kinde Thus Worms putrified at the Belly of a Childe outwardly and the powder given inwardly are esteemed as Medicines destructive to the Worm in the Belly though the latter way is by some thought to breed more then it kills Nay in Vegetables 'tis agreed That a yong Orchard will not thrive among the Roots of an old rotten Orchard the reason whereof some suppose to be the antipathy of the yong against the old putrifying Roots but of this effect other reasons may be as probable There be some other remedies for the same annoyances as particularly for the destruction of Fearn the Author named gives this prescription In the Spring when the Fearn begins to grow a little above the Grass while it is yong and tender take a crooked Pole or piece of Wood about six foot long coming in at one end like a Bow or made like a blunt Sithe with this strike off all the heads of the Fearn as low as you can even to the ground if possible do this the second or third time and it proves generally a certain remedy The reason as I suppose is the putrefaction of the Fearn it being a very moist Muscilaginous Plant by its own juice and the moisture of the Earth by which the very Roots themselves come to be corrupted or else the deprivation of all the Buds that germinate from the Root by cutting off the Sprouts so unseasonably For Ant-hills to destroy the Insects and take the hills down this manner is prescribed Divide the upper Turf into five or six parts then take it down with a turfing Spade to the bottom of the Banck the Turf being cut as thin as can be under the roots of the grass then take out the Core of the Bank that when the Turf is returned to its place it may lie there lower somewhat than the surface of the Earth that the moisture which will be a certain destruction of the Ants may a little reside there This must be done in November December or January that the Roots of the Grass may the better take to the ground before hot weather comes in the Spring Among Mr. Speeds notes there are these Recipts take red Herrings and cutting them in pieces burn the pieces on the Mole-hills or you may put Garlick or Leeks in the Mouthes of their Hills and the Moles will leave the ground I have not tryed these ways and therefore refer the Reader to his own tryal belief or doubt I had almost forgot to mention the change of Seed from grounds of a contrary nature which by the experience of Husbandmen is found very advantagious and is thought to prevent smootiness 'T is the custom in Buckinghamshire for those of the Vale to buy their Seed from the Chiltern on this account and this experiment is found profitable in Wheat Barley Pease and all Field Grains and not so onely but also in Garden Plants For the preserving early or late sowed Corn or the same when it begins to corn in the Ear from Crows Rooks or Jack-Dows Mr. Blith has invented this Scare-Crow You must says he kill a Crow or two and take them into the Field where they haunt and in the most obvious plain perspicuous places make a great hole of two foot over and about twenty Inches deep on the highest ground in the Field which hole must be stuck round about the edges with the longest Feathers the bottom must be covered with the shortest and some part of the Carkass and that Turf or Earth that is digged out of the hole being laid round upon a heap you may stick round with Feathers also One Crows Feathers will dress two or three holes and about six or eight holes will serve for a Field of ten or twelve Acres The Feathers will remain fresh a Moneth unless store of Rain or Weather beat them much and then if needful they must be renewed CHAP. VIII Of the Means of Improvement and best culture of such Plants or Flowers as are usually cultivated in Gardens or Orchards and of the ways used for the removing of such annoyances as are commonly incident to them Num. 1. Of the annoyances in general incident to Garden Plants THe Politician speaks it to be a part of as great skill and prowess to defend a place already gotten and to improve it to the benefit of the Prince and Inhabitants as it was at the first to arrive at the Conquest this is alike true in the Gardinets Province It is no easie thing with him to raise a stock of choice Plants by the several ways of propagation above mentioned and as hard to preserve them being propagated from destruction by foreign and intestine violence For either the sharpnesse of cold the torridness of the Sun Vermine or other accident from without or want of convenient and nourishable soyl of earth and water and other Elements proportionable to the plant will be such internal deâ—â—ciencies as to cause utter destruction or the
nastiness and premature or on the contrary the tardy and slow germination thereof will hinder its excellency or weeds or other vegetables may grow up to its hinderance and many other impediments there are which with their several remedies as they shall suggest themselves to my thoughts I shal propose in the present Chapter the last of this discourse N. 2. Of defences for choice plants from cold One great annoyance to all choice flowers and tender plants arises from the violence of the Winter cold the defence against which you shall have as far as I am able to give you and can think of in the following directions Let those Bulbous Roots that are tender such as the great double white Daffodill of Constantinople and other fine Daffodills that come from hot Countries the Ornithagolum Arabicum purple Montain Moly c. be planted in a large Tub or pot of earth and housed all the Winter that so they may be defended from the frosts or else which is the easier way keep the Roots out of the ground every year from September after the leaves and stalkes are past untill February in some dry but not hot or windy place and then plant them in the ground under a South-wall which are Mr. Parkinsons directions Alsoe the late Pine-aple Moly the Civet Moly of Mompelier the litle hollow white Asphodill which though its roots are not glandulous as to be capable of the last way yet they are well preserved many yeares if by housing they shall be defended from the winter wett and cold Rose-bay Mirtles the Indian Gelsimines Jucca Indica Orange trees must be housed in the Winter so likewise the Cypresse Bay Piracantha Mirtle Pine-tree Rose-bay with Spanish seed or at the least must be cover'd with straw or Ferne or bean-hame or such like thing layd upon crosse-sticks to bear it up from the plants till they are two or three yeares growth and fit to be removed to their places Arbutus or the Strawberry tree Sea-Ragwort the Pomegranate and the Indian Figge require the same care Ferrarius commends a Garden house with Walls of thick mosse as good and so without question it is against the Winter cold and Summer heat Some defend their Mirtles Pomegranates and such other tender plants either by houses made of straw like Bee-hives or of boards with inlets for the Sun by casements or without them Litter of Horse-stables being layd in very cold weather about the houses of defence It was a custome in Italy to make such fences for Myrtles especially when young as appeares by Virgills Verse Dum teneras defendo a frigore Myrtos The Roots of the Marvaile of the World Mr. Park has preserved by art a Winter two or three for they 'l perish being let out in a garden unlesse it be under a house side or such dry place because many times the year not falling out kindely the plants give no ripe seed and so Gardiners would be to seek for seed to sow and Roots to set if this or the like art to keep them were not used T is thus Within a while after the Frosts have taken the plants that the leaves wither and fall dig up the Roots whole and lay them in a dry place for three or foure dayes that the superfluous moysture on the outside may be withered and dryed which done wrap them up severally in two or three browne papers and lay them by in a box chest or tub in some convenient place of the house all the winter time where no wind or moist air may come unto them and thus shall you have these Roots to spring afresh the next yeare if you plant them in the beginning of March as Mr. P. has by his own relation sufficiently tryed but some have tryed to put them up in a barrell or firkin of sand and ashes which also is good if the sand and ashes be throughly drye but if it be any thing moist or if they give again in the Winter as it is usuall they have found the moisture of the Roots or of the sand or both to putrifie the Roots The same Author takes notice that t is one great hurt to Gilly-slowers in the Winter and to all other herbs to suffer the Snow to lye upon them any time after it is fallen for it doth so chill them that the Sun doth though in Winter scorch them up shake therefore off your snow gently not suffering it to lye on a day if you can There is the like inconvenience from Frosts which corrupt the Roots and cause them to rot and breake for prevention take straw or Litter of an horse stable and lay some thereof about every Root of your Gilly-flowers especially the best sorts close unto them upon the ground being carefull that none lye upon the green leaves or as little as may be Let it lie till March with its winds is past The generall Remedy for these and all flowers is to be covered with mats which are removeable at pleasure The choicest of all are put in pots and housed Num. 3. Of shades requisite to sundry Plants especially when young for their defence from the Sun and Winde All sorts of Carnations Gilly-flowers and Plants that are tender and yong especially your April and May Seedlings are to be preserved and defended from the violent heat of the Sun and blasting Winds I have seen whole Beds of divers sorts of young Seedlings utterly burnt up at their first appearing by the violence of two or three hot days Nor do Seedlings onely require this but all Plants that are not altogether wild of how woody substance soever that are newly growing from cuttings or parts without actual Roots Shades are commodious if not absolutely necessary to many Plants even when they are well rooted as Bays Lawrel Savin and most Wood-plants a mixture of Shade and Sun to Straw-berries so that the Lord Bacon wittily advises to sprinkle a little â—orrage-seed on the Strawberry-bed for that the Straw-berries under those Leaves grow far more large then their fellows The best shades are made by thin well pruned Hedges drawn through the Garden or Nursery or by Mats laid over them and underpropt by a frame of light Poles But all Seedlings Flowers or other Plants that are kept in Pots are readily removed into convenient shade at pleasure Of watering Watering with water that has stood two or three days in the Sun is absolutely necessary for all Stringy Roots that I know at their first removals and at any time when any Trees or Plants are weak by reason of Drought All manner of Layers must be specially regarded for matter of watering and those Plants which are to be propagated by the circumposition of a Basket of Mould to make Dwarf Plants as they call them are specially to be watered in dry times All maner of Gourds Melons Cucumbers even in ordinary weather require this help although already firmly rooted But there is this difference in Plants Those that require an hungry ground
shall well be content with thin water Sun'd But Kitchin ground is best improved by fat water wherein Ordure has been washed And some caution is to be had that by too much water you do not chill or over-glut the ground often and little is the best use and in the Spring and Autumn when Frosts are feared 't is better watering in the Morning then at Night in Summer the Night I esteem the better Season There is a pretty way of watering choice Plants by wetting a streiner and so letting one end of it hang over a Vessel of water which will draw up the moisture from the Bason and let it gently fall down the streiner to the Root of the Plant. N. 4. Examples of the best Culture of Hops and ways of ordering them after they are first set taken out of Mr. Blith When says he your Hops are grown two foot high binde up with a Rush or Grass your springs to the Poles as doth not of it self winding them as oft about the Poles as you can and winde them according to the course of the Sun but not when the dew is upon them your Rushes lying in the Sun will toughen says he but surely better in the shade And now you must begin to make your Hills and for that purpose get a strong Hoe of a good broad bit and cut or hoe up all the Grass in the borders between your Hills and therewith make your Hills with a little of your Mould with them but not with strong Weeds and the more your Hills are raised the better the larger and stronger grows your Root and bigger will be your fruit and from this time you must be painful in your Garden and be ever and anon till the time of gathering in raising your Hills and clearing your Ground from Weeds In the first year suppress not one Cyon but suffer them all to climb up the Poles for should you bury the Springs of any of your Roots it would die so that the more Poles are required to nourish the Spring But after the first year you must not suffer above two or three stalks to grow up to one Pole but pull down and bury all the rest Yet you may let them grow four or five foot long and then choose out the best for use As soon as your Pole is set you may make a circle how broad your Hill shall be and then hollow it that it may receive the moisture and not long after proceed to the building of your Hills And where you began or where your Hops are highest there begin again and pare again and lay them to your Hops but lay the out circle highest to receive moisture be alway paring up and laying it to the heap and that with some Mould until the heap comes to be near a yard high but the first year make it not too high and as you pass through your Garden have a forked Wand in your hand to help the Hops that hang not right Now these Hills must the next year be pulled down and dressed again every year Some when their Hop binde is eleven or twelve foot high break off the tops which is better then they that have their Poles so long as the Hop runs But if that your Hop by the midst of July attain not to the top of your Pole then break off the top of the same Hop for the rest of the time will nourish the branches which otherwise will loose all it being no advantage in running up to the stoâ—k or increase of the Hop In April help every Hill with a handful or two of good Earth when the Hop is wound about the Pole but in March you will finde unless it hath been tilled all Weeds but if you have pull'd down your Hills and laid your ground as it were level it will serve to maintain your Hills for ever but if you have not pulled down your Hills you should with your Hoe as it were undermine them round till you come near the Principal Root and take the upper or yonger Roots in your hand and discerning where the new Roots grow out of the old sets of which be careful but spare not the other but in the first year uncover no more but the tops of the old sets but cut no Roots before the end of March or beginning of April The first year of dressing you must cut off all such as grew the year before within one inch of the same and every year after cut them as close to the old Roots those that grow downward are not to be cut they be those that grow outward which will incumber your Garden the difference between old and new easily appears you will finde your old sets not increased in length but a little in bigness and in few years all your sets will be grown into one and by the colour also the main Root being red the other white but if this be not early done then they will not be perceived And if your sets be small and placed in good ground the Hill well maintained the new Roots will be greater then the old if they grow to wilde Hops the stalks will wax red pluck them up and plant new in their places N. 4. Mr. Parkinsons way of ordering the seedlings of Tulips grown After the Tulip seed is sowne the first yeares springing bringeth leaves little bigger then the ordinary grasse leaves The second yeare bigger and so by degrees every year bigger then other The leaves of the praecoces while they be young may be discerned from the Media's by this note which I have observed â—he leaves of them do stand above ground shewing the small foot-stalkes whereby every leafe doth stand but the leaves of the Media's or Serotines do never wholy appear out of the ground but the lower part which is broad abideth under the upper face of the Earth Those Tulips now growing to be three yeares old yet some at the second yeare if the ground and aire be correspondent are to be taken up out of the ground wherein you shall find they have run deep and be new planted after they have been a little dry'd and cleansed either in the same or another ground again placing them reasonable neere one to another according to their greatnesse which being planted and covered over with earth again of about an inch or two thicknesse may be left untaken up again two yeares longer if you will or else removed every yeare after as you please and thus by transplanting them in their due season which is still at the end of July or at the beginning of August or thereabouts you shall according to the seed and soyle have some come to bearing in the first yeâ—â— after their flowering some have had them in the fourth but that hath been but few and none of the best or in a rich ground some in the sixth and seventh and some peradventure not untill the eighth or tenth yeare But remember that as the roots grow
obstruct the Sun All Boughs likewise that gall others and that are actually dead providing always that the Boughs taken off be as little as may be though the more in number that so the sap may make up the Bark and the Tree be not decayed by lopping of the greater stems Which is very perversly done by most Gardiners who think that to Prune a Tree is to cut off the lower Bâ—ughs bigger or less because they see small watery Fruit grow on them whereas if the Sun was let in upon them their Fruit would be rather more than lesse forward than that which grows in the middle of the Tree I count it general that the under-Boughs ought never to be cut off but when you have respect to grass Roots or other Garden-stuff which grows under the Trees or for the security of the Trees from the browsing of Cattle so that to bare the Trunck of the Tree for four five or six yards as some doe and nourish it to no profit but to bear and carry up the head to another Region that Rooks may the better build therein is a common folly and ridiculous if well considered And for lopping off great Boughs I may here adde an observation touching Elms which is That if the top of an Elm of any bigness be cut off the rot will immediately begin there and by wet and other accidents run downward and cause that hallowness which is ordinarily seen in Trees of this kinde Another Rule of pruning is That the Gardiner never cut off those Boughs which are set and adopted for bearing which is easily known for Roses particularly Rasps and Vines always bear upon a fresh sprout shot forth the same Spring so that the more you prune a Rose Rasp or Vine the more fresh sprouts of that Springs growth are emitted and the more such sprouts the greater number of Roses Rasps and Grapes succeed unless some particular accident destroys them Many Fruits bear from the shoots of the antecedent Spring as the generallity of Apples Pears Peaches Nectarins Aprecots Many seem to grow from Wood of longer growth but in that a man may be easily mistaken because a very little and a Spring of scarce discernable growth may be enough to serve as a foundation to the pedal of the Blossom or Fruit which standing on the old Wood it may be thought that the pedal or stalk of the Fruit stands immediately on the Wood and that there was no Spring interceding Sometimes the Blossoms of the same Tree stand both on the Wood of the present and antecedent Spring as it is frequently seen in Kentish Codlings Nurse Gardens great bearing Cherries But where ever the Blossoms are and there are many Buds fitted and prepared for bearing they are discerned by the skilful Gardiner and may be seen by any person for those are more full in their shutting up than other Buds are and stand not so close made to the stem of the Branch whereon they grow and contain more small leaves in their Body then other Buds being as I apprehend the actual rudiment of the ensuing Blossom Such Boughs therefore whereon plenty of these full made Buds or inchoate Blossoms are seen the Gardiner spares if he is wise for the present year and where he may prunes off such whereon he sees no such propension to fruitfulness The fairness and largeness of Flowers and Fruits are very much augmented by preventing the running up a multitude of Stalks from the same Root The Gardiner observes this precisely in his Carnations and Gilly-flowers not suffering above one two or three Spindles upon such Roots or Stools where he intends a greater fulness and largeness in the Flowers and in Anemones the observation is That if any of the Latifolia's bring a single Flower on the same Root with the double then the cause usually is the standing of too many Eyes or Germens and their depending from the same Root and the remedy in like manner nothing else but the taking off those Off-sets or Suckers and parting them from the principal Root which otherwise is robbed of that matter which might raise in each Flower both fairness and multiplicity of leaves Shrubs likewise that bear either Fruits or Flowers are to be governed in like manner Goos-berries and Currans degenerate to smalness or bear not at all without this care and provision that the Suckers be taken away This observance is likewise absolutely necessary to Damask Roses for when they grow up to thick Bushes they scarce bear whereas being kept to grow in one single great stem being orderly cut and not growing in the shade they bear exceedingly For Vines it is a Proverb make your Vine poor and it will make you rich The fewer principal Stems are left the more it bears and the reason is because the Grapes are borne upon shoots of the same Spring and those shoots then most plentifully arise when the head of the Vine in proportion to the Roots is least as 't is seen in all Trees which shoot out more immediately after their heads are lopt than any other year Pompions follow the nature of Vines and as two or three stems is enough for the Vine so two or three runners and no more ought to be permitted by him that intends the greatest fairness of this fruit It may be proper enough here to speak of Weeding and Sising The latter operation is the plucking up Roots or Plants that are of use in themelves but offensive to others in the same Beds by reason of their nearness Thus Turneps are howed up when they stand within a foot distance each of other for it is best when at their full growth their leaves touch not one another Carrots are plucked up when they are an inch Diameter at the head for then they are of use or sooner if the thickness of their standing require it and this is general for all Roots Parsneps Radish Skirrets that grow by Seed Some sow as I mentioned above Parsneps Carrots Radish and Sallad Herbs in the same Bed first Sising out the Sallad Herbs and Radish then the Carrots as they grow leaving the Parsneps till Winter by which means their ground is always full yet by reason of the Sising in due times never over-burthened The culture of Straw-berries requires somewhat like sizing viz. The cutting off immediately after bearing the spires and strings which would multiply unto too many Roots and Branches to have plenty of fair Straw-berries Nor is this once onely to be done but as often as they spring anew so often are they to be taken off until the time of the Blossoms draws on I have seen some that were not over curious to tear off the strings by harrowing up and down their Beds of Straw-berries with an Iron Rake Some make a question Whether Plants of the same kinde by reason of a supposal that they require the same parts for nourishment or Weeds and Grasses by their too great vicinity may create more annoyance to their
the Soyl But these if any graft or shall with toil Transplant and then in cultur'd Furrows set Their wilder disposition they forget By frequent culture they not slowly will Answer thy labour and obey thy skill So they that spring from Poots like profit yeild If you transplant them to the open Field Which now the Boughs of th'Mother-plant do shade And th'Off-sets stop her growth and make her fade The Seed of wilde Cichory that grows every where in the Fields being sow'd in rich Garden-soyl is so improved that we esteem it ordinarily another Plant and give it the name of Garden-Cichory though indeed they are the same But besides the goodness of the ground and greatness of the distances there may be some advantage to Field-Plants by changing the Seed by which action the fermentation is supposed to be augmented in the Ground Now these changes are either from one kinde to another as from Wheat and Barly to Beans and Pease which is the usual Husbandry of common Fields or in the same Seed Of the former way Virgil gives this Precept ibi flava seres mutato sidere farra Vnde prius laetum siliqua quassante legumen Aut tenues faetus Viciae tristisque Lupini Sustuleris fragiles calamos sylvamque sonantem Georg. 1. By Mr. Ogilby thus rendred There changing Seasons thou shalt Barly sow Where pleafant Pulse with dangling Cods did grow Where brittle stalks of bitter Lupines stood Or slender Vetches in a murmuring Wood. Of changing the Seed of the same kinde besides Field Corn which is generally changed every third Season at the farthest examples may be had in Carnations and Gilly-flowers the Seed of which being taken from the best Flowers are much meliorated by alternation and change of Ground and it is like this Experiment may hold in the seeds of other Flowers Another Experiment is the exossation of Fruit or causing it to grew without stones or core for which effect the grafting of the upper end of the Cyon downwards hath been asserted to be a certain way That the Cyon so grafted will grow I have experience but whether in time they will produce the forementioned effect I greatly doubt And if they should I much mistrust their expectations would not be answered that intended melioration thereby For the Fruit certainly by the loss of the natural Seed would be very much dispirited and loose the generosity and nobleness of its nature as Animals do and as Vegetables sometimes as particularly I have observed in Barberries for I have seen a Tree that bare every year on most Bunches two sorts of Barberries the one full and of a deep red the other of a pale colour and thin substance and inquiring into the cause I found the former to have Stones in them and the latter destitute which were as I supposed thereby emasculated N. 9. The conclusion of the Treatise with one or two choice observations of the wise and good Providence of God which may be seen in the admirable make of Vegetables and fitness to their ends which are not generally taken notice of but are with many more overseen by men busie in the affairs of the world It was the sin of the Heathen that they did not rise in their mindes from the contemplation of the beauty of the creatures to consider how such lineaments could be made and to glorifie thereby the wisdome of the Maker The particulars are infinite that ordinarily to a man exercised in things and thoughts suggest themselves to avouch Providence and consute the vanity of the old Epicureans in the simplest of their Tenets concerning the framing of this world of things by a casuall concurrence of small motes intricated in their motion by meer chance into such beautifull bodies It is no unusuall Theme to treat of the admirable handsomenesse and beauty in the composure of divers Vegetables and to shew how Nature doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in them and characterize out such variety of elegant figures that every plant shall seem to have more of Mathematicall art than the Knot wherein it is set And t is generally noted that Gods Providence is exceeding good in appointing Nature and making it her end to continue some individual is of every Species for the preservation of the kinde That likewise the same Providence has approved to its selfe a most excellent wisdom in the choise of most certain meanes for the attainment of this end it has been mine and may be an easie consideration to any other For what other end thought I are there so many coates and such cotton vestment to seeds but to defend their tendernesse Why such hard stones to other but to hinder their premature springing whereby the coldnesse of Winter would kill as in Aprecots Peaches Nectarines c. their tender seedlings Why is the ground in Woods covered with Mosse but that Nature intended it as a preservation to seeds fallen upon the Turfe in the violence of Winter Frosts Why has Nature beset shrubs with prickles but to defend the tender buds in which the hope of future growth is reposed from the browsing of cattell in the Winter and that this was the end of Providence in it may be conjectured from hence because those shrubs which are not all over thorny have a guard of Thornes directly upon the bud not else where as if singularly intended for its security So t is seen in the Gooseberry Hawthorne Barbery Locust all Roses wild and cultivated that are not all over thorny so that the thorns are not uselesse excrescencies as some have supposed but as profitable as boughs or leaves Why have those plants that bear no seed with us as Poplar and Willow in every bough of any bignesse a propensity of sending forth Roots by the occasion of which each branch is made an entire tree or plant or if that faculty be wanting why then is there so great disposition and forwardnesse to propagate themelves by off-sets as in the Elm poplars c. And where there can be no off-sets as in Mushroomes wherefore else has Nature made the plants propagable by the smallest of their shreds and inconsiderable parts Why else is the Indian Fig that hath no stalk propagable by its leaf alone Why have plants such an eagernesse to flower and seed and such an impatience of being disapointed if you pull off the bud of the Rose it will spring againe and not only the Rose but most other fruits and flowers have the same desire to produce their seeds and have given occasion to Artists to make hence Rules of Retardation Why do the Seeds stick close to the Pedall by which they are joyned to the stock untill they are mature and fit for propagation and then fall off in the most fit season for due preparation to future growth Why do those plants that usually die every yeare yet if they are disappointed of running to seed continue to survive many years even so long till they are permitted to
a true and perfect plant I must say that I have found it so to be even more than an egge a liveing thing and immediately nourishable It has root to grow body to bear the port of the plant Bark to direct the Sap into all its parts and germen or bud to secure the meanes of future growth and to boote leaves which is all and somewhat more than in the winter the sturdiest Oke can boast of It has been accounted an Interest in Philosophy heretofore and that in our Schooles that seed should not be esteemed an actual and formal plant because of divers absurdities that if seed were animall would happen in their Schoole doctrine as that there would be pluralities of formes in the same trees The Soule might be divisible into parts The same thing might be agent and patient Nay some have said that it may be of dangerous consequence in Divinity if it were granted that seeds had the actuall formes and essence of that thing whose Seeds they were I am glad t is noe Heresy now to appeale to sense from a Doctors opinion and that I may freely in this matter require to be tryed by my garden though it be against the sentence and Judgment of the Doctors Conimbra Suarez Ruvio Pererius Bonamicue Fonseca and that we begin to lay aside the fear that from a certain truth ill consequences may arise That Canon will certainly hold longeâ—t which is best built in the bottome It is conceived by some that the immediate cause of the Growth of the seed is the Spirit working upon the Salt and Sulphur Earth and other constituent parts or Elements of the Seed For the Spirit is supposed to be made Volatile by the heat of the earth and water which in Spring and Autumne the cheife times of germination is of a proper temperature for formentation and then the spirit being so Volatized and riseing up and expanding it self every way augments the whole plant and distends the sides of the seed whereby the growth of the seed plant is effected But how it comes to passe that the conveiance of these expanded particles is ordered to proceed according to the lineaments of each Vegetable noe person to my knowledge has yet made any conceit and it being beyond any ocular discovery of the most acute Searchers to finde out the Conduits or Trunckes serving to so intricate a carriage and how it comes to passe that a seed first has its Neb thrust downe without dilatation of the sides and then how the upper part of the Neb or germen orderly frames the Vegetable above ground in so trim a body rather then a confused masse I take it not for any part of my taske to enquire I shall likewise leave it to the imaginations of Philosophers to determine whether upon the distention made it be by an elective faculty in the Seedling filled up with similar parts drawn from the Earth and so by Nature originally fitted specifically for that plant or whether there being a continual motion of particles from the earth pressing upon the plant those only get entrance whose shapes and figures are such as correspond to the pores in the young Vegetable which meeting in the body of the plant with its constituent parts in nature not unlike themselves they easily are joyned thereto and so cause an augmentation in the whole or whether dissimilar parts either to fill up the Vacuum made by distention or for other reasons got up into the plant doe obtain there a change of nature and from the form Soul Archeus or other principle are altered from their first being into a likenesse of nature with the Seedling and become homogeneous to it These are Questions in the determination of which till I am better informed I desire to take no side N. 9. Of the cause of Greenness in the leaves of Vegetables It has been made a question by some what it is that causes greennesse in all Herbes especially such whose seed and the stalk and Leafe contained therein are white and whether the cold beating of aire and water upon Vegetables may not have some influence in the production of this effect I truely have been tempted to think the affirmative which is that the coldnesse and brisknesse of the free aire in plants that grow in the land and the like qualitie of the water in water plants produces the verdure or greennesse that is generally the beauteous Vestment of all Vegetables or at the least has some considerable influence as to this production for by experience I have proved that plants being in a close roome brought up from seeds in pot or otherwise the leaves and stalks prove to be white or pale not green which is according to the Lord Bacons experiment who Cent. 5. Exp. 47. setting a Standard Damask-Rose-Tree c. in an earthen pan of water where bearing leaves in the winter in a chamber where no fire was the leaves were found as his Lordship relates more pale and light coloured then leaves use to be abroad which palenesse I suppose to be greater or lesse proportionably to the freshnesse and freenesse of the aire that the plant enjoyes Grasse will likewise change its colour if by any weighty body or other lying upon it in the field it be kept from the aire The truth is all plants have peculiar delight in the aire which I have proved by this Experiment I have taken young seedlings in a pot and put them in a window where there was a quarry out the seedling would immediately leave its upright growth and direct its body straight to the hole and so become almost flat and levell with the earth in the pot Then turning the pot so that the inclination of the stalk might be from the hole the plant has then crook't it self in form of a horn or the letter C. to the aire again Upon the Second turn of the pot the upper horn being placed from the aire the plant would with its upper part return to the open place and leave the stalk now in the form of an S. Nay sometimes I have bid persons tell me which way they would have such a plant grow they have marked the place in the brime of the Pot that mark I have turned to the hole in the window by which means the plant without any force and that in not many houres space hath inclined its stalkes to the mark made That the aire has great influence in producing the verdure of plants may likewise not improbably be argued from the Experiments of Planching or whiting the leaves of Artichockes Endive Mirrh is Cichory Alexanders and other plants which is done by warm keeping of them without the approach or sentiment of the Coole and fresh aire whereby all plants that otherwise would bear a green colour become exactly white Hence it may likewise bee that tho roots of most Vegetables that are under ground and covered from the aire are white generally whereas the stem and upper parts