less the chapman be extraordinarily judicious; so various are
their hidden and conceal'd infirmities, till they be fell'd and sawn
out: So as if to any thing applicable, certainly there is nothing which
does more perfectly confirm it, than the most flourishing out-side of
trees, _fronti nulla fides_. A timber-tree is a merchant-adventurer, you
shall never know what he is worth till he be dead.

16. Oaks are in some places (where the soil is especially qualified)
ready to be cut for cops in fourteen years and sooner; I compute from
the first semination; though it be told as an instance of high
encouragement (and as indeed it merits) that a lady in Northamptonshire
sowed acorns, and liv'd to cut the trees produc'd from them, twice in
two and twenty years; and both as well grown as most are in sixteen or
eighteen. This yet is certain, that acorns set in hedg-rows, have in
thirty years born a stem of a foot diameter. Generally, cops-wood should
be cut close, and at such intervals as the growth requires; which being
seldom constant, depends much on the places and the kinds, the mould and
the air, and for which there are extant particular statutes to direct
us; of all which more at large hereafter. Oak for tan-bark may be fell'd
from April to the last of June, by a Statute in the 1 _Jacobi_. And here
some are for the disbarking of oaks, and so to let them stand, before
they fell.

17. To enumerate now the incomparable uses of this wood, were needless;
but so precious was the esteem of it, that of old there was an express
law amongst the Twelve Tables, concerning the very gathering of the
acorns, though they should be found fallen into another man's ground:
The land and the sea do sufficiently speak for the improvement of this
excellent material; houses and ships, cities and navies are built with
it; and there is a kind of it so tough, and extreamly compact, that our
sharpest tools will hardly enter it, and scarcely the very fire it self,
in which it consumes but slowly, as seeming to partake of a ferruginous
and metallin shining nature, proper for sundry robust uses. It is
doubtless of all timber hitherto known, the most universally useful and
strong; for though some trees be harder, as box, cornus, ebony, and
divers of the Indian woods; yet we find them more fragil, and not so
well qualify'd to support great incumbencies and weights, nor is there
any timber more lasting, which way soever us'd. There has (we know) been
no li