it ill to have his head cut off: Pliny
would have short trunchions couched two foot in the ground (but first
two days dried) at one foot and half distance, and then moulded over.

5. There is something a finer sort of white poplar, which the Dutch call
_abele_, and we have of late _abele_ much transported out of Holland:
These are also best propagated of slips from the roots, the least of
which will take, and may in March, at three or four years growth, be
transplanted.

6. In Flanders (not in France, as a late author pretends) they have
large nurseries of them, which first they plant at one foot distance,
the mould light and moist, by no means clayie, in which though they may
shoot up tall, yet for want of root, they never spread; for, as I said,
they must be interr'd pretty deep, not above three inches above ground;
and kept clean, by pruning them to the middle-shoot for the first two
years, and so till the third or fourth. When you transplant, place them
at eight, ten, or twelve foot interval: They will likewise grow of
layers, and even of cuttings in very moist places. In three years, they
will come to an incredible altitude; in twelve, be as big as your
middle; and in eighteen or twenty, arrive to full perfection. A specimen
of this advance we have had of an _abele_-tree at Sion, which being
lopp'd in Febr. 1651, did by the end of October 52, produce branches as
big as a man's wrist, and 17 foot in length; for which celerity we may
recommend them to such late builders, as seat their houses in naked and
unshelter'd places, and that would put a guise of antiquity upon any new
inclosure; since by these, whilst a man is in a voyage of no long
continuance, his house and lands may be so covered, as to be hardly
known at his return. But as they thus increase in bulk, their value (as
the Italian poplar, has taught us) advances likewise; which after the
first seven years, is annually worth twelve pence more: So as the Dutch
look upon a plantation of these trees, as an ample portion for a
daughter, and none of the least effects of their good husbandry; which
truly may very well be allow'd, if that calculation hold, which the late
worthy{132:1} Knight has asserted, (who began his plantation not long
since about Richmond,) that 30 pound being laid out in these plants,
would render at the least ten thousand pounds in eighteen years; every
tree affording thirty plants, and every of them thirty more, after each
seven year's impr