r all the
most signal honour it was ever employ'd in, and which might deservedly
exalt this humble and common plant above all the trees of the wood, is
that of hurdles, (especially the flexible white: the red and brittle);
not for that it is generally used for the folding of our innocent sheep,
an emblem of the church; but for making the walls of one of the first
Christian Oratories in the world; and particularly in this island, that
venerable and sacred fabrick at Glastenbury, founded by St. Joseph of
Arimathea; which is storied to have been first compos'd but of a few
small hasel-rods interwoven about certain stakes driven into the ground;
and walls of this kind, instead of laths and punchions, superinduc'd
with a course mortar made of loam and straw, do to this day inclose
divers humble cottages, sheads and out-houses in the countrey; and 'tis
strong and lasting for such purposes, whole, or cleft, and I have seen
ample enclosures of courts and gardens so secur'd.

6. There is a compendious expedient for the thickning of copp'ces which
are too transparent, by laying of a sampler or pole of an hasel, ash,
poplar, &c. of twenty or thirty foot in length (the head a little
lopp'd) into the ground, giving it a chop near the foot, to make it
succumb; this fastned to the earth with a hook or two, and cover'd with
some fresh mould at a competent depth (as gardeners lay their
carnations) will produce a world of suckers, thicken and furnish a
copp'ce speedily. I add no more of filberts, a kinder and better sort
of hasel-nut, of larger and longer shape and beard; the kernels also
cover'd with a fine membrane, of which the red is more delicate: They
both are propagated as the hasel, and while more domestick, planted
either asunder, or in palisade, are seldom found in the copp'ces: They
are brought among other fruit, to the best tables for desert, and are
said to fatten, but too much eaten, obnoxious to the asthmatic. In the
mean time, of this I have had experience; that hasel-nuts, but the
filberd specially, being full ripe, and peel'd in warm water, (as they
blanch almonds) make a pudding very little (if at all) inferior to that
our ladies make of almonds. But I am now come to the water-side; let us
next consider the aquatic.

FOOTNOTES:

{136:1} _De nucum generibus_, vide Macrob. Sect. L. II. C. 14.

{136:2}

Plantis & durae coryli nascuntur....................

_Georg. 2._

{139:1} Vallemont, _Physique occul