}

Tunc alnos primum fluvii sensere cavatas.

_Georg. 1._

{157:2}

Nec non & torrentem undam levis innatat alnus
Missa Pado ............

2.

CHAPTER XIX.

_Of the Withy, Sallow, Ozier, and Willow._

1. _Salix_: Since Cato has attributed the third place to the _salictum_,
preferring it even next to the very ortyard; and (what one would wonder
at) before even the olive, meadow, or corn-field it self (for _salictum
tertio loco, nempe post vineam, &c._) and that we find it so easily
rais'd, of so great, and universal use, I have thought good to be the
more particular in my discourse upon it; especially, since so much of
that which I shall publish concerning them, is derived from the long
experience of a most learned and ingenious person, from whom I
acknowledge to have received many of these hints. Not to perplex the
reader with the various names, Greek, Gallic, Sabin, Amerine, Vitex, &c.
better distinguish'd by their growth and bark; and by Latin authors all
comprehended under that of _salices_; our English books reckon them
promiscuously thus; the common-white willow, the black, and the
hard-black, the rose of Cambridge, the black-withy, the round-long
sallow; the longest sallow, the crack-willow, the round-ear'd shining
willow, the lesser broad-leav'd willow, silver sallow, upright
broad-willow, repent broad-leav'd, the red-stone, the lesser willow, the
strait-dwarf, the long-leav'd yellow sallow, the creeper, the black-low
willow, the willow-bay, and the ozier. I begin with the withy.

2. The withy is a reasonable large tree, (for some have been found ten
foot about) is fit to be planted on high banks, and ditch-sides within
reach of water and the weeping sides of hills; because they extend their
roots deeper than either sallows or willows. For this reason you shall
plant them at ten, or twenty foot distance; and though they grow the
slowest of all the twiggie trees, yet do they recompence it with the
larger crop; the wood being tough, and the twigs fit to bind strongly;
the very peelings of the branches being useful to bind arbor-poling, and
in topiary-works, vine-yards, espalier-fruit, and the like: And we are
told of some that grow twisted into ropes of 120 paces, serving instead
of cables. There are two principal sorts of these withies, the hoary,
and the red-withy, (which is the Greek) toughest, and fittest to bind,
whilst the twigs are flexible and tender.

3. Sallows gr