ually, a very
considerable part both of the meat and drink which is spent to our
prejudice, might be saved by the countrey-people, even out of the hedges
and mounds, which would afford them not only the pleasure and profit of
their delicious fruit, but such abundance of cyder and perry, as should
suffice them to drink of one of the most wholsome and excellent
beverages in the world. Old Gerard did long since alledge us an example
worthy to be pursu'd; I have seen (saith he, speaking of apple-trees,
lib. 3. cap. 101.) in the pastures and hedge-rows about the grounds of a
worshipful gentleman dwelling two miles from Hereford, call'd Mr. Roger
Bodnome, so many trees of all sorts, that the servants drink for the
most part no other drink but that which is made of apples: The quantity
is such, that by the report of the gentleman himself, the parson hath
for tythe many hogs-heads of cyder: The hogs are fed with the fallings
of them, which are so many, that they make choice of those apples they
do eat, who will not tast of any but of the best. An example doubtless
to be follow'd of gentlemen that have land and living; but Envy saith,
The poor will break down our hedges, and we shall have the least part of
the fruit: But forward, in the name of God, graff, set, plant, and
nourish up trees in every corner of your ground; the labour is small,
the cost is nothing, the commodity is great; your selves shall have
plenty, the poor shall have somewhat in time of want to relieve their
necessity, and God shall reward your good minds and diligence. Thus far
honest Gerard. And in truth, with how small a charge and infinite
pleasure this were to be effected, every one that is patron of a little
nursery, can easily calculate: But by this expedient many thousands of
acres, sow'd now yearly with barley, might be cultivated for wheat, or
converted into pasture, to the increase of corn and cattel: Besides, the
timber which the pear-tree, black-cherry and many thorny plums (which
are best for grain, colour, and gloss) afford, comparable (for divers
curious uses) with any we have enumerated. The black-cherry-wood grows
sometimes to that bulk, as is fit to make stools with, cabinets, tables,
especially the redder sort, which will polish well; also pipes, and
musical instruments, the very bark employ'd for bee-hives: But of this I
am to render a more ample account, in the appendix to this Discourse. I
would farther recommend the more frequent planting