ey
would thrive mainly in a stiff, hungry clay, or rather loam; but by no
means in over-light, or rich soil: Fill the holes therefore with such
barren earth, if your ground be improper of it self; and if the clay be
too stiff, and untractable, with a little sand, removing with as much
earth about the roots as is possible, though the fir will better endure
a naked transplantation, than the pine: If you be necessitated to plant
towards the latter end of Summer, lay a pretty deal of horse-litter upon
the surface of the ground, to keep off the heat, and in Winter the cold;
but let no dung touch either stem or root: You may likewise sow in such
earth about February, they will make a shoot the very first year of an
inch; next an handful, the third year three foot, and thence forward,
above a yard annually. A Northern gentleman (who has oblig'd me with
this process upon his great experience) assures me, that fir, and this
_feralis arbor_, (as Virgil calls the pine) are abundantly planted in
Northumberland, which are in few years grown to the magnitude of
ship-masts; and from all has been said, deduces these encouragements. 1.
The facility of their propagation. 2. The nature of their growth, which
is to affect places where nothing else will thrive. 3. Their uniformity
and beauty. 4. Their perpetual verdure. 5. Their sweetness. 6. Their
fruitfulness; affording seed, gum, fuel, and timber of all other woods
the most useful, and easy to work, &c. All which highly recommend it as
an excellent improvement of husbandry, fit to be enjoyn'd by some solemn
edict, to the inhabitants of this our island, that we may have masts,
and those other materials of our own growth: In planting the silver
_abies_, set not the roots too deep, it affects the surface more than
the rest.

4. The pine (of which are reckon'd no less than ten several sorts,
preferring the domestic, or sative for the fuller growth) is likewise of
both sexes, whereof the male growing lower, with a rounder shape, hath
its wood more knotty and rude than the female; it's lank, longer, narrow
and pointed; bears a black, thick, large cone, including the kernel
within an hard shell, cover'd under a thick scale: The nuts of this tree
(not much inferior to the almond) are used among other ingredients, in
beatilla-pies, at the best tables. They would be gather'd in June,
before they gape; yet having hung two years (for there will be always
some ripe, and some green on the same tree) p