e, medlar, fig, and
most ordinary pears, as well as of several other peregrine trees,
fruit-bearers, and others; for even the very damask-rose it self, (as my
Lord Bacon tells us, Cent. 2. exp. 659.) is little more than an hundred
years old in England: Methinks this should be of wonderful incitement.
It was 680 years after the foundation of Rome, e'er Italy had tasted a
cherry of their own, which being then brought thither{268:1} out of
Pontus (as the above-mention'd filberts were) did after 120 years,
travel _ad ultimos Britannos_.

8. We had our first myrtils out of Greece, and cypress from Crete, which
was yet a meer stranger in Italy, as Pliny reports, and most difficult
to be raised; which made Cato to write more concerning the culture of
it, than of any other tree: Notwithstanding, we have in this country of
ours, no less than three sorts, which are all of them easily propagated,
and prosper very well, if they are rightly ordered; and therefore I
shall not omit to disclose one secret, as well to confute a popular
error, as for the instruction of our gardeners.

9. The tradition is, that the cypress (being a symbol of mortality,
_ferales & invisas_, they should say of the contrary) is never to be
cut, for fear of killing it. This makes them to impale, and wind them
about, like so many AEgyptian mummies; by which means, the inward parts
of the tree being heated, for want of air and refreshment, it never
arrives to any perfection, but is exceedingly troublesome, and
chargeable to maintain; whereas indeed, there is not a more tonsile and
governable plant in nature; for the cypress may be cut to the very
roots, and yet spring afresh, as it does constantly in Candy, if not
yielding suckers (as Bellonius affirms,) I rather think produced by the
seeds, which the mother-trees shed at the motion of the stem in the
felling: And this we find was the husbandry in the Isle of AEnaria,
where they us'd to fell it for copp'ce: For the cypress being rais'd
from the nursery of seeds sown in September (or rather March,) and
within two years after transplanted, should at two years standing more,
have the master-stem of the middle shaft cut off some hand-breadth below
the summit; the sides, and smaller sprigs shorn into a conique, or
pyramidal form, and so kept clipt from April to September, as oft as
there is occasion; and by this regiment, they will grow furnish'd to the
foot, and become the most beautiful trees in the world, withou