Sylva; Or, A Discourse of Forest Trees. Vol. 1 (of 2)

The friendly pine the mighty oak invites.{229:1}

9. They both affect the cold, high, and rocky grounds, abies in montibus altis: Those yet which grow on the more southern, and less expos’d quarters, a little visited with the beams of the sun, are found to thrive beyond the other, and to afford better timber; and this was observed long since by Vitruvius of the infernates (as he calls them) in comparison with the supernates, which growing on the Northern and shady side of the Appennines, were nothing so good, which he imputes to the want of due digestion. They thrive (as we said) in the most sterile places, yet will grow in better, but not in over-rich, and pinguid. The worst land in Wales bears (as I am told) large pine; and the fir according to his aspiring nature, loves also the mountain more than the valley; but ἐν τοῖς παλισκίοις ὅλως οὐ φύεται, it cannot endure the shade*, as Theophrastus observes, *de Pl. l. 4. c. 1. But this is not rigidly true; for they will grow in consort, till they even shade and darken one another, and will also descend from the hills, and succeed very well, being desirous of plentiful waterings, till they arrive to some competent stature; and therefore they do not prosper so well in an over sandy and hungry soil, or gravel, as in the very entrails of the rocks, which afford more drink to the roots, that penetrate into their meanders, and winding recesses. But though they require this refreshing at first, yet do they perfectly abhor all stercoration; nor will they much endure to have the earth open’d about their roots for ablaqueation, or be disturb’d: This is also to be understood of cypress. A fir, for the first half dozen years, seems to stand, or at least make no considerable advance, but it is when throughly rooted, that it comes away miraculously. That honourable and learned knight Sir Norton Knatchbull, (whose delicious plantation of pines and firs I beheld with great satisfaction) having assur’d me, that a fir-tree of his raising, did shoot no less than sixty foot in height, in little more than twenty years; and what are extant at Sir Peter Wentworth’s of Lillingston Lovel; Cornbury in Oxfordshire, and other places; but especially those trees growing now in Harefield Park in the county of Middlesex (belonging to Mr. Serjeant Nudigate) where there are two Spanish or silver firs, that at 2 years growth from the seed, being planted there an. 1603, are now become goodly masts: The biggest of them from the ground to the upper bough, is 81 feet, though forked on the top, which has not a little impeded its growth: The girt, or circumference below, is thirteen foot, and the length (so far as is timber, that is, to six inches square) 73 foot, in the middle 17 inches square, amounting by calculation to 146 foot of good timber: The other tree is indeed not altogether so large, by reason of its standing near the house when it was burnt (about 40 years since) when one side of the tree was scorched also; yet it has not only recover’d that scar, but thrives exceedingly, and is within eight or nine foot, as tall as the other, and would probably have been the better of the two, had not that impediment happen’d, it growing so taper, and erect, as nothing can be more beautiful: This I think (if we had no other) is a pregnant instance, as of the speedy growing of that material; so of all the encouragement I have already given for the more frequent cultivating this ornamental, useful, and profitable tree, abounding doubtless formerly in this countrey of ours, if what a grave and authentick author writes be true, Athenæus relating, that the stupendious vessel, built so many ages since by Hiero, had its mast out of Britain. Take notice that none of these mountainous trees should be planted deep; but as shallow as may be for their competent support.