Pliny notes it as a common thing, to re-establish huge trees which have been blown down, part of their roots torn up, and the body prostrate; and, in particular, of a firr, that when it was to be transplanted, had a top-root which went no less than eight cubits perpendicular; and to these I could superadd (by woful experience) where some oaks, and other old trees of mine, tore up with their fall and ruin, portions of earth (in which their former spreading roots were ingag’d) little less in bulk and height than some ordinary cottages and houses, built on the common: Such havock, was the effect of the late prodigious hurricane. But to proceed. To facilitate the removal of such monstrous trees, for the adornment of some particular place, or the rarity of the plant, there is this farther expedient: A little before the hardest frosts surprise you, make a square trench about your tree, at such distance from the stem as you judge sufficient for the root; dig this of competent depth, so as almost quite to undermine it; by placing blocks and quarters of wood, to sustain the earth; this done, cast in as much water as may fill the trench, or at least sufficiently wet it, unless the ground were very moist before. Thus let it stand, till some very hard frost do bind it firmly to the roots, and then convey it to the pit prepar’d for its new station, which you may preserve from freezing, by laying store of warm litter in it, and so close the mould the better to the stragling fibers, placing what you take out about your new guest, to preserve it in temper: But in case the mould about it be so ponderous as not to be remov’d by an ordinary force; you may then raise it with a crane or pully, hanging between a triangle (or like machine) which is made of three strong and tall limbs united at the top, where a pully is fastned, as the cables are to be under the quarters which bear the earth about the roots: For by this means you may weigh up, and place the whole weighty clod upon a trundle, sledge, or other carriage, to be convey’d and replanted where you please, being let down perpendicularly into the place by the help of the foresaid engine. And by this address you may transplant trees of a wonderful stature, without the least disorder; and many times without topping, or diminution of the head, which is of great importance, where this is practis’d to supply a defect, or remove a curiosity. 11. Some advise, that in planting of oaks, &c. four or five be suffer’d to stand very near to one another, and then to leave the most prosperous, when they find the rest to disturb his growth; but I conceive it were better to plant them at such distances, as they may least incommode one another: For timber-trees, I would have none nearer than forty foot where they stand closest; especially of the spreading kind.