6. Of all the trees which grow in our woods, there is none which does better suffer the transplantation than the elm; for you may remove a tree of twenty years growth with undoubted success: It is an experiment I have made in a tree almost as big more as my waste; but then you must totally disbranch him, leaving only the summit intire; and being careful to take him up with as much earth as you can, refresh him with abundance of water. This is an excellent, and expeditious way for great persons to plant the accesses of their houses with; for being disposed at sixteen or eighteen foot interval, they will in a few years bear goodly heads, and thrive to admiration. Some that are very cautious, emplaster the wounds of such over-grown elms with a mixture of clay and horse-dung, bound about them with a wisp of hay or fine moss, and I do not reprove it, provided they take care to temper it well, so as the vermine nestle not in it. But for more ordinary plantations, younger trees, which have their bark smooth and tender, clear of wenns and tuberous bunches (for those of that sort seldom come to be stately trees) about the scantling of your leg, and their heads trimm’d at five or six foot height, are to be prefer’d before all other. Cato would have none of these sorts of trees to be removed till they are five or six fingers in diameter; others think they cannot take them too young; but experience (the best mistress) tells us, that you can hardly plant an elm too big. There are who pare away the root within two fingers of the stem, and quite cut off the head; but I cannot commend this extream severity, no more than I do the strewing of oats in the pit; which fermenting with the moisture and frequent waterings, is believed much to accelerate the putting forth of the roots; not considering, that for want of air they corrupt and grow musty, which more frequently suffocates the roots, and endangers the whole tree.