8. If some be permitted to wear their tops five or six years, their palms will be very ample, and yield the first and most plentiful relief to bees, even before our abricots blossom. The hopping-sallows open, and yield their palms before other sallows, and when they are blown (which is about the _exit_ of May, or sometimes June) the palms (or ὠλεσίκαρποι _frugiperdæ_, as Homer terms them for their extream levity) are four inches long, and full of a fine lanuginous cotton. Of this sort, there is a _salix_ near Dorking in Surrey, in which the _julus_ bears a thick cottonous substance. A poor body might in an hour’s space, gather a pound or two of it, which resembling the finest silk, might doubtless be converted to some profitable use, by an ingenious house-wife, if gather’d in calm evenings, before the wind, rain and dew impair them; I am of opinion, if it were dry’d with care, it might be fit for cushions, and pillows of chastity, for such of old was the reputation of the shade of those trees. 9. Of these hopping sallows, after three years rooting, each plant will yield about a score of staves, of full eight foot in length, and so following, for use, as we noted above: Compute then how many fair pike-staves, perches, and other useful materials, that will amount to in an acre, if planted at five foot interval: But a fat and moist soil, requires indeed more space, than a lean or dryer; namely, six or eight foot distance. 10. You may plant setlings of the very first years growth; but the second year they are better, and the third year, better than the second; and the fourth, as good as the third; especially, if they approach the water. A bank at a foot distance from the water, is kinder for them than a bog, or to be altogether immers’d in the water. 11. ’Tis good to new-mould them about the roots every second, or third year; but men seldom take the pains. It seems that sallows are more hardy, than even willows and oziers, of which Columella takes as much care as of vines themselves. But ’tis cheaper to supply the vacuity of such accidental decays, by a new plantation, than to be at the charge of digging about them three times a year, as that author advises; seeing some of them will decay, whatever care be used. 12. Sallows may also be propagated like vines, by courbing, and bowing them in arches, and covering some of their parts with mould, &c. Also by cuttings and layers, and some years by the seeds likewise. 13. For setlings, those are to be preferr’d which grow nearest to the stock, and so (consequently) those worst, which most approach the top. They should be planted in the first fair and pleasant weather in February, before they begin to bud; we about London begin at the latter end of December. They may be cut in Spring for fuel, but best in Autumn for use; but in this work (as of poplar) leave a twig or two; which being twisted archwise, will produce plentiful sprouts, and suddenly furnish a head.