Sylva; Or, A Discourse of Forest Trees. Vol. 1 (of 2)Evelyn, John
History
Sylva; Or, A Discourse of Forest Trees. Vol. 1 (of 2)
Evelyn, John
Forests and forestry -- Early works to 1800; Gardening -- Early works to 1800; Trees -- Early works to 1800
There is a pestilent green-worm which hides it self in the earth, and
gets into pots and cases, eating our seedlings, and gnawing the very
roots, which should be searched out: And now we mention roots,
over-grown toads will sometimes nestle at the roots of trees, when they
make a cavern, which they infect with a poysonous vapour, of which the
leaves famish’d and flagging give notice, and the enemy dug out with the
spade: But this chiefly concerns the gardners mural fruit-trees; though
I question not but that even our forest-trees suffer by such pernicious
vapours, rats, and other stinking vermine making their nests within
them. But of all these, let our industrious planter, (especially the
learned favourers of the most refined parts of horticulture) consult the
Discourses and experiments of _Sign._ Fran. Redi, Malphigius, Levenhock,
Swamerdam, &c. with our own learned Doctors, Lyster, Sloane, Hook, (and
other sagacious naturalists) to shew, that none of these diseases and
infirmities in plants proceed from any pure accidental, but real cause;
_flatus_, venemous liquor, and infections: Which some, even of the
minutest animals, are provided with instruments to pierce the very solid
substances of trees and plants, and infuse their pestiferous taint;
where likewise they leave their eggs, boaring those nestling places with
a certain _terebra_, where we find those innumerable perforations which
we call worm-eaten; the wider _latebrae_ are made by _erucae_,
caterpillars, ants, and bigger insects, raising morbid tumors and
excrescences, and preying upon the fruit, as well as on the leaves, buds
and flowers, so soon as their eggs are hatch’d, when they creep out of
their little caverns in armies, like the Egyptian locusts, invading all
that’s green, and tender rudiments first, and then attacking the
tougher and solider parts of vegetables: To those learned persons above,
we may not forget the late worthy and pious Mr. Ray, where in the second
part of his treatise, of the _Wisdom of God in the Creation_, we have a
brief, but ingenious account of what concerns this subject, together
with what is added about spontaneous productions of these despicable
animals, to which I refer the curious.
Trees (especially fruit-bearers) are infested with the measels, by being
burned and scorched with the sun in great droughts: To this commonly
succeeds lousiness, which is cur’d by boring an hole into the principal
root, and pouring in a quantity of brandy, stopping the orifice up with
a pin of the same wood.
Crooked trees are reform’d by taking off or topping the præponderers,
whilst charg’d with leaves, or woody and hanging counterpoises.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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