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But to pursue this to some farther advantage; as to what concerns the election of your seed, it is to be consider’d, that there is vast difference, (what if I should affirm more than an hundred years) in trees even of the same growth and bed, which I judge to proceed from the variety and quality of the seed: This, for instance, is evidently seen in the heart, procerity and stature of timber; and therefore chuse not your seeds always from the most fruitful-trees, which are commonly the most aged, and decayed; but from such as are found most solid and fair:— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) Or A Discourse of Forest Trees
_Ulmus_ the elm, there are four or five sorts, and from the difference of the soil and air divers spurious: Two of these kinds are most worthy our culture, the vulgar, viz. the mountain elm, which is taken to be the _oriptelea_ of Theophrastus; being of a less jagged and smaller leaf; and the _vernacula_ or French elm, whose leaves are thicker, and more florid, glabrous and smooth, delighting in the lower and moister grounds, where they will sometimes rise to above an hundred foot in height, and a prodigious growth, in less than an age; my self having seen one planted by the hand of a Countess living not long since, which was near 12 foot in compass, and of an height proportionable; notwithstanding the numerous progeny which grew under the shade of it, some whereof were at least a foot in diameter, that for want of being seasonably transplanted, must needs have hindered the procerity of their ample and indulgent mother: I am persuaded some of these were— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) Or A Discourse of Forest Trees
_Platanus_, that so beautiful and precious tree, anciently sacred to {214: 1} Helena, (and with which she crown’d the _Lar_, and _Genius_ of the place) was so doated on by Xerxes, that Ælian and other authors tell us, he made halt, and stopp’d his prodigious army of seventeen hundred thousand soldiers, which even cover’d the sea, exhausted rivers, and thrust mount Athos from the Continent, to admire the pulcritude and procerity of one of these goodly trees; and became so fond of it, that spoiling both himself, his concubines, and great persons of all their jewels, he cover’d it with gold, gems, neck-laces, scarfs and bracelets, and infinite riches: In sum, was so enamour’d of it, that for some days, neither the concernment of his Grand Expedition, nor interest of honour, nor the necessary motion of his portentous army, could perswade him from it: He styl’d it his mistress, his minion, his Goddess; and when he was forc’d to part from it, he caus’d the figure of it to be stamp’d in a medal of gold, which he continually wore about him.— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) Or A Discourse of Forest Trees
Europe, he says, 'To review this towering regiment was his daily pleasure; and to perpetuate it was so much his care, that when he met a tall woman he immediately commanded one of his _Titanian_ retinue to marry her, that they might _propagate procerity_ [904]' For this— Life of Johnson, Volume 1 1709-1765
a stupendous procerity, though the soil be stony and very barren: Also upon the declivities, sides, and tops of high hills, and chalky mountains especially, for tho’ they thrust not down such deep and numerous roots as the oak; and grow to vast trees, they will strangely insinuate their roots into the bowels of those seemingly impenetrable places, not much unlike the fir it self, which with this so common tree, the great Cæsar denies to be found in Britanny; _Materia cujusque generis, ut in Gallia, præter fagum & abietem_: But certainly from a grand mistake, or rather, for that he had not travelled much up into the countrey: Some will have it _fagus_ instead of _ficus_, but that was never reckon’d among the timber-trees: Virgil reports it will graff with the chesnut.— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) Or A Discourse of Forest Trees
Century Dictionary (1)
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