l-nut-shells, when green, with the leaves of sage, urine and ashes,
and the like aspersions. Take of two or three of the ingredients, of
each an handful in two pails of water; make them boil in it half an
hour, then strain the liquor, and sprinkle it on the trees infected with
caterpillars, the black-flea, &c. in two or three times it will clear
them, and should be us'd about the time of blossoming. Another, is to
choak and dry them with smoak of _galbanum_, shoo-soals, hair; and some
affirm that planting the pionie near them, is a certain remedy; but
there is no remedy so facile, as the burning them off with small wisps
of dry straw, which in a moment rids you.

21. Rooks do in time, by pinching off the buds and tops of trees for
their nests, cause many trees and groves to decay: Their dung propagates
nettles and choaks young seedlings: They are to be shot, and their nests
demolish'd. The bullfinch and titmouse also eat off and spoil the buds
of fruit-trees; prevented by clappers, or caught in the wyre mouse-trap
with teeth, and baited with a piece of rusty bacon, also with
lime-twigs. But if cattle break in before the time, _conclamatum est_,
especially goats, whose mouths and breath is poison to trees; they never
thrive well after; and Varro affirms, if they but lick the olive-tree,
they become immediately barren. And now we have mention'd barrenness, we
do not reckon trees to be sterile, which do not yield a fruitful burden
constantly every year (as juniper and some annotines do) no more than of
pregnant women: Whilst that is to be accounted a fruitful tree which
yields its product every second or third year, as the oak and most
forresters do; no more may we conclude that any tree or vegetable are
destitute of seeds, because we see them not so perspicuously with our
naked eyes, by reason of their exility, as with the nicest examination
of the microscope.

22. Another touch at the winds; for though they cannot properly be said
to be infirmities of trees; yet they are amongst the principal causes
that render trees infirm. I know no surer protection against them, than
(as we said) to shelter and stake them whilst they are young, till they
have well establish'd roots; and with this caution, that in case any
goodly trees (which you would desire especially to preserve and redress)
chance to be prostrated by some impetuous and extraordinary storm; you
be not over-hasty to carry him away, or despair of him; (nor is it of
a