One thing more I think fit to add; That it may be convenient once in four, or five, or six years, to cut off the strings and roots which straggle into the borders, with a very sharp spade, that they may not prejudice the flowers, and what else one plants in them.
I need not speak much of the uses of this tree, (growing in time to considerable stature) so continually sought after for many utensils, being so hard, close and pondrous as to sink like lead in water, and therefore of special use for the turner, ingraver, carver, mathematical-instrument, comb and pipe-makers (_si buxos inflare juvat_...... Virg.) give great prices for it by weight, as well as measure; and by the seasoning, and divers manner of cutting, vigorous insolations, politure and grinding, the roots of this tree (as of even our common and neglected thorn) do furnish the inlayer and cabinet-makers with pieces rarely undulated, and full of variety. Also of box are made wheels or shivers (as our ship-carpenters call them) and pins for blocks and pullies; pegs for musical instruments; nut-crackers, weavers-shuttles, hollar-sticks, bump-sticks, and dressers for the shooe-maker, rulers, rolling-pins, pestles, mall-balls, beetles, topps, tables, chess-men, screws, male and female, bobins for bone-lace, spoons, nay the stoutest axle-trees, but above all,
........Box-combs bear no small part In the militia of the female-art; They tye the links which hold our gallants fast, And spread the nets to which fond lovers hast.{ 296:1}
3. The chymical oyl of this wood has done the feats of the best _guajacum_ (though in greater quantity) for the cure of venereal diseases, as one of the most expert physicians in Europe has confess’d. The oyl asswages the tooth-ache. But, says Rhodoginus, the honey which is made at Trevisond in box-trees, (I suppose he means gather’d among them; for there are few, I believe, if any, so large and hollow as to lodge and hive them) renders them distracted who eat of it. Lib. XXIII. cap. 25.
V. Since the use of bows is laid aside amongst us, the propagation of the yew-tree (of which we have two sorts, and other places reckon more, as the Arcadian black and red; the yellow of Ida, infinitely esteem’d of old) is likewise quite forborn; but the neglect of it is to be deplor’d; seeing that (besides the rarity of it in Italy and France, where but little of it grows) the barrenest grounds, and coldest of our mountains (for