QUEVEDO DE VILLEGAS

QUEVEDO DE VILLEGAS, FRANCISCO, a celebrated Spanish poet, born at Madrid in 1570. He was descended

descended from a noble family, and was made a knight of St. James; but was thrown into prison by order of Count Olivarez, whose administration he satirized in his verses, and was not set at liberty till after that minister's disgrace. Quevedo wrote some heroic, lyric, and facetious poems. He also composed several treatises on religious subjects, and has translated some authors into Spanish. He died in 1644. The most known of his works are, 1. The Spanish Parnassus. 2. The Adventurer Buscon. 3. Visions of Hell Reformed, &c. Quevedo was one of the greatest scholars and most eminent poets of his time. His youth was spent in the service of his country in Italy, where he distinguished himself with the utmost sagacity and prudence. His moral discourses prove his sound doctrine and religious sentiments, while his literary pieces display his infinite judgement and refined taste. His great knowledge of Hebrew is apparent from the report of the historian Mariana to the king, requesting that Quevedo might revise the new edition of the Bible of Arias Montanus. His translations of Epictetus and Phocylides, with his imitations of Anacreon, and other Greek authors, show how well he was versed in that language: that he was a Latin scholar, his constant correspondence, from the age of twenty, with Lipsius, Chifflet, and Scioptius, will sufficiently illustrate. As a poet, he excelled both in the serious and burlesque style, and was singularly happy in that particular turn we have since admired in Butler and Swift. His library, which consisted of about five thousand volumes, was reduced at his death to about two thousand, and is preserved in the convent of St. Martin at Madrid.

QUICK or QUICKSET Hedge, among gardeners, denotes all live hedges, of whatever sort of plants they are composed, to distinguish them from dead hedges; but in a more strict sense of the word, it is restrained to those planted with the hawthorn, under which name those young plants or sets are sold by the nursery-gardeners who raise them for sale.

The following method of propagating the common white thorn for hedges is recommended by Mr. Taylor of Morton near Manchester, in a letter addressed to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. After premising that we have successfully repeated the experiment, we shall give the account of the process in his own words.

"Every one of you, I think, will allow that fences are material objects to be attended to in agriculture; you must also be convinced that there is no plant in this kingdom of which they can so properly be made as the erataus oxyocantha Linnaei, or common white thorn. In consequence of my being convinced of this, I have been induced to make a few experiments to effect the better propagation of that valuable plant; the result of which, along with specimens of my success, I beg leave to submit to your inspection.

"In the year 1801, I had occasion to purchase a quantity of thorns, and finding them very dear, I was determined to try some experiments, in order if possible to raise them at a less expence. I tried to propagate them from cuttings of the branches, but with little or no success. I likewise tried if pieces of the root would grow; and I cut from the thorns which I had purchased about a dozen of such roots as pleased me, and planted them in a border along with those I had bought.

To my great astonishment, not one of them died; and in two years they became as good thorns as the average of those I had purchased. The thorns I purchased were three years old when I got them. In April 1802, I had occasion to move a fence, from which I procured as many roots of thorns as made me upwards of two thousand cuttings, of which I did not lose five in the hundred.

"In the spring of 1803, I likewise planted as many cuttings of thorn roots as I could get. In 1804, I did the same; and this year I shall plant many thousands.

"I have sent for your inspection specimens of the produce of 1802, 1803, and 1804, raised after my method, with the best I could get of those raised from haws in the common way, which generally lie one year in the ground before they vegetate. They are exactly one, two, and three years old, from the day they were planted.—I was so pleased with my success in raising so valuable an article to the farming interest of this kingdom, at so trifling an expence, (for it is merely that of cutting the roots into lengths and planting them), that I was determined to make it known to the world, and could think of no better method than communicating it to your society; and should you so far approve of this method of raising thorns, as to think me entitled to any honorary reward, I shall receive it with gratitude, but shall feel myself amply repaid for any trouble I have been at, should you think it worthy a place in the next volume of your Transactions.

"The method of raising the thorns from roots of the plant, is as follows.

"I would advise every farmer to purchase a hundred or a thousand thorns, according to the size of his farm, and plant them in his orchard or garden, and when they have attained the thickness of my three-year-old specimens, which is the size I always prefer for planting in fences, let him take them and prune the roots in the manner I have pruned the specimens sent you, from which he will upon an average get ten or twelve cuttings from each plant, which is as good as thorns of the same thickness; so that you will easily perceive that in three years he will have a succession of plants fit for use, which he may if he pleases increase tenfold every time he takes them up.

"The spring (say in all April) is the best time to plant the cuttings, which must be done in rows half a yard asunder, and about four inches from each other in the row; they ought to be about four inches long, and planted with the top one-fourth of an inch out of the ground, and well fastened; otherwise they will not succeed so well.

"The reason why I prefer spring to autumn for planting the roots, is, that were they to be planted in autumn, they would not have got sufficient hold of the ground before the frost set in, which would raise them all from the ground; and, if not entirely destroy the plants, would oblige the farmer to plant them afresh.

"I have attached the produce of my three-year-old specimen to the plants it came from, cut in the way I always practise; on the thick end of the root I make two, and on the other end one cut, by which means the proper end to be planted uppermost, which is the thick one, may easily be known.

"Although I recommend the roots to be planted in April,

Quick April, yet the farmer may, where he pleases, take up
Quicksilver the thorns he may want, and put the roots he has pruned
off into sand or mould, where they will keep until
he has leisure to cut them into proper lengths for plant-
ing; he will likewise keep them in the same way until
planted.

"The great advantage of my plan is: first, that in
case any one has raised from haws a thorn with remark-
ably large prickles, of vigorous growth, or possessing
any other qualification requisite to make a good fence,
he may propagate it far better and sooner, from roots,
than any other way. Secondly, in three years he may
raise from roots a better plant than can in six years be
raised from haws, and with double the quantity of
roots; my three-year-old specimen would have been
half as big again, had I not been obliged to move all
my cuttings the second year after they were planted.

"It would not be a bad way, in order to get roots, to
plant a hedge in any convenient place, and on each side
trench the ground two yards wide, and two grafts deep;
from which, every two or three years, a large quantity
of roots might be obtained, by trenching the ground
over again, and cutting away what roots were found,
which would all be young and of a proper thickness."