HKB
by Hiero, had its mast out of Britain. Take notice that none of these mountainous trees should be planted deep; but as shallow as may be for their competent support.
The picea (already describ’d) grows on the Alps among the pine, but neither so tall, nor so upright, but bends its branches a little, which have the leaf quite about them, short and thick, not so flat as the fir: The cones grow at the point of the branches, and are much longer than most other cones, containing a small darkish seed. This tree produces a gum almost as white and firm as frankincense: But it is the larix (another sort of pine) that yields the true Venetian turpentine; of which hereafter.
There is also the piceaster, already mention’d, (a wilder sort) (the leaves stiff and narrow pointed, and not so close) out of which the greatest store of pitch is boil’d. The taeda likewise, which is (as some think) another sort abounding in Dalmatia, more unctuous, and more patient of the warmer situations, and so inflammable, that it will slit into candles; and therefore some will by no means admit it to be of a different species, but a metamorphosis of over-grown fattiness, to which the most judicious incline. But of these, the Grand Canaries (and all about the mountains near Tenariff) are full, where the inhabitants do usually build their houses with the timber of the pitch-tree: They cut it also into wainscot, in which it succeeds marvellously well; abating that it is so obnoxious to firing, that whenever a house is attacqu’d, they make all imaginable hast out of the conflagration, and almost despair of extinguishing it: They there also use it for candle-wood, and to travel in the night by the light of it, as we do by links and torches: Nor do they make these teas (as the Spaniards call them) of the wood of pine alone, but of other trees, as of oak and hasel, which they cleave and hack, and then dry in the oven, or chimny, but have certainly some unctuous and inflammable matter, in which they afterwards dip it; but thus they do in Biscay, as I am credibly inform’d.
The bodies of these being cut, or burnt down to the ground, will emit frequent suckers from the roots; but so will neither the pine nor fir, nor indeed care to be topped: But the fir may be propagated of layers, and cuttings, which I divulge as a considerable secret that has been essay’d with success.