HKB
Of the Cork, Ilex, Alaternus, Celastrus, Ligustrum, Philyrea, Myrtil, Lentiscus, Olive, Granade, Syring, Jasmine and other Exoticks.
We do not exclude this useful tree from those of the glandiferous and forest; but being inclin’d to gratify the curious, I have been induc’d to say something farther of such semper virentia, as may be made to sort with those of our own, (especially of the next Chapter.) I begin with the
Cork, [suber] of which there are two sorts (and divers more in the Indies) one of a narrow, or less jagged leaf, and perennial; the other of a broader, falling in Winter; grows in the coldest parts of Biscay, in the north of New-England, in the south-West of France, especially the second species, fittest for our climate; and in all sorts of ground, dry heaths, stony and rocky mountains, so as the roots will run even above the earth, where they have little to cover them; all which considered, methinks we should not despair. We have said where they grow plentifully in France; but by Pliny, Nat. Hist. l. 16. c. 8. it should seem they were since transplanted thither; for he affirms there were none either there, or in Italy, in his time: But I exceedingly wonder that Carolus Stephanus, and Cursius, should write so peremptorily, that there were none in Italy; where I my self have travell’d through vast woods of them about Pisa, Aquin, and in divers tracts between Rome, and the kingdom of Naples, and in France. The Spanish cork is a species of the enzina, differing chiefly in the leaf, which is not so prickly; and in the bark, which is frequently four or five inches thick: The manner of decortication thereof is once in two or three years, to strip it in a dry season; otherwise, the intercutaneous moisture endangers the tree, and therefore a rainy season is very pernicious; when the bark is off, they unwarp it before the fire, and press it even, and that with weights upon the convex part, and so it continues, being cold.
The uses of cork is well known amongst us, both at sea and land, for its resisting both water and air: The fisher-men who deal in nets, and all who deal with liquors, cannot be without it: Ancient persons prefer it before leather for the soles of their shooes, being light, dry, and resisting moisture, whence the Germans name it Pantoffel-holts (slipper-wood) perhaps from the Greek Παντὸς & φέλλος; for I find it first applied to that purpose by the Grecian ladies, whence they were call’d light-footed; I know not whether the epithet do still belong to that sex; but from them it’s likely the Venetian dames took it up for their monstrous choppines; affecting, or usurping an artificial eminency above men, which nature has denied them. Of one of the sorts of cork are made pretty cups, and other vessels, esteem’d good to drink out of for hectical persons: The Egyptians made their coffins of it, which being lin’d with a resinous composition, preserved their dead incorrupt: The poor people in Spain, lay broad planks of it by their beds-side, to tread on (as great persons use Turky and Persian carpets) to defend them from the floor, and sometimes they line or wainscot the walls, and inside of their houses built of stone, with this bark, which renders them very warm, and corrects the moisture of the air: Also they employ it for bee-hives, and to double the insides of their contemplores, and leather-cases, wherein they put flasquéra’s with snow to refrigerate their wine. This tree has beneath the cortex or cork, two other coats, or libri, of which one is reddish, which they strip from the hole when ’tis fell’d only; and this bears good price with the tanner; The rest of the wood is very good firing, and applicable to many other uses of building, palisade-work, &c. The ashes drunk, stop the bloody-flux.