This for the encouragement and honour of those who improve their countries with things of use and general benefit: Now in the mean time, how have I beheld a florist, or meaner gardener transported at the casual discovery of a new little spot, double leaf, streak or dash extraordinary in a tulip, anemony, carnation, auricula, or amaranth! cherishing and calling it by their own names, raising the price of a single bulb, to an enormous sum; till a law in Holland was made to check that tulipa-mania: The florist in the mean time priding himself as if he had found the elixir, or perform’d some notable atchievement, and discover’d a new countrey.
This for the defects, (for such those variegations produc’d by practice, or mixture, mangonisms and starving the root, are by chance met with now and then) of a fading flower: How much more honour then were due in justice to those persons, who bring in things of much real benefit to their countrey? especially trees for fruit and timber; the oak alone (besides the shelter it afforded to our late Sovereign Charles the IId) having so often sav’d and protected the whole nation from invasion, and brought it in so much wealth from foreign countries. I have been told, there was an intention to have instituted an Order of the Royal-Oak; and truly I should think it to become a green-ribbon (next to that of St. George) superior to any of the romantick badges, to which abroad is paid such veneration, deservedly to be worn by such as have signaliz’d themselves by their conduct and courage; for the defence and preservation of their countrey. Bespeaking my reader’s pardon for this digression, we proceed in the next to other useful exoticks.
[214:1] Euripides epithai.
[215:1] Macrob. saturnal. 3. c. 11.
[215:2] Solarium quod pro folo pendetur, as the pandects name the tax paid for the shades that bear no fruit.
CHAPTER III.
Of the Fir, Pine, Pinaster, Pitch-tree, Larsh, and Subterranean trees.
1. Abies, picea, pinus, pinaster, larsh, &c. are all of them easily rais’d of the kernels and nuts, which may be gotten out of their polysperm and turbinate cones, clogs, and squams, by exposing them to the sun, or a little before the fire, or in warm-water, till they begin to gape, and are ready to deliver themselves of their numerous burthens.
2. There are of the fir two principal species; the picea, or male, which is the bigger tree; very beautiful and aspiring, and of an harder wood, and hirsute leaf: And the silver-fir, or female. I begin with the first: The boughs whereof are flexible and bending; the cones dependent, long and smooth, growing from the top of the branch; and where gaping, yet retain the seeds in their receptacles, when fresh gather’d, giving a grateful fragrancy of the rosin: The fruit is ripe in September. But after all, for a perfecter account of the true and genuine fir-tree, (waving the distinction of sapinum, from sapinus, literâ sed unâ differing, as of another kind) is a noble upright tree from the ground, smooth and even, to the eruption of the branches; as is that they call the sapinum, and thence tapering to the summit of the fusterna: The arms and branches (with yew-like leaves) grow from the stem opposite to one another, seriatim to the top, (as do all cone-bearers) discovering their age; which in time, with their weight, bend them from their natural tendency, which is upright, especially toward the top of aged trees, where the leaf is flattish, and not so regular: The cone great and hard, pyramidal and full of winged-seeds.
The silver-fir, of a whitish colour, like rosemary under the leaf, is distinguished from the rest, by the pectinal shape of it: The cones not so large as the picea, grow also upright, and this they call the female: For I find botanists not unanimously agreed about the sexes of trees. The layers, and even cuttings of this tree, take root, and improve to trees, tho’ more naturally by its winged-seeds: But the masculine picea will endure no amputation; nor is comparable to the silver-fir for beauty, and so fit to adorn walks and avenues; tho’ the other also be a very stately plant; yet with this infirmity, that tho’ it remain always green, it sheds the old leaves more visibly, and not seldom breaks down its ponderous branches: Besides, the timber is nothing so white; tho’ yet even that colour be not always the best character: That which comes from Bergin, Swinsound, Mott, Longland, Dranton, &c. (which experienc’d work-men call the dram) being long, strait and clear, and of a yellow more cedry colour, is esteemed much before the white for flooring and wainscot, for masts, &c. those of Prussia, which we call spruce, and Norway (especially from Gottenberg) and about Riga, are the best; unless we had more commerce of them from our Plantations in New England, which are preferable to any of them; there lying rotting at present at Pascataway, a mast of such prodigious dimensions, as no body will adventure to ship, and bring away. All these bear their seeds in conick figures, and squamons, after an admirable manner and closeness, to protect their winged-seeds.
The hemlock-tree (as they call it in New-England) is a kind of spruce: In the Scottish Highlands are trees of wonderful altitude (though not altogether so tall, thick, and fine as the former) which grow upon places so unaccessible, and far from the sea, that (as one says) they seem to be planted by God on purpose for nurseries of seed, and monitors to our industry, reserved with other blessings, to be discover’d in our days amongst the new-invented improvements of husbandry, not known to our southern people of this nation, &c. Did we consider the pains they take to bring them out of the Alps, we should less stick at the difficulty of transporting them from the utmost parts of Scotland. To the former sorts we may add the Esterund firs, Tonsberry, Frederick-stad, Hellerone, Holmstrand, Landifer, Stavenger, Lawrwat, &c. There is likewise a kind of fir, call’d in Dutch the green-boome, much us’d in building of ships, though not for men of war, because of its lightness, and that it is not so strong as oak; but yet proper enough for vessels of great burden, and which stand much out of the water: This sort comes into Holland from Norway, and other Eastland countries; It is somewhat heavier yet than fir, and stronger, nor do either of them bend sufficiently: As to the seeds, they may be sown in beds or cases at any time, during March; and when they peep, carefully defended with furzes, or the like fence, from the rapacious birds, which are very apt to pull them up, by taking hold of that little infecund part of the seed, which they commonly bear upon their tops: The beds wherein you sow them had need be shelter’d from the southern aspects, with some skreen of reed, or thick hedge: Sow them in shallow rills, not above half-inch-deep, and cover them with fine light mould: Being risen a finger in height, establish their weak stalks, by sifting some more earth about them; especially the pines, which being more top-heavy, are more apt to swag. When they are of two or three years growth, you may transplant them where you please; and when they have gotten good root, they will make prodigious shoots, but not for the three or four first years comparatively. They will grow both in moist and barren gravel, and poor ground, so it be not over-sandy and light, and want a loamy ligature; but before sowing (I mean here for large designs) turn it up a foot deep, sowing, or setting your seeds an hand distance, and riddle earth upon them: In five or six weeks they will peep. When you transplant, water them well before, and cut the clod out about the root, as you do melons out of the hot-bed, which knead close to them like an egg: Thus they may be sent safely many miles, but the top must neither be bruised, nor much less cut, which would dwarf it for ever: One kind also will take of slips or layers, interr’d about the latter end of August, and kept moist.