3. The best time to transplant, were in the beginning of April; they would thrive mainly in a stiff, hungry clay, or rather loam; but by no means in over-light, or rich soil: Fill the holes therefore with such barren earth, if your ground be improper of it self; and if the clay be too stiff, and untractable, with a little sand, removing with as much earth about the roots as is possible, though the fir will better endure a naked transplantation, than the pine: If you be necessitated to plant towards the latter end of Summer, lay a pretty deal of horse-litter upon the surface of the ground, to keep off the heat, and in Winter the cold; but let no dung touch either stem or root: You may likewise sow in such earth about February, they will make a shoot the very first year of an inch; next an handful, the third year three foot, and thence forward, above a yard annually. A Northern gentleman (who has oblig’d me with this process upon his great experience) assures me, that fir, and this feralis arbor, (as Virgil calls the pine) are abundantly planted in Northumberland, which are in few years grown to the magnitude of ship-masts; and from all has been said, deduces these encouragements. 1. The facility of their propagation. 2. The nature of their growth, which is to affect places where nothing else will thrive. 3. Their uniformity and beauty. 4. Their perpetual verdure. 5. Their sweetness. 6. Their fruitfulness; affording seed, gum, fuel, and timber of all other woods the most useful, and easy to work, &c. All which highly recommend it as an excellent improvement of husbandry, fit to be enjoyn’d by some solemn edict, to the inhabitants of this our island, that we may have masts, and those other materials of our own growth: In planting the silver abies, set not the roots too deep, it affects the surface more than the rest.
4. The pine (of which are reckon’d no less than ten several sorts, preferring the domestic, or sative for the fuller growth) is likewise of both sexes, whereof the male growing lower, with a rounder shape, hath its wood more knotty and rude than the female; it’s lank, longer, narrow and pointed; bears a black, thick, large cone, including the kernel within an hard shell, cover’d under a thick scale: The nuts of this tree (not much inferior to the almond) are used among other ingredients, in beatilla-pies, at the best tables. They would be gather’d in June, before they gape; yet having hung two years (for there will be always some ripe, and some green on the same tree) preserve them in their nuts, in sand, as you treat acorns, &c. ’till the season invite, and then set or sow them in ground which is cultivated like the fir, in most respects; only, you may bury the nuts a little deeper. By a friend of mine, they were rolled in a fine compost made of sheeps-dung, and scatter’d in February, and this way never fail’d fir and pine; they came to be above inch-high by May; and a Spanish author tells us, that to macerate them five days in a child’s urine, and three days in water, is of wonderful effect: This were an expeditious process for great plantations; unless you would rather set the pine as they do pease, but at wider distances, that when there is occasion of removal, they might be taken up with the earth and all, I say, taken up, and not remov’d by evulsion; because they are (of all other trees) the most obnoxious to miscarry without this caution; and therefore it were much better (where the nuts might be commodiously set, and defended) never to remove them at all, it gives this tree so considerable a check. The safest course of all, were to set the nuts in an earthen-pot, and in frosty weather, shewing it a little to the fire, the intire clod will come out with them, which are to be reserved, and set in the naked earth, in convenient and fit holes prepar’d beforehand, or so soon as the thaw is universal: Some commend the strewing a few oats at the bottom of the fosses or pits in which you transplant the naked roots, for a great promotement of their taking, and that it will cause them to shoot more in one year than in three: But to this I have already spoken. Other kinds not so rigid, nor the bark, leaf, cone and nuts so large, are those call’d the mountain-pine, a very large stately tree: There is likewise the wild, or bastard-pine, and tea, clad with thin long leaves, and bearing a turbinated cone: Abundance of excellent rosin comes from this tree. There is also the pinaster, another of the wild-kind; but none of them exceeding the Spanish, call’d by us, the Scotch pine, for its tall and erect growth, proper for large and ample walks and avenues: Several of the other wild sorts, inclining to grow crooked. But for a more accurate description of these coniferous trees, and their perfect distinctions, consult our Mr. Ray’s most elaborate and useful work, where all that can be expected or desir’d, concerning this profitable, as well as beautiful tree, is amply set down, Hist. Plant. lib. 25. cap. I.
5. I am assur’d (by a person most worthy of credit) that in the territory of Alzey (a country in Germany, where they were miserably distressed for wood, which they had so destroy’d as that they were reduc’d to make use of straw for their best fuel) a very large tract being newly plowed, (but the wars surprizing them, not suffer’d to sow,) there sprung up the next year a whole forest of pine-trees, of which sort of wood there was none at all, within less than fourscore miles; so as ’tis verily conjectur’d by some, they might be wafted thither from the country of Westrasia, which is the nearest part to that where they grow: If this be true, we are no more to wonder, how, when our oak-woods are grubb’d up, beech, and trees of other kinds, have frequently succeeded them: What some impetuous winds have done in this nature, I could produce instances almost miraculous: I shall say nothing of the opinion of our master Varro, and the learned[227:1] Theophrastus, who were both of a faith, that the seeds of plants drop’d out of the air. Pliny in his 16th. book, chap. 33. upon discourse of the Cretan cypress, attributes much to the indoles, and nature of the soil, virtue of the climate, and impressions of the air. And indeed it is very strange, what is affirm’d of that pitchy-rain, (reported to have fallen about Cyrene, the year 430. U. C.) after which, in a short time, sprung up a whole wood of the trees of Laserpicium, producing a precious gum, not much inferior to benzoin, if at least the story be warrantable: But of these aerial irradiations, various conceptions, and æquivocal productions without seed, &c. difficulties to be solv’d by our philosophers, whence those leaves of the platan come; which Dr. Spon tells us (in his Travels) are found floating in some of the fountains of the isles of the Strophades; no such tree growing near them by 30 miles: But these may haply be convey’d thro’ some unknown subterranean passage; for were it by the wind, it having a very large leaf, they would be been flying in, or falling out of the air.
6. In transplanting of these coniferous trees, which are generally resinaceous, viz. fir, pine, larix, cedar, and which have but thin and single roots, you must never diminish their heads, nor be at all busie with their roots, which pierce deep, and is all their foundation, unless you find any of them bruised, or much broken; therefore such down-right roots as you may be forc’d to cut off, it were safe to sear with an hot iron, and prevent the danger of bleeding, to which they are obnoxious even to destruction, though unseen, and unheeded: Neither may you disbranch them, but with great caution, as about March, or before, or else in September, and then ’tis best to prune up the side-branches close to the trunk, cutting off all that are above a year old; if you suffer them too long, they grow too big, and the cicatrice will be more apt to spend the tree in gum; upon which accident, I advise you to rub over their wounds with a mixture of cow-dung; the neglect of this cost me dear, so apt are they to spend their gum. Indeed, the fir and pine seldom out-live their being lopp’d. Some advise us to break the shells of pines to facilitate their delivery, and I have essay’d, but to my loss; nature does obstetricate, and do that office of her self, when it is the proper season; neither does this preparation at all prevent those which are so buried, whilst their hard integuments protect them both from rotting, and the vermin.
Pinastes, the domestic pine grows very well with us, both in mountains and plains; but the pinaster, or wilder (of which are four sorts) best for walks; pulcherrima in hortis, (as already we have said) because it grows tall and proud, maintaining their branches at the sides, which the other pine does less frequently. There is in New-England, a very broad pine, which increases to a wonderful bulk and magnitude, insomuch as large canoos have been excavated out of the body of it, without any addition. But beside these large and gigantick pines, there is the spinet, with sharp thick bristles, yielding a rosin or liquor odorous, and useful in carpentary-work.
8. The fir grows tallest, being planted reasonable close together; but suffers nothing to thrive under them. The pine not so inhospitable; for (by Pliny’s good leave) it may be sown with any tree, all things growing well under its shade, and excellent in woods; hence Claudian,
The friendly pine the mighty oak invites.[229:1]
9. They both affect the cold, high, and rocky grounds, abies in montibus altis: Those yet which grow on the more southern, and less expos’d quarters, a little visited with the beams of the sun, are found to thrive beyond the other, and to afford better timber; and this was observed long since by Vitruvius of the infernates (as he calls them) in comparison with the supernates, which growing on the Northern and shady side of the Appennines, were nothing so good, which he imputes to the want of due digestion. They thrive (as we said) in the most sterile places, yet will grow in better, but not in over-rich, and pinguid. The worst land in Wales bears (as I am told) large pine; and the fir according to his aspiring nature, loves also the mountain more than the valley; but ἐν τοῖς παλισκίοις ὅλως οὐ φύεται, it cannot endure the shade, as Theophrastus observes, de Pl. l. 4. c. 1. But this is not rigidly true; for they will grow in consort, till they even shade and darken one another, and will also descend from the hills, and succeed very well, being desirous of plentiful waterings, till they arrive to some competent stature; and therefore they do not prosper so well in an over sandy and hungry soil, or gravel, as in the very entrails of the rocks, which afford more drink to the roots, that penetrate into their meanders, and winding recesses. But though they require this refreshing at first, yet do they perfectly abhor all stercoration; nor will they much endure to have the earth open’d about their roots for ablaqueation, or be disturb’d: This is also to be understood of cypress. A fir, for the first half dozen years, seems to stand, or at least make no considerable advance, but it is when throughly rooted, that it comes away miraculously. That honourable and learned knight Sir Norton Knatchbull, (whose delicious plantation of pines and firs I beheld with great satisfaction) having assur’d me, that a fir-tree of his raising, did shoot no less than sixty foot in height, in little more than twenty years; and what are extant at Sir Peter Wentworth’s of Lillingston Lovel; Cornbury in Oxfordshire, and other places; but especially those trees growing now in Harefield Park in the county of Middlesex (belonging to Mr. Serjeant Nudigate) where there are two Spanish or silver firs, that at 2 years growth from the seed, being planted there an. 1603, are now become goodly masts: The biggest of them from the ground to the upper bough, is 81 feet, though forked on the top, which has not a little impeded its growth: The girt, or circumference below, is thirteen foot, and the length (so far as is timber, that is, to six inches square) 73 foot, in the middle 17 inches square, amounting by calculation to 146 foot of good timber: The other tree is indeed not altogether so large, by reason of its standing near the house when it was burnt (about 40 years since) when one side of the tree was scorched also; yet it has not only recover’d that scar, but thrives exceedingly, and is within eight or nine foot, as tall as the other, and would probably have been the better of the two, had not that impediment happen’d, it growing so taper, and erect, as nothing can be more beautiful: This I think (if we had no other) is a pregnant instance, as of the speedy growing of that material; so of all the encouragement I have already given for the more frequent cultivating this ornamental, useful, and profitable tree, abounding doubtless formerly in this countrey of ours, if what a grave and authentick author writes be true, Athenæus relating, that the stupendious vessel, built so many ages since 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.
10. 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.