Redwood is a handsome tree, but not so loftie as the Mastick, excellent timber to work, for it is not so hard as some others, which is the cause they seldome break their tooles in working it, and that is the reason the work-men commend it above others. ’Tis a midling tree for sise, the body about two foot and a halfe diameter.
Prickled yellow-wood.
This is accounted as good as the Red-wood in all respects, and is a strong and lasting timber, good for building, and for all uses within doors.
Iron wood.
Iron wood is called so, for the extream hardnesse; and with that hardnesse it has such a heavinesse, as they seldome use it in building; besides, the workmen complain that it breaks all their tools. ’Tis good for any use without doores, for neither Sun nor rain can any waies mollifie it. ’Tis much used for Coggs to the Rollers.
Lignum vitæ.
Lignum vitæ they use now and then for the same purpose, when the other is away; but having no bowling in that Country, little is used: They send it commonly for England, where we employ it to severall uses; as, for making Bowles, Cabinets, Tables, and Tablemen.
Locust.
The Locust is a tree, not unfitly to be resembled to a Tuscan Pillar, plain, massie, and rurall, like a well lim’d labourer; for, the burden it bears being heavy and ponderous, ought to have a body proportionably built, to bear so great a weight. That rare Architect, Vitruvius, taking a pattern from Trees, to make his most exact Pillars, rejects the wreathed, vined, and figured Columnes; and that Columna Atticurges, mentioned by himselfe, to have been a squared Pillar; and those that are swell’d in the middle, as if sick of a Tympany or Dropsie, and chuses rather the straightest, most exact, and best sis’d, to bear the burthen that lies on them. So, looking on these trees, and finding them so exactly to answer in proportion to the Tuscan Pillars, I could not but make the resemblance the other way: For, Pillars cannot be more like Trees, then these Trees are like Tuscan Pillars, as he describes them. I have seen a Locust (and not one, but many) that hath been four foot diameter in the body, neer the root, and for fifty foot high has lessened so proportionably, as if it had taken pattern by the antient Remainders, which Philander was so precise in measuring, which is a third part of the whole shaft upward, and is accounted as the most gracefull diminution. The head to this body is so proportionable, as you cannot say, ’tis too heavy or too leight; the branches large, the sprigs, leaves, and nuts so thick, as to stop all eye sight from passing through, and so eeven at top, as you would think you might walk upon it, and not sink in. The Nuts are for the most part three inches and a halfe long, and about two inches broad, and somewhat more then an inch thick; the shell somewhat thicker then a halfe crown piece, of a russet Umbre, or hair colour; the leaves bigger than those that grow upon the Ash in England: I shall not mention the timber, having given it in my Buildings. The Kernells are three or four in every nut, and between those, a kinde of light pulpie substance, such as is in a Hazle-nut, before the kernell be grown to the full bignesse: In times of great famine there, the poor people have eaten them for sustenance: But, of all tastes, I do not like them.
Bastard-Locust.