48 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



From the pines are obtained the best masts, and much of the 

 most valuable ship timber; and in the building and finishing of 

 houses, they are of almost indispensable utility. The bark of 

 some of them, as the hemlock and larch, is of great value in 

 tanning ; and from others are obtained the various kinds of 

 pitch, tar, turpentine, resins and balsams, so important in a 

 commercial and economic point of view. Oil of turpentine, 

 and Bordeaux and Strasburg turpentine, are obtained from 

 different species of pine ; Burgundy pitch from the resin of the 

 Norway spruce ; Venetian turpentine from the larch ; Hunga- 

 rian and Carpathian balsams from pines, and Canadian balsam 

 from our native fir. Liquid storax and the aromatic sandarach 

 are the products of oriental and African trees of the same family. 

 Extracts of hemlock and spruce enter into the composition of 

 spruce beer, as do juniper berries into that of gin, and to them 

 it probably owes its valuable diuretic properties. The seeds of 

 several of the larger pines are eatable.* 



There is also another circumstance in their history, of great 

 interest to a country so large portions of which are spread over 

 with sterile siliceous sands. On these, which are almost barren 



* Lindley's Nat. Sys., 2d edit. p. 315. The juice of the pine is called liquid 

 resin or turpentine. Common turpentine is the resin of the Scotch fir, Pinus syl- 

 vestris, and is obtained by making incisions in the bark and wood. Yellow resin 

 is obtained from this by boiling it down ; and essential oil of turpentine, or spirits 

 of turpentine, by distillation with water, the residuum from which operation is 

 common resin, black resin or colophony. These substances are extensively used 

 in medicine, by painters in paints and varnishes, and in various processes of the 

 arts. Tar is obtained by slowly burning splintered pine, both trunk and root, 

 without free access of air, and collecting the liquid in cavities beneath the burning 

 pile. Pitch is common resin and tar melted together. Lamp-black is made by 

 burning the impurities of tar and pitch and collecting the soot. The inner bark of 

 the Scotch fir is, by the natives of some northern regions, collected in spring, 

 dried and preserved, to be baked on coals, ground, and kneaded into bread. 

 Hungarian balsam exudes from the branches of the Mugho pine, P. pumilio, and 

 an essential oil, called Krumholz oil, is distilled therefrom. Carpathian balsam 

 is distilled from the shoots of the Siberian stone pine, P. Cembra. Strasburg 

 turpentine is the liquid resin of the silver fir, P. picea, collected from the vesi- 

 cles in the bark ; as is Canada balsam or balsam of Gilead, from those in the 

 bark of our balsam fir, P. balsamea. Concrete resin exudes from the Norway 

 spruce ; Burgundy pitch is prepared, by boiling, from the resinous juice of the 

 same tree, flowing from incisions in the bark. 



