232 SYLVA BOOK ii 



of these, the Grand Canaries (and all about the mount- 

 ains 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. 



1 1 . The bodies of these being cut, or burnt down 

 to the ground, will emit frequent suckers from the 

 roots ; but so will neither the pine nor fir, nor indeed 

 care to be topped : But the fir may be propagated of 

 layers, and cuttings, which I divulge as a considerable 

 secret that has been essay'd with success. 



12. That all these, especially the fir and pine will 

 prosper well with us, is more than probable, because 

 it is a kind of demonstration, that they did heretofore 

 grow plentifully in Cumberland, Cheshire, Stafford, 

 and Lancashire, if the multitudes of these trees to 

 this day found entire, and buried under the earth, 

 though suppos'd to have been 'rethrown and cover'd 

 so ever since the universal Deluge, be indeed of this 

 species : Dr. Plot speaks of a fir-tree in Staffordshire, 

 of 1 50 foot high, which some think of spontaneous 

 growth ; besides several more so irregularly standing, 



