CHAP. CXIH. CONl'FERiE. ABIE'TItiM. '2119 



brought clown in the spring to New York, in sloops of 80 or 100 tons, to be 

 afterwards exported to Europe and the West Indies." (Michx.) Timber of 

 the white pine is also floated clown the Delaware and Susquehanna to 

 Philadelphia, and down the Ohio and Alleghany to New Orleans. Bos- 

 ton is the principal emporium of pine timber in the northern states ; and 

 the timber exported from that city is generally divided into what are called 

 Albany, or common, boards, which are frequently deformed with knots ; and 

 the clear, or picked, boards, which are called at Philadelphia white pine 

 panels. 



The literary hist 'or y of the pine and fir tribe, in modern times, may be said 

 to commence about the middle of the sixteenth century, when Belon published 

 his work De Arboribus Coniferis, Resinifcris, &c, already noticed, p. 187. 

 Forests of pines and firs were at that time much more common throughout 

 Europe than they are at the present day ; and the attention of planters 

 seems not to have been drawn to the raising of pine and fir plantations, till 

 the comparative scarcity of pine timber of large dimensions, which occurred 

 about the end of the seventeenth century. Evelyn, and afterwards Miller, 

 in England, and Buffbn and Du Hamel in France, first directed attention 

 to the subject. About the middle of the last century, the Baron Tschoudy 

 translated into French what Miller had written on the pine ; he also made 

 a great many experiments himself; and was the first to introduce the 

 practice of grafting the pine and fir tribe. In the beginning of the pre- 

 sent century, the first volume of Lambert's Genus Pinus, appeared in 

 England, and it has been since followed by two others; in 1810, Mi- 

 chaux's Arbres Foretieres de /' Amerique, and in 1826, the Memoires sur les 

 Coniferes, of M. Richard, were printed in France ; and these works, as 

 far as respects botanical science, are by far the best yet published on the 

 subject of which they treat. In Delamarre*s Traite Pratique de la Culture 

 des Pins, 3d edit., published in 1834, will be found an alphabetical catalogue 

 of 43 authors, who have written, more or less, on the culture of the pine 

 in France ; but the works more particularly worth referring to, in addition 

 to those above mentioned, are the Nouveau Du Hamel, and the Flora Ameri- 

 canos Septentrionalis of Pursh. 



Several sorts of pines and firs appear to have been known in England in 

 the time of Gerard and Parkinson ; and afterwards Ray and Evelyn refer to 

 gardens containing particular species. It had not then been common to form 

 plantations of the pine as a useful tree ; for Evelyn mentions as remarkable, 

 that " a northern gentleman" had informed him that the pine was abundantly 

 planted in Northumberland for timber. Evelyn mentions ten several sorts 

 as then in English gardens ; including the cedar, and the larch, the pinaster, 

 the Pinus 7\e v da, the silver fir, the spruce, and one or two other species or 

 varieties of doubtful identity. In the London nurserymen's Catalogue of 1730, 

 (mentioned p. 60.,) about the same number are enumerated as being then 

 propagated for sale. In Milier's time, collections of pines and firs appear to 

 have been first made by some of the principal landed gentlemen. Among the 

 oldest of these collections was that at Woburn Abbey, where the park, at the 

 beginning of the present century, contained some immense silver firs, that 

 have since been cut down on account of their age. At Whitton, an excellent 

 collection was made, between 1720 and 1730, by Archibald Duke of Argyll; 

 some fine specimens of which, and especially of the cedars, pinasters, Wey- 

 mouth pines, and hemlock spruces, still remain, and continue to grow 

 vigorously. According to the Hortus Kewensis, the Pinus Cembra was first 

 planted at Whitton ; and the original tree, which still exists, was, in July, 

 1837, 50 ft. high, with a trunk 1 ft. 6 in. in diameter. Between 1750 and 1760, 

 Peter Oollinson made a collection of all the rarest pines and firs that could be 

 procured in his time, in his grounds at Mill Hill ; and several of these trees, 

 particularly P. Cembra, P. Pinea, and some of the cedars and spruces, still 

 remain. A collection of pines and firs was made at Syon about the same 

 period; and, when Kew Gardens were formed in 1760, as many species were 



