304 



A DISCOURSE 



HOOK I. h^^ve the leaf quite about them, short and thick, not so flat as the Fir. 



••""Y^^ 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 

 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. 



11. There is also the Piceaster, a wilder sort, the leaves stiff and 

 narrow-pointed, and not so close, out of which the greatest store of pitch 

 is boiled. The Tssda 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 there- 

 fore some will by no means admit it to be of a different species, but a 

 metamorphosis of overgrown fattiness, to which the most judicious in- 

 cline. But of these, the Grand Canaries and all about the mountains 

 near Teneriff, 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 attacked they make all imaginable haste 

 out of the conflagration, and almost despair of extinguishing it. They 

 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 chimney, but have certainly some unctuous and inflammable matter 

 in which they afterwards dip it : And thus they do in Biscay, as I am 

 credibly informed. 



12. 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 they to be topped. But the Fir may be propagated 

 of layers and cuttings, which I divulge as a considerable secret that has 

 been essayed with success \ 



s The Rev. Mr. Cordiner, in his " Antiquities of the North of Scotland," confirms what 

 Mr. Evelyn has here remarked. Speaking of Mar Forest, he says, " I long admired one 

 " very noble Pine with various tops ; it exliibited an uncommon appearance. The branches 



