There is another berry-bearing savine in warmer climats, which also resembles the cypress, commonly taken for the Tarrentine cypress, so much celebrated by Cato, which grew to noble standards: But that, and the Melesian, worthy the culture, are rare with us, and indeed is as well supply’d by the more hardy, as well as the Swedish juniper, and other shrubs. The sabine is easily propagated by slips and cuttings sooner than by the seeds, though sometimes found in the small squamous seed-cases.
_Tamaric_, (growing to a considerable tree) for its aptness to be shorn and govern’d like the sabine and cypress, may be entertain’d, but not for its lasting verdure, which forsakes it in Winter, but soon again restores it. It was of old counted _infelix_, and under malediction, and therefore used to wreath, and be put on the heads of malefactors: But it has other excellent properties, in particular sovereign against the spleen, which as{ 281:1} Camden tells us was therefore brought first into England by Grindal Archbishop of Canterbury: They also made cans to drink, out of this wood.
_Thuya_; by some call’d _arbor vitae_, (brought us from Canada,) is an hardy green all the Winter, (though a little tarnish’d in very sharp weather) rais’d to a tree of moderate stature, bearing a ragged leaf, not unlike the cypress, only somewhat flatter, and not so thick set and close: It bears small longish clogs and seeds, but takes much better by layers and slips, as those we have before mentioned, and may be kept into the same shapes, but most delights in the shade, where the roots running shallow, the stem needs support: The leaf being bruised between the fingers, emits a powerful scent not easily conquer’d, seeming to breathe something of a sanative unguent, and (as I am told) makes one of the best for the closure of green and fresh wounds: But that those curious utensils and works of the turners, bowls, boxes, cups, mortars, pestles, &c. are of this material (as is pretended) and pass under the name of _lignum vitae_, (or rather of some of the exotic, more close and ponderous wood) as Brasile, log-wood, &c. is a mistake: Upon recension therefore of these exotics, I cannot but encourage the more frequent raising the rest of those _semper-vivents_, especially such as are fittest for the shrubby parts, and furniture of our groves, mere gardens of pleasure, which none but the ever-green become. To these we might add (not for their verdure only) other more rare exotics, _styrax arbor_, and terebynth, noting by the way, that we have no true turpentine to be bought in our shops, but what is from the larch; whilst apothecaries substitute that which extills from the fir-tree, instead of it: All of them minding me again of the great opportunities and encouragement we have of every day improving our stores with so many useful trees from the American plantations; for which I have the suffrage of the often-cited Mr. Ray, who is certainly a very able judge: Might we not therefore attempt the more frequent locust, sassafras, &c. and that sort of elm, or sugar-tree, whose juice yields that sweet _halymus latifolius_, and several others for encouragement? But