42

A DISCOURSE

H

BOOK IX-

again of the great opportunities and encouragement we have of everyday 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 themore frequent .Locust, Safsafras, and that sort of Maple, or Sugar-tree,whose juice yields that sweet ? Also the H&lymus Latifolius, and severalothers for encouragement. But, I produce not these particulars, andother amcena vireta already mentioned, as signifying any thing to timber,the main design of this treatise, (though I read of some Myrtles so tall,as to make spear-shafts) but to exemplify in what may be farther addedto ornament and pleasure, by a cheap and most agreeable industry.

“linen, and wrap it round the body; but as the poultice burns like fire, they commonly“ lay a cloth between it and the body, otherwise it would burn and scorch' the skin.—“ I have heard this remedy praised beyond measure, by people who said they had“ experienced its good effects. An Iroquese Indian told me, that a decoction of Thuya“ leaves was used as a remedy for the cough. In the neighbourhood of Saratoga, they useu this decoction in the intermitting fever.

“ This tree has, in common with many other American trees, the quality of growing“ freely in marshes and thick woods, which may be with certainty called its native places.“ However, there is scarce a single Thuya-tree in those places which bears seeds; if, on the“ other hand, a tree accidentally stands on the outside of a wood, on the sea-shore,“ or in a field, where the air can freely come at it, it is always full of seeds. I have found-“ this to be the case with the Thuya, on innumerable occasions.’'