Red Fir Tree, or Pitch Tree.
Picea.
Also see: Fir Tree - Red Fir Tree, or Pitch Tree - Larch Tree - Pitch Tree - The Wild Pine Tree - The Turpentine Tree.
A tall tree, but not so regular in its growth, or in the disposition of its leaves, as the other. The trunk is thick, the bark reddish, and the wood soft. The branches are numerous, and they stand irregularly. The leaves are oblong, narrow, and sharp-pointed; and they do not grow in two even rows, as in the other, but stand irregularly on the twigs. The cones are long, slender, and hang downwards. The whole tree has a strong resinous smell.
The tops of this are boiled in diet drinks against the scurvy as the other, but they make the liquor much more nauseous; and not at all better for the intended purposes.
Pitch and tar are the produce of the fir-tree, as also the Strasburg and some other of the turpentines. The larch tree and turpentine tree furnishing the others, as will be seen in their places. The wood is piled in heaps, and lighted at the top, and the tar sweats out at the lower parts. This being boiled, becomes hard, and is called pitch.
The turpentines are balsamic, and very powerful promoters of urine, but of these more in their places: the tar has been of late rendered famous by the water made from it; but it was a fashionable remedy, and is now out of repute again.
