1773.
March.
the American spruce-tree, and that a palatable and wholesome liquor might be brewed from it, as a kind of substitute for spruce-beer[1]. In effect, with the addition of the inspissated juice of wort, and of some molasses, we brewed a very good sort of beer, which we improved very considerably afterwards, by correcting the too great astringency of our new spruce, with an equal quantity of the new tea-tree. Its taste was pleasant, and something bitter; and the only fault we could observe in it was, that being taken on an empty stomach, it frequently caused a nausea or sickness; but in all other respects it proved a very salutary drink. The spruce of New-Zeeland is a very beautiful tree, and conspicuous on account of its pendant branches, which are loaded with numerous long thread-like leaves, of a vivid green. It frequently grows to the height of fifty or sixty, and even one hundred feet, and has above ten feet in girth. Though the spruce and the tea-trees alone afforded articles of refreshment in Dusky Bay; yet we found the woods full of trees of various kinds, very fit for the use of shipwrights, joiners, and other mechanics; and Capt. Cook was of opinion that, except in the river Thames on the northern island, he had not observed a finer growth of timber on all New-Zeeland.
- ↑ This useful plant deserves a description for the benefit of the navigator; but, notwithstanding all our researches, we could never find it either in flower or in fruit, owing to the unfavourable seasons in which we visited New-Zeeland.
We
