late head gardener there, carefully counted the annual rings, after o.hng across the bntt, so as to mah
hem more distinct, and found that the tree had lived ,45 years, or .. may be a year or two more_ I
Lu" th fore ha« been planted in 17*0, or perhaps a few years earher, as its firs, growths might be
below the line where the saw passed. This gives a somewhat lower rat.o than that we have above
arrived at. Reckoning from the centre,
iccupicd j i inches,
• t ••
.» ,. sl -
. The 7th
The rings shew a great uniformity, until the tree reaches about one hundred years of age, when the
breadth of the rings began to diminish.
We ma, remark, while speaking of the old trees a, Chiswick House, that the largest of them rs now
(,88a) ,8 feet in girth; whereas, we learn from Loudon that, in ,837, forty-five years previous, it was only
I 3i feet, shewing an increase a, the rate of about a foot in girth every ten years that ,s, 4 nrehes ,„
d ameter-equal to an average breadth of »4 lines for each annual nng dunng these^forty-five years
In October of the present year (.88s) Mr. Barron. Super,„tendon, o the Royal Horticultural
Gardens, informs us that there are now fifty-one large trees in existence a. Ch.sw.ck House (three were
How d™„ a few years ago). All are in fa,, condition and quite healthy m appearance havmg ma e o d
growth last season; in the autumn of which, however, some large branches were b ok „. »company
with Mr. May, the present head gardener there, Mr. Barron measured seven of the largest trees, and
ascertained that their circumference, at about three feet from the ground, was as f o l l o w s ,
The largest has a short bole, breaking out into a number of spreading branches.
Mr Edmonds informed us, in ,866, that the branches of the largest tree had suice ,830 spread
laterally 18 feet—that is, 6 inches per annum. He says : "In the year 1830, when I first came to th,s
place happen to have noticed how fcr one of the branches of a Cedar was from the pedestal of a vase.
There was then , a fee. from the point of the shoo. ,0 .he side of the stone pedestal next to ,t, and now
it has reached 6 feet beyond this-making almost exactly ,8 feet of growth m the th.rtysax years. This
branch is on the south side of the tree. The above accords with my observât,ons generally on the growth
of all the Cedar tree,. Some seasons the growth is not more than four inches ; a waiter summer w,l
produce six; and I have noticed a growth of eight inches added when the season has been one o
unusual heat." At the present time (,88s) Mr. Barron informs us .ha. .he branch m quest,on ,s 8 fee,
beyond the pedestal, so that the lateral growth ,„ the past sixteen years has been 2 feet only
On the above points M. Loiseleur Deslongchamps arrives at very much the same conclus,ons as
those above mentioned. He says :
more than 3 or 4 nches m height -it the . ml of IU. lu* *•»•>'11 r ,w,u
t . „ , , ; „ , d in lhp „pen air, its increase in
do,i.Eth,'three „ « , r ; b.. — « »«
height and in thick.™ become. tnnch mere toptd : ,t mete.«, oh:» »ere than a tee, , , ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
el the Duhamel de Monceae, a Cedar thirty-three year. old. «h,eh „ as at,eel , t • . - - ^ ^ ^ . , b c l i c vc
has even been seen (Srat Bee.- Diet d'Agrfc, ,8... «1. nr P- Si;). 1 t,..- . . . aho • • ,„„... b „ „ , „ J , , , I , that ,1,
that this tree is that ot J l other, of ,h. same family m .h,eh the ..crease . M » .„„mon to all ether tree. " (LoWeur Hit. du
increase in thiclrne,. decreases will year, as ntoeh a. it ad.anees m .ge, bol tht. ,s a 1.» «h,eh common
Cèdre).
It does not appear that the fast growing Cedars in this country have by any means the longevity^
their more deliberate ancestors in Lebanon. A large proportion of those which were first planted are
already gone, or are fast hastening to decay. The Hendon great tree was blown down in 1779. The
Hillingdon tree, 132 years old, and between 15 and 16 feet in circumference, was blown down in 1790.
That at Enfield, although still a fine tree, is much maimed. Of the four trees originally planted in the
Chelsea Botanic Garden, two went long ago ; the third fell about twenty years ago, and only one now
remains, and it is getting very scraggy. It has not increased in height for many years—not since Loudon
wrote—and, instead of increasing a foot in girth every five years, as is the normal rate at a younger stage,
it has only increased half-a-foot in these thirty years.* The two trees at Hopetoun House are decaying
rapidly. Those now standing at Chiswick, as Mr. Barron informs us, are still sound ; but it is scarcely
time for them to go yet, their full age, even for this country, not having yet been attained. M. Vilmorin
tells us that, of two Cedars planted by his grandfather at Verrières, near Paris, so recently as 1816,
although one is sound and prosperous, having produced the immense growth of 81 feet in height in the
short space of sixty-five years, the other has been already in a decaying state for the last twenty-four years.
Of course, the cause of the slower growth and longer life on Mount Lebanon is the different conditions
of life in that locality. Loudon says : " When the tree has grown on mountains, the annual layers are much
narrower, and the fibre much finer, than when grown on the plains ; so much so, that a piece of Cedar wood
brought from Mount Lebanon by Dr. Pariset in 1829, and which he had made into a small piece of furniture,
presented a surface compact, agreeably veined and variously, and which, on the whole, may be
considered handsome." It is scarcely necessary to say that the reason for this being the case in timber
grown in the mountains, rather than in the plains, is the severer climate in the former. It might grow on
the mountains until doomsday, without differing in the slightest degree from the trees in the plains, if the
climate were the same in both. Trees, which in this country grow as slowly as those in Lebanon, will,
doubtless, have to a certain extent the same properties as those of that country, but only to a certain extent,
for they have not entirely the same conditions of life. They may have as much cold in winter, but they
have not the heat of the Syrian sun in summer.
Properties and Uses.—The chief use of the Cedar in this country is planting for decoration ; and it is
usually said that it especially harmonises with buildings. Its stately port and horizontal tabular branches
have apparently something architectural about them, and the conventional treatment of the tree by artists
has given our minds a predisposition to associate it with masonry.
We do not well see at first why this should be ; but we know that
the best associations of her products are those indicated by nature
herself: and that the painter never produces so successful a result
as when he extends the exactness of his imitation, not only to the
special feature he copies, but to the proper association of the
object he depicts. Those mingled together by nature herself are
adapted the one to the other, and are always harmonious. When
an inconsiderate painter introduces palms or other exotic foliage
into a northern landscape, we feel the incongruity, and the effect
is spoiled. It may be that this feeling is partly the result of education and mental association, as Yews
and Cypresses are made the emblems of grief and the companions of grave-stones ; but we imagine that
it is not wholly so : there is a natural fitness of things which enables us to select the proper accompaniments
of each tree; and, to give due effect to their character, the sceneiy of their native land should be
studied, and its style selected, as far as possible, for the trees that we plant.