old. At Ratho there are some fine Cedars with trunks from 12 to 15 feet in girth. There is an old one
of equal girth at Invergowrie. At Hamilton Palace, in Lanarkshire, there were some which in i860 were
eighty years old, and 40 feet high ; but they were killed in that winter. At Carlowrie, in Linlithgowshire,
there is a specimen sixty years old, and 35 feet in height. These dimensions shew the slower growth in
Scotland. The following are the sizes and ages of some of the Cedars in Scotland :—
We know of no Cedars of much age in Ireland, excepting those already referred to as having the
reputation of being planted by Sir Walter Raleigh.
In France the Cedar thrives well; fine Cedars are common, although the tree is not grown so
extensively as in England. It is not at all fastidious, growing on almost every description of soil, although
clay or gravel seems to suit it better than sand or chalk. Loiseleur says that the oldest Cedar in France
was introduced in 1734 by Bernard de Jussieu, who, on returning from his first visit to England, brought
with him two young Cedar plants, so small, that to preserve them more securely, he is said to have carried
them in the crown of his hat.* One of them was placed on the mount in the Jardin des Plantes, where
it still is. It appears that the other young plant, after being long lost sight of, was discovered by M.
Merat, in 1832, at the Chateau de Montigny, near Montereau, a little town about eighteen leagues from
Paris. The Cedar at this place, although planted at the same time as that in the Jardin des Plantes, had,
when last reported on, its trunk at least one-third larger than it; a circumstance due to its having been
planted in good soil, instead of being planted, as the other was, on a heap of rubbish, and injured by an
accumulation of soil being heaped about its roots. M. Henri Vilmorin, of the well-known house of
Vilmorin-Andrieux, & Cie., seedsmen in Paris, who has kindly assisted us in procuring information
regarding the growth of the Cedar on the Continent, tells us that the finest example in France which he
has heard of, is at Montigny Lencoup, near Provins. It is little more than a hundred years old, and in
1827 was already 14 feet in girth at 3 feet above the ground, and is now (1883) exactly 28 feet 4 inches in
girth at 5 feet above the soil.
M. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps mentions that the greatest planter of Cedars in France that he knew
of was the Viscount Hericart de Thury, who, in 1780, planted many trees on the mountain of St. Martin
le Pauvre, Departement de l'Oise.
The same author also speaks of having seen in 1835 a remarkably fine pyramidal Cedar on the
estate of the celebrated Duhamel du Monceau, with a stem 70 or 80 feet in height, giving out horizontal
branches all the way up, and 12 feet Si inches in girth at a man's height from the ground, and 16 feet at
voyage, under the bright sun of the Mediterranean, he shared his half-glassful of water with his little plant His own strength began to sink under the prolonged privation ; but lie
never flinched, and arrived at Marseilles with his own health damaged, but with that of his little plant uninjured. On landing, the exhausted botanist had nearly lost the whole of
the benefit of his self-denial from the incredulity of the custom-house officers, who could not understand or believe in the interest he professed to take in the plant, and insisted on
the
the ground. He also notices two other handsome trees at Vrigny, although not so fine as the first : one
of these, a few years ago, was 72 feet high, and 18 feet 9 inches in circumference at 3 feet above the
ground. It very soon branches off in four or five big boughs, which form a very broad head, exceeding
80 feet in diameter. Besides these, the following have been recorded as noteworthy, viz., a Cedar which
is in the old garden of the Maréchal de Noailles at St. Germain ; one in the Marbeuf Garden in the
Champs-Elysées ; and some in that of the Trianon at Versailles, which were all 8 or 10 feet in girth at
the height of a man ; and one in M. Leroux's park at Franconville, seven leagues to the north of Paris,
which is now spoken of as an especially fine example, which was seventy years old (in 1835) and 12 feet
3 inches in girth at the base of the trunk.
M. Vilmorin gives the dimensions of a young tree, planted by his grandfather (about 1816), in his
country place, Verrières, near Paris. In 1856, it was 60 feet high, and 6 feet 10 inches in girth at 3 feet
above the ground. In 1866 it was 81 feet high, and 8 feet 10 inches in girth at the same height, and at
this present date (1883) it is 84 feet high and 11 feet 1 inch in girth at 3 feet 4 inches above the soil. It
has ceased for several years growing in height. The soil is good loam.
Loudon speaks of a tree in the park at Fromont, near Paris, thirty-two years planted, 58 feet high,
with the trunk 1 feet and the head 36 feet in diameter. M. Henri Vilmorin informs us that this park,
which was laid out and planted by Soulange Bodin, contains several fine Cedars of various shapes, some
being upwards of 80 feet high, and one more than 12 feet in girth at 3 feet from the ground.
Loudon also specifies one at Nantes, in the nursery of M. Nerrieres, forty years old in 1857, and 50
feet high, with a trunk 12 feet in girth ; one at Fremont, then thirty-two years, and one at Barres, twentyeight
years old, and one or two other younger specimens.
Loiseleur-Deslongchamps mentions two Cedars planted in the plain of Beaulieu, near Geneva, of
which the largest was in 1823, and at the age of eighty years, (according to M. Micheli de Chateauvieux,)
8 feet 5 inches in circumference at 4 feet from the ground. These may probably be a portion of the trees
mentioned by Professor de Candolle as dropping seeds, the young plants from which seem disposed to
naturalize themselves.
Prof. Karl Koch of Berlin states that the Cedar is killed throughout the north of Germany as far
as the mountains of Thuringia (Thüringer Wald), even when it is well covered up during the winter :
consequently they are only to be seen there in pots. It is not so much cold which kills it, as the changes
of climate in the first weeks of spring when the plant begins to shoot, and bad weather suddenly comes,
and sometimes several degrees of cold. On this side of the Rhine the Cedar prospers in some localities,
even near Aix-la-Chapelle, while, on the contrary, it is very generally killed at Frankfort-sur-Mein. There
are some large trees near Hombourg, not far from Frankfort, planted during the last century, but when
some of these have died, and the attempt has been made to replace them with new ones, it appears that
now they have been unable to resist the severity of the climate, and every attempt has failed. The
Deodar suffers less, and at Berlin they had specimens which stood the cold for several years, but unhappily
they succumbed during an unfavourable winter.
We cannot hear of any specimens in Austria, whence we conclude that the same fate attends it there
as in more northern Germany.
It may be supposed, that although this is the usual result in Germany, there may be some more
favourably situated spots where the Cedar will still thrive ; for among the foreign specimens recorded by
Loudon and some French authors, was one at Worlitz, in Saxony, which had been sixteen years planted,
and was 25 feet high when he wrote. On inquiring after it, however, we learn that Worlitz is no exception
to the general rule throughout Germany, and that the trees (for there were more than one, and Loudon
must have been speaking from old information) at Worlitz were all dead by the time Loudon's pages
appeared. M. G. L. Schoch, of Worlitz, reports that there were six Cedars in the ducal gardens, and that
they were considerably older than stated by Loudon, having been planted between 1780 and 1790.
These