I. 7. THE RED CEDAR. 105 



marshes for an indefinite period, the roosting places of vultures 

 and of sea birds, become incrusted with pulverulent lichens, 

 and seem to moulder away like rocks, rather than decay like a 

 vegetable product."* 



Dr. Bigelowf expresses a doubt as to the essential difference 

 between our red cedar and the savin of Europe, whose name it 

 often bears ; and Sir William J. Hooker refers both, without 

 hesitation, to the same species. The medicinal properties of 

 both are the same ; a decoction of the leaves having a stimulat- 

 ing effect, when used internally, in cases of rheumatism ; and 

 serving to continue the discharge from blisters, when used in 

 the composition of a cerate for that purpose. The Baskshirs, 

 a people of Russia, between the Volga and the Oural, use a 

 fumigation of savin for diseases of children, and attribute to its 

 branches, hung at their doors, great virtue against witches. 



From the exposed situations in which the red cedar grows, 

 it often has to assume fantastic shapes. On the Jerusalem 

 road at Cohasset, which leads along the top of a high sea-wall 

 for some distance, exposed to the winds from the sea, is a tree 



* Botany of South Carolina and Georgia, II, 717. I subjoin the following ex- 

 cellent remarks, from the Arator, as quoted in the New England Farmer, VIII, 

 381, upon the use of the red cedar for the purpose of a hedge : — 



" The cedar is peculiarly fitted for the purpose of live fences. It throws out 

 boughs near the ground, pliant and capable of being woven into any form. They 

 gradually, however, become stiff. Clipping will make cedar hedges extremely 

 thick. No animal will injure them by browsing. Manured and cultivated, they 

 come rapidly to perfection. The plants are frequently to be found in great abun- 

 dance without the trouble of raising them. As an evergreen, they are preferable 

 to deciduous plants ; and they live better than any young trees I have ever tried." 

 They should be planted with a sod taken up of sufficient size to prevent injury to 

 the roots, between December and the middle of April, on each side of a fence, the 

 plants and rows being each two feet apart, and each plant in one row opposite the 

 centre of the interval between two successive plants in the other row. "They 

 should be topped at a foot high, and not suffered to gain more than three or four 

 inches yearly in height, such boughs excepted as can be worked into the fence at 

 the ground. Of these, great use may be made towards thickening the hedge, by 

 bending them to the ground, and covering them well with earth in the middle, 

 leaving them growing to the stem and their extremities exposed. Thus they inva- 

 riably take root and fill up gaps."— See Arator for more particulars as to their 

 management, or New England Farmer, as above. 



t Med. Bot., Ill, 50. 

 15 



