600 A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 



distinct from the Barbadoes Juniper, or Cedar, with which it was 

 formerly confounded by most writers.* 



In general appearance it resembles the American Red Cedar. It 

 grows more rapidly and to larger size, and its wood is very much 

 harder and heavier, and not so red. The foliage is lighter and more 

 bluish or gravish than that of Red Cedar. Its berries are more 

 pulpy, with smaller seeds, and are edible. At least they were eaten 

 by the early settlers, in times of scarcity, and are still often eaten 

 by children. 



They were also valuable, like the palmetto berries, as the natural 

 food of the wild hogs, found on the islands by the first settlers, and 

 also for the domesticated swine that were immediately introduced. 

 They ripened in the fall and, according to Strachy, were all gone 

 early in December, two months before the last of the palmetto 

 berries. 



The early settlers also learned to make a liquor of them, by steep- 

 ing them in water and allowing the decoction to ferment for a few 

 days. The quality of it is not fully described, but many of the early 

 colonists were desperately fond of anything that would intoxicate 

 them. The gum of the cedar was also used medicinally. 



The timber was used for building the small vessels in which 

 Henry May and his shipwrecked companions escaped to Newfound- 

 land in 1094, and also for building the two larger vessels in which 

 Sir George Somers and his company of one hundred and fifty ship- 

 wrecked people sailed to Virginia in 1610, though some oak from 

 their wrecked vessel was used for the timbers and some of the planks 

 in the larger of their two vessels. The timber is very durable. 

 Boats built of it have been kept serviceable one hundred years, it is 

 claimed. 



The early settlers used the cedar wood extensively for all building 

 purposes, including boats and larger vessels, as w T ell as dwellings, 

 and also for fuel and for the shipping boxes or " chests." 



In the early years the timber was shipped to England, when full 

 cargoes of tobacco, or other commodities, could not be had for The 

 return voyages of the "magazine ships" sent out by the Bermuda 

 Company. The cedar was highly valued at that time in England for 

 the manufacture of choice furniture, for mahogany and rosewood 

 were then practically unknown. 



Instructions from the company to the governor to cut down and 



* About 1885 it was found growing, in a limited district, in the Blue Moun- 

 tains of Jamaica. (See Voyage Challenger, Botany, vol. i, p. 82.) 



