A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 607 



size. In the letters of Governor Roger Wood, about 1633, he stated 

 that he had sent to his English friends cedar planks 30 and 32 inches 

 wide and 12 to 13 feet long. These were sawed by hand, and indi- 

 cate trees much larger than any now existing. Logs of cedar, five 

 feet in diameter, are sometimes found, it is said, in the peat-bogs of 

 the islands. One of the oldest cedars on the islands stands in the 

 churchyard, by the side of the old abandoned Devonshire church. 

 It is about five feet in diameter and much decayed.* Only two 

 others as large are known. Some of the largest and finest trees on 

 the islands are known to be about 200 years old. Those by Pem- 

 broke churchyard were set out in I7l7.f 



Several fine cedars standing in a group near the new Devonshire 

 church were preserved from destruction some thirty-five years ago 

 by the Hon. J. H. Darrel, who bought the land and presented it to 

 the parish, with the stipulation that these cedars should never be cut 

 down. He deserves to be held in perpetual memory for this wise 

 and generous act. Many other fine cedars also grow in that vicinity. 



Many of the finest cedars along the roadsides and in private 

 grounds are not over forty to sixty years old. I was shown many 

 tall ones, now from ten to twelve or more inches in diameter, that 

 were planted only about forty years ago by the present proprietors, 

 showing the rapidity of their growth in good soil. Indeed, it is said 

 that they sometimes make good sized trees in twenty years. 



For more than half a century past, and up to the present time, the 

 cedars do not seem to have decreased in number. They may, indeed, 

 have increased considerably within the past fifty or sixty years. 

 This is due partly to the greater care taken to preserve them in 

 many places, especially on government lands, and to the replanting 

 of them in some places, but probably, in a greater degree, to the 



* This tree is well figured in the "Gai-den and Forest," vol. iv, p. 294, 1891. 

 A specimen of a large cedar growing in a marsh is also figured on p. 295. The 

 old Devonshire cedar is also figured in Stark's Bermuda Guide, p. 122, 1897. 

 Its age is unknown. 



f The following record appears in the Register of the Pembroke Parish : "Be 

 it Remembered yt upon th 24 day of Oct. 1717 the double row of cedars was 

 planted round the Church in Pembroke Tribe all within the bounds of the 

 church yard, and the 7th of November following the rafters were raised upon 

 the new church." 



Many of these trees are said to be still standing, and are of larger size than 

 most of the cedars now living. When' very old the cedars are often decayed at 

 the heart. The earliest settlers complained of the inconvenience of this in ship 

 building. 



