Decemtier 10, 1874. 



JOURNAL OF HORTIOUIiTURB AND COTTAGE GARDKNEB. 



523 



that of trees grown in England. It was used by David in 

 building the king's house, and by Solomon very largely in the 

 erection of the Temple, and of his own palace ; in the latter in 

 Buoh abundance that part of it was called the House of the Forest 

 of Lebanon. The trees were foiled and shipped from Tripoli 

 and Gebal (.Jebeil) by the Phcenician artificers of his friend 

 Hiram, King of Tyre : ' The men of Tyre and Sidon also brought 

 to Joppa Cedar trees from Lebanon for the second temple.' — 

 Ezra iii. 7. It was also employed by Herod for the roof of his 

 temple, and of it is constructed the dome of the Church of the 

 Sepulchre at Jerusalem at the present day. The men of Sidon 

 were celebrated for their skill in carving Cedar, a pre-eminence 

 they still retain. 



" Besides the grove of Cedars near the Kadisha, celebrated 

 and described by every traveller, there are many other groves, 



clumps, and even whole tracts of Cedar forest scattered through- 

 out Lebanon. As they are for the most part in the northern 

 and most inaccessible districts, they have escaped the notice 

 of most travellers. Several were discovered by ourselves, and 

 some have been added since. At least nine distinct localities 

 are now ascertained, some of them containing many thousand 

 trees, and with an abundant Bueceasiou of young saplings 

 springing round them. Bat few, if any, of them can show any 

 trees equal in size to those of the famous grove. 



" The Cedar grows rapidly and lives long. Even in England 

 there are trees not yet two hundred years old measuring 21 feet 

 in girth, as at the seat of the Earl of Wemyss in Gloucester- 

 shire. 



" Dr. Hooker calculates the age of the Cedars of the grove 

 to be eight hundred years, from the rate of growth of the 



Fig. 143.— The cedar of Lebanon. 



Chelsea Cedars. From the rings in a branch one of the older 

 trees might be 2500 years old ; but this, he observes, is no doubt 

 widely far from the mark. Still an immense antiquity must 

 be assigned to some of them. 



" The Cedar is not found in any other part of Palestine, 

 not even on Hermon, the Anti-Lebanon, or the highest forests 

 of Gilead. It extends, however, into Asia Minor, being plenti- 

 ful on the Taurus range." 



We have a list of sixteen travellers who have visited and 

 counted the giants of Libanus, and they show their gradual 

 extinction. Peter Bellon found twenty-eight in 1550, Slaun- 

 drell sixteen in 1696, and Richardson seven in 1818. Maun- 

 drell found that the trunk of one was 3(3^ feet in girth, and its 

 boughs covered a circle 111 feet in diameter. In 1720 the 

 boughs of one extended over a circle of 132 feet diameter. 

 One of the most recent visitors of those Cedars, Lord Lindsay, 

 found one, the trunk of which, following the sinuosities of 

 the bark, measured 03 feet in circumference. Lamartine and 

 others believe these patriarchal trees to have lived in biblical 

 times. They are sacred even in the estimation of the Arabs, 

 and by the Christians of all sects resident in their vicinity. 

 A festival called " The Feast of Cedars" is celebrated on the 

 day of Transfiguration. 



In the " Gentleman's Magazine" of 1779, a communication 

 from Sir John Cullum, of Hardwicke House, near Bury St. Ed- 

 munds, gives details of the Cedars of celebrity in England , details 

 which have been frequently quoted from without acknowledg- 

 ment by more recent writers. In Esses we remember noble 

 specimens at Faulkborne Hall, and there was of them a noble 

 avenue at Topinghoe Hall, planted in the time of the Stuarts, 

 but felled for the sake of the timberjin the present century. 

 Two Cedars planted about 1683 by Sir Hans Sloane in the 

 gardens of the Apothecaries at Chelsea were large and cele- 

 brated ; but one, if not both, are now dead. In 1793 the trunk 

 of the largest was 13 feet in girth all but half an inch. 



In the Palace or Manor House of Enfield, Dr. Uvedale, who 

 there kept his school, planted a Cedar about 1670. In 1793 its 

 trunk was 12 feet in girth at 3 feet from the surface. 



We have a letter from " a Bradfordian," relating to another 

 ancient Cedar, from which letter we extract the following :— 

 " Mr. G. Abbey wishes to know about one planted by Dr. 

 Richardson, of 'Brierley Hall, near Bradford ; I therefore for- 

 ward an extract from the Bradford Observer Budget, in which 

 I have marked what he wished to know. 



" ' In front of Brierley Hall stands a majestic Cedar of 

 Lebanon, which was sent as a seedling to Dr. Richardson by 



