ORNAMENTAL PLANTING'. 139 



planter in this climate, is the scarcity of EVERGREEN trees, not being 

 coniferous. 



The evergreen or holm oak, is, in point of fact, our only park tree of 

 this description ; though of garden shrubs there is no want. The defi- 

 ciency is partially supplied by the very interesting tribe of coniferous trees. 

 But their forms being generally spiral, they cannot contend, either singly 

 with the bold and varying outline, the extended, tortuous limbs, the swell- 

 ing masses of tufted foliage, which give to a stately deciduous tree a cha- 

 racter of impressive grandeur; or when aggregated over a large surface, 

 in which case, their general monotony of tint, the tameness of their lights 

 and shadows, and the pyramidal termination of the majority of the indivi- 

 duals composing the mass, deprive it of much of the beauty so universally 

 felt in woodland scenery composed of deciduous trees. 



One illustrious exception to the first clause of our proposition will at 

 once occur to many of our readers, in the CEDAR OF LEBANON (Pinus 

 Cedrus, p. 127.) In our enumeration, we have said that no tree confers 

 such an air of grandeur and dignity upon the grounds surrounding a 

 mansion, as a full grown cedar of Lebanon, not only the most beautiful 

 of the whole tribe of hardy coniferous trees hitherto known to us, but 

 perhaps altogether the most majestic tree which can be cultivated with 

 perfect success in Great Britain, peculiarly suited to the character of park or 

 garden scenery, and harmonizing better than any other with architectural 

 objects. Thinly scattered in the more elevated vallies of Lebanon, of Taurus, 

 and of other lofty mountain chains and groups in Asia Minor, its somewhat 

 rare occurrence is to be accounted for, probably, by a peculiarity of constitu- 

 tion, which renders a free circulation of air around it quite essential to its 

 vigour. When planted in a wood, or even on a lawn, closely surrounded 

 by other trees, it becomes thin of leaves, feeble in habit, and incapable of 

 swelling to large size. To its full strength and beauty, it is indispensable 

 that no check should be opposed to the horizontal spread of its branches. 

 Even the operation of shortening its lateral shoots, for the purpose of 

 forcing up a leader, cannot be often repeated without injuring its health. 

 These peculiarities render it a scarce tree in a state of nature, where it is 

 only found in elevated, but sheltered vallies, whose vegetation is subdued by 

 the browzing of cattle. It will never abound but in the seats of civilization, 

 and it is exceedingly probable that the parks of England can show more 

 cedars than the whole of the wide range of its native regions. This most 

 interesting and majestic tree is sometimes neglected, in consequence of a 

 groundless apprehension of the slowness of its growth, an apprehension 

 which we shall proceed, from authentic documents, to dispel. Highclere 

 park, in North Hampshire, the creation of the late and present Earls of 

 Carnarvon, claims a high rank among the most beautiful domains in our 

 southern counties. Some fine cedars of Lebanon adorn the immediate 

 vicinity of the mansion. Their history is interesting. The lawn on 

 which they stand, elevated about 600 feet above the level of the sea, 

 is at the foot of the bold northern escarpment of the Chalk Downs, 

 which rising about 400 feet above the house, extend for twenty miles to 

 the southward. The soil is thin and sterile ; the immediate subsoil hard 

 plastic clay, with flints ; its substratum chalk, not three feet from the surface. 

 The climate is cold, foggy, windy; the spring very backward, the summer 

 temperature low. We shall proceed to give a tabular view of the progress 

 of the six largest trees, from authentic memoranda, to which we have been 

 allowed access. The two oldest specimens, No. 1 and 2 in the table, 

 were raised from a cone gathered upon Mount Lebanon by Dr. Pococke, 

 the celebrated oriental traveller. The seeds were sown in 1739. Two 



