DETERIORATION OF THE CEDAR TREE. 45 



single specimens of historical trees which have stood 

 for hundreds of years. 



The cedars of Lebanon, which Solomon felled for 

 the building of the Temple, only perfected themselves 

 in the keen and biting air of their high position after 

 a lapse of many ages, their nourishment being gathered 

 from a sub-soil of hard, calcareous, whitish stones, 

 standing at an elevation of about 9,500 feet above the 

 sea. 



The timber of the cedar has so deteriorated in its 

 quality of hardness by being planted in soils not 

 natural to it, that those familiar with the wood grown 

 in England, from its soft and nearly worthless nature, 

 have come to the conclusion that it could not have 

 been this tree which was used in the building of the 

 palace and temple at Jerusalem ; where the loose, 

 coarse, spongy texture of the timber evidently 

 proceeds from the way in which the tree has been 

 grown in the artificial manner practised with cedars, 

 when everything is done to induce rapid and luxuriant 

 growth, so that they bear no affinity, except in 

 name, to the trees which were grown on the mountains 

 of Syria. 



I will, however, give a full description of this 

 interesting tree, under a different heading, and in 

 association with kindred trees of analogous species, 

 and will now deal in detail with those varieties which 

 are termed the " broad-leaved." 



The Ash (Fraxinus excelsior). The ash succeeds 

 best in a deep hazelly loam, near the bottom of a hill, 

 or sloping towards a river, where the soil is not too 

 damp, for the ash does not like anything approaching 

 a wet soil, yet likes its roots to stretch towards water 



