CEDAR TRKK. 79 



as to ap}>ear ut some distance like a green carpet, and 

 there waving about with the winds, make one of the most 

 agreeable prospects that can be to terminate a vista, espe- 

 cially if planted on a rising ground. 11 



When once the Cedar-tree has left the nursery, no 

 knife or hatchet must be suffered to touch it ; even the 

 lopping of the lowest branches is injurious, both retard- 

 ing the growth and diminishing the beauty. 



The trees just mentioned as growing in the Botanic 

 Garden at Chelsea were planted, in a lean hungry sand 

 mixed with gravel, to the depth of about two feet ; be- 

 yond which, the soil is a hard rocky gravel. They stood 

 at the four corners of a pond, bricked up within two feet 

 of their trunks, so that their roots having no room to 

 spread on one side, were cramped in their growth ; but it 

 is supposed they were as much benefited by their vicinity 

 to the water, as injured by the confinement of the roots. 



Mr. Martyn observes upon this, that probably the 

 roots, finding themselves stopped by the brick walls, 

 tended downwards, and spread themselves in the moist 

 earth under the water, which greatly promoted the growth 

 of the trees ; for, upon this pond being filled up, these 

 noble trees decayed, and were quickly ruined for want of 

 their accustomed beverage. 



In the Scriptures the Cedar is spoken of as flourishing 

 near the water, where the greatness and glory of Assyria 

 is likened unto a Cedar-tree. It is thus described : 



" Behold the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with fair 

 branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; 

 and his top was among the thick boughs. 



" The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high, 

 with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her 

 little rivers unto all the trees of the field. 



