78 VEGETAPLE SUBSTANCES. 



with a date shewinp: when this piece of useless laboui* 

 was first performed. We think it is 1708. The 

 Romans, as we learn from Phny's letters, cnt their 

 evergreens into the fantastic shapes of birds and 

 beasts. Lord Bacon, with his Avonted good sense, 

 protested against this practice, which was the fashion 

 of his time. " I, for my part," he says in his Essays, 

 " do not like images cut out in juniper and other 

 garden stuff; they be for children." 



Cypress — Cupressus sempervirens. 



Of the Cypress, of which there are twenty-two spe- 

 cies, it will be necessary to mention only two, — the 

 Evergreen Cypress (^C7/p}-ess7is sempervirens), and the 

 White Cedar {Cvpressus thyoides). Of the first, 

 there are two \ arieties, the upright and the spread- 

 ing, — the last gi'owing to the larger size, and being 

 consequently the more valuable, as a timber tree. It 

 is a native of the south eastern countries of Europe, 

 of the Levant, of China, and of several other parts 

 of Asia. It thrives best in a warm, sandy, or gravelly 



