466 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



In Ireland the Lebanon cedar has been rarely planted in comparison with its 

 frequency in England; and Henry has not seen any large trees except one at Carton, 

 which in 1903 was 93 feet by 14 feet 9 inches, and is said to have been the first 

 planted in Ireland; and six fine trees* at Anneville near Dundrum, Co. Dublin, the 

 largest of which was 14^ feet in girth in 1904, 



There is an excellent article on cedars by Dr. Masters in the Gardeners^ 

 Chronicle for Oct. 17, 1903, giving an illustration of the historic tree in the Jardin 

 des Plantes at Paris, about which many incorrect statements have been published. 

 Carriere '^ gives 1736 as the date at which it was planted, from seed brought from 

 England by Bernard de Jussieu in 1735. From this seed was also derived the cedar 

 at Montigny (Seine et Oise), and the one at Beaulieu, near Geneva. Carriere 

 states that the cedars at Geneva produce seeds so freely that but for the scythe 

 of the mower it would form forests on the shores of the Lake. In a letter from 

 M. Maurice de Vilmorin I learn that the Montigny cedar* is now probably the best 

 in France. About 1855 it was 7 metres in girth at two metres from the ground, and 

 it is now 7.90 metres at the same height. There is another tree at Vrigny, the 

 residence of M. Duhamel de Monceau, near Pithiviers, Loiret. His notes of 1874 

 state that this tree, planted in 1744, had suffered much from the frost of 1870-71, 

 when two-thirds of its branches were frozen. It measured about 8 metres in girth. 



I saw a very fine cedar in the grounds of M. Philippe de Vilmorin at Verrieres, 

 near Paris, in May 1905, which measured 87 feet by 13 feet; and also visited the 

 tree in the grounds of Madame Chauvet at Beaulieu, near Geneva, which is now 

 considered to be the finest on the Continent, though not equal to several English 

 trees. It is a well-shaped spreading tree about 100 feet high, though difficult to 

 measure exactly, and 16 feet in girth, with a spread of 102 feet. 



Timber 



What is called cedar in commerce is usually the wood of Cedrela odorata, a tree 

 found in the West Indies and Central America. The wood of the so-called pencil 

 z^Azx,Juniperus virginiana, is also often known as cedar,* and this can be distinguished 

 at once by its colour and smell from the true cedar. A case was recently tried 

 in London with regard to the quality of the cedar used in panelling a room at 

 Packington Hall, in which it was stated in evidence by a so-called expert that there 

 were three kinds of cedar known in the trade, " English grown, pencil cedar, and 

 Californian cedar," " the latter used for inferior work." This is a not unusual instance 

 of the gross ignorance which prevails in England among users of timbers as to their 

 names and native countries, and this ignorance has led to many costly lawsuits. 

 The Lebanon cedar grows so fast in England under favourable circumstances that 

 the wood is of a much softer character than it is in Syria, but it may be used for 



These are said by London, Arb. et Frut. Brit. i. 114 (1838), to have been brought direct from the Lebftnon by ao 

 ancestor of Lord Tremblestown, and to be the oldest in Ireland. 



' Train Conif. 78 (1867). 



' An account of it in Revut fforticole, 1907, p. 465, gives the dimensions as 105 feet high by 24 feet in girth at one 

 metre from the ground. 



In the Eastern States it is known as red cedar, but this term is applied to Thuya plicata in the Pacific States, 



