LONDON CEDARS 35 



Atlas years ago, had been destroyed by the 

 natives a protest against the occupation of 

 their country by the French. 



Other cedars of Lebanon may have been 

 grown from some seeds procured by Evelyn, 

 but three of the Chelsea cedars were the first 

 cedars in England to produce cones in 1732. 

 They may have been the first planted. 1 From 

 their cones, trees were raised in other gardens, 

 and the Lebanon cedar became well known 

 throughout the country. 



But there will be no more cedars in London 

 until London smoke disappears. Cedars are 

 choked by it. All the old cedars round London 

 are now dead or dying. The last of those 

 planted by Charles James Fox at Holland 

 House is scarcely alive. 



A young medical student, Hans Sloane, 

 destined in days to come to play a great part, 

 not only in the history of the Physic Garden, 

 but in the history of Chelsea, was at this time 

 corresponding with John Ray, one of the 

 founders of modern Natural History. 



In Ray's Philosophical Letters, published in 

 1718, a letter from Dr. Sloane gives an account 

 of a visit to the Garden in 1684 : "I was the 

 other day at Chelsea, and find that the artifices 

 us'd by Mr. Watts have been very effectual for 

 the Preservation of his Plants, insomuch that 

 this severe winter has scarce kill'd any of his 

 fine Plants. One thing I much wonder to see, 

 the Cedrus Montis Libani, the Inhabitant 



1 The Hon. Lady Cecil, in London Parks and Gardens, after 

 examining all the evidence, considers " that the Chelsea trees' 

 claim to be the first is fairlv established." 



