30 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1899. 



according to the calculations of the botanist de CandoUe, has it 

 looked down on the generations of men that have lived and died 

 and passed away. It is about forty-seven yards in circumference 

 at its base, while its branches afford shade to a circular area of 

 one hundred and forty yards. Its huge stem, called the seven 

 brothers, is divided into a number of branches, seven of which 

 issue from below the present surface of the soil, while seven do 

 not divide till they rise a few feet above. The interior of one 

 of these divisions of the main trunk has been hollowed out by 

 fire and fashioned into a coffee-shop in which fourteen or fifteen 

 persons can be easily accommodated. "It is," says an enthusi- 

 astic Frenchman, "a temple of verdure whose leafy dome rests 

 amid the clouds." And here nine hundred years ago, in this 

 great temple of nature, while the choirs of birds sang matin 

 masses in response, tradition tells us that Godfrey de Bouillon 

 gathered together his crusading host and offered up a solemn 

 thanksgiving to the God that had brought them thus far upon 

 their way. And we may well believe that as the warlike bishop, 

 Adelhemar of Puy, elevated the host and blessed the kneeling 

 multitude, the cry once more arose and swept from rank to 

 rank, till with one loud shout the whole vast army, six hundred 

 thousand strong, joined in " Dieu le volt ! God wills it ! God 

 wills it!" 



The cypress is only found in Turkish cemeteries, being 

 planted perhaps for two reasons : because its aromatic resin helps 

 overcome the eftluvia arising from the shallow graves; and 

 because its evergreen foliage, dark and sombre though it is, is 

 the emblem of immortality. The Greeks and Armenians, 

 instead of the cypress, use the sycamore or, quite as frequently, 

 the graceful Pistacla terebintJius or turpentine. These grow to 

 considerable size ; one in the garden of the British Embassy 

 measuring twelve feet in circumference, being over a hundred 

 feet high and shading a circle of one hundred and eight yards. 

 These trees, notwithstanding their size, are sometimes parasitic, 

 and but a few years ago, just across the Bosphorus, on the 

 Asiatic side, could be seen an enormous one growing out of a 

 still larger cypress. There is another peculiarity of the tree. 



