248 CONVERSATIONS ON THE 



made use of for any purposes of utility: in 

 those parts of the country where it is found 

 large enough, it is made into posts, which last 

 an immense time, and small quantities of it 

 are exported to England to be made into 

 pencils. In the Southern States it is very 

 often used for coffins. 



" The third and last kind of cedar is also 

 called white cedar in the northern parts of the 

 United States and in Canada, where it grows ; 

 in the south it is almost unknown : botanists 

 generally call it arbor vita, which means tree 

 of life ; this name is given to it on account 

 of its durability. It is generally about fifty 

 feet high, and a foot and a half thick : it 

 grows very slowly. The leaves are ever- 

 green, and much thicker and longer than those 

 of the red cedar ; when bruised, they give out 

 a fine aromatic smell. The cones are very 

 small, not much larger than an apple-seed. 

 The bark is smooth and white, and the wood 

 soft and reddish : the trunk is seldom straight, 

 and for this reason it is difficult to procure sticks 

 suitable for building, but it is much esteemed 

 notwithstanding, on account of its durability : 

 I have seen a building in which the timbers 

 were mostly of the arbor vita, and though it 



