RED CEDAR LORE 277 



same trees were there when Captain John Smith 

 first sighted the ''Cheviot Hills" from the ship 

 which brought him into Massachusetts Bay. 



Far different from these are the trees which 

 grow in the sheltered pastures where the soil is 

 good. None of these get the round head of my 

 ancient friend of the ledgy hill. Instead they 

 grow a single, straight shaft, ten, twenty, or even 

 thirty feet tall, with many small limbs curving 

 upward and close pressed toward the trunk, mak- 

 ing a round, tapering column of living green 

 trees of singular dignity and beauty that look. as 

 if carefully smoothed up with the gardener's 

 shears. All the year the pasture cedars are beau- 

 tiful, and it is hard to say whether they are at 

 their best in the spring glow of staminate delig'ht 

 or now when their bronze robes bear the round, 

 exquisitely blue berries which are really cones. 

 I have an idea the birds like them best now. 

 The robins, the cedar-birds, and a host of others 

 eat these berries gladly, and fly far with them, 

 planting the seeds as they go. They find shelter 

 in the close drawn blanket of evergreen foliage 

 which the trees seem to wrap about them to keep 

 out the cold and they fill the pasture with flitting 

 wings all the month. If the season is mild and 



