64 



Colony. Hardy but slow-growing in the Cape Peninsula. 

 Its bushy growth, too, is against its extended planting 

 there. In the drier districts it seems a tree of great 

 promise. In the Eobertson plantation, where the drought, 

 brak and violent winds are very trying, it has proved to be 

 absolutely the hardiest tree. At Hanover, where in 1898 

 there was 23 of frost, no tree yet tried there has proved 

 so hardy. A very valuable tree, yielding the fragrant 

 wood of the familiar lead-pencil. The wood is soft and 

 easily worked, but extremely durable, indoors or out-of- 

 doors ; in fact -it may be used (and is used in America) for 

 almost eveiy purpose, from a lead-pencil to a gate-post. 

 Baron von Faber, the great pencil manufacturer, pays 10s. 

 per cubic foot for his wood in America, arid the forests are 

 becoming rapidly exhausted vide pages 36-37, " Journal 

 of a Forest Tour." The Pencil-cedar is a rather slow- 

 growing tree less than one-half the growth of the 

 Cluster-pine in the Cape Peninsula ; but no tree -planter in 

 South Africa should nr gleet to try, thoroughly and 

 repeatedly, this most valuable tree. The Pencil-cedar 

 may advantageously be planted alternately with the 

 Jerusalem-pine. The thinnings will then cut out the less 

 valuable species. 1,270 dry berries containing 1,340 seeds 

 go to the ounce of J. viginiana. 



The two Pencil-cedar trees seem to merit the attention 

 t)f tree-planters almost above all others. Their germina- 

 tion is slow but their after treatment in the nurseries easy. 

 The sied should be so^vn in early winter. There will then 

 be a fair germination the following spring. The rest of 

 the seed will come up the succeeding spring or 18 months 

 after being sown. They may be pricked out into tins or 

 beds. They make good fibrous roots and plant out easily, 

 more especially the Virginian Pencil Cedar. 



Laurus ( Cinammomum) camphora. CAMPHOR TRIE. 



The natural climatic limits of the Camphor tree may be 

 taken as lying between the mountains of Japan and the 

 Island of Formosa, where the climate is tropical and similar 

 to Hong-Kong. It succeeds faiily in Southern Europe, and 



