88 
says that the Cedar of Lebanon occupies the higher slopes where 
snow lies several feet deep for nearly five months of the year. 
The forests, he further relates, are of impressive grandeur, the 
intense stillness only broken from time to time by the cry of the 
alpine crow, or by the crash of a mighty boulder, started in 
its descent by the passing of some wild goat. He reports the 
wood as highly prized in that region, being strong, and aegea 
the quality of exposure to the weather without wa ti 
also fragrant and free from the attacks of insects. ff ie used for 
the interior woodwork of the Greek churches, and for the manu- 
facture of the better kinds of household furniture. This is 
exactly the reverse of the opinion held of the wood of these trees 
grown in England, where it is reported as “light, soft, brittle, 
apt to warp and by no means durable.’”’ This difference may be 
due to environment, the greater altitude and the anaes of the 
snow blanket in its native home accounting for 
That this is the cedar of Lebanon of the Bible ae seems some 
doubt, for those on Mt. Lebanon are some fifteen miles from the 
coast, so that they could have been transported to Jerusalem 
only with the greatest difficulty and expense. Be this as it may, 
during the sixteenth century it became the custom to make 
pilgrimages to the cedars of this mountain. The pilgrims carried 
way so much wood for the construction of crosses and taber- 
nacles that the religious authorities of that time put a stop to it 
by see: excommunication to any one who injured the 
trees. The rigor of this edict was an remitted on one day in 
the year on a was celebrated the Feast of the ale when 
an altar was built under one of the largest and oldest tre 
cedar of Lebanon was introduced into pee in 
England about 1683, according to Aiton, when the trees were 
planted in the Chelsea Botanic Gardens. Its first appearance 
Plantes. If report be true, its first introduction into this country 
was in 1790, by Philip I. Livingston, as indicated at the beginning 
of this article. 
Here at the Garden we have under cultivation in the pinetum 
two of the three known species of the genus Cedrus. These are 
