95 



and nearly as valuable aa tamarack. They may be placed on moist and even 

 swampy lands. Of late it is considerably used as a border or evergreen hedge 

 for ornamentation, and bears the shears well. 



JUNIPERUS. {Bed Cedar— Savin.) 



Flowers dioecious, or occasionally monoecious in very small lateral catkins 

 — Fertile catkins ovoid, of three to six fleshy, one to three ovuled, coalescent 

 scales ; in fruit forming a sort of drupe or berry, scaly-braoted underneath 

 — Seeds one to three, bony. Evergreen trees or shrubs with awl-shaped or 

 scale-like rigid leaves. The name is classical Latin. 



JUNIPERUS VIRGINIANA. {Bed Cedar or Savin.) 



Leaves four-ranked, much crowded on the young plants, and primary or 

 rapidly-growing shoots, awl-shaped and somewhat spreading, in pairs or 

 threes, on the older lateral twigs very small and scale-like, closely imbricat- 

 ed, triangular-ovate — Berries smali, with blue bloom. 



The red cedar wood is well known as one of the most durable. It is laid 

 down in the books, that the tree is one of the slowest in growth. This state- 

 ment may be true in the eastern states, or generally ; but is far from true in 

 Wisconsin. Trees may be seen in Madison, and other towns of the state, 

 which were taken from the banks of the lakes, twelve or fifteen years ago, 

 and which at that time were not more_than three feet high, and an inch in 

 diameter, and planted in the yellow and richer soil, where the hickory and 

 black jack oaks flourised, and which are now fifteen feet high, and ten to 

 twelve inches in diameter. In fact, they have grown about as fast as the 

 sugar maples and white oaks, in the same situation. In the city of Janesville 

 and its vicinity, trees may be seen, which in fourteen or fifteen years from 

 seeds have grown into trees twelve inches in diameter at the butt, and twenty- 

 five feet high ; even out-growing the Scotch pine which stands near them. 



We have no tree which will endure as great changes in climate, wet and 

 dry, hot and cold, as the red cedar. It will find its root-hold on the ridges 

 and clifs of rocks, and is the first tree one meets as he approaches the Kocky 

 mountains, after crossing the treeless plains, where it stands on the dry hill 

 side, or hangs in the olifts of the rocks, where scarcely any other vegetation 

 is found ; and it may be found in the wet sands of the islands of the Wis- 

 consin river aod other streams. It is one of the densest of our evergreens, 

 and is the very best tree to oppose to the full blasts of the storms and winds of 

 both summer and winter, in the most exposed situations. For posts to set 

 in the ground there is no tree which lasts so long ; and even if it do take 

 years to grow it to sufficient size for posts, it will last until anothei' tree may 

 be grown, if the seed be planted when the post is set. 



It may be propogated from cuttings under glass ; but the safest way is to 

 make use of seeds. These may be gathered in autumn, and mixed with muck 

 or leaf mould and placed in the open ground until they germinate, which of- 

 ten takes two years. Some bruise the berries so as to break the resinous 

 coverings and then the seeds come up the first year. 



