CHAP. CX1II. 



CONFFEK/F. CF/DRUS. 



2425 



2282 



In private nurseries, where the plants are not likely to be sent to any distance, 

 they may be planted in the free soil in nursery lines, like the pinaster and other 

 of the more rare pines and firs ; and, when they are removed to their final situ- 

 ation, their roots may be protected from the air, by immersing them in mud or 

 puddle. In the nursery culture of the cedar, care must be taken not to injure 

 the leading shoot, which is said not to be readily renewed when broken off. 

 In general, it is advisable to tie the leader to a stake, till the plants are placed 

 where they are finally to remain; after which they may be left to themselves. 

 In their progress from young plants to full-grown trees, they require very 

 little pruning, and suffer severely when large branches are cut off. Miller 

 mentions two of his four trees, which had some branches cut off to admit the 

 rays of the sun into a green-house, whereby they were so much checked, as, in 

 above 40 years' growth, to be little more than half the size of the other two, 

 which were not pruned ; and, Boutcher having planted two trees, they grew 

 for 16 years amazingly fast, and promised to be noble plants, till an ignorant 

 gardener unadvisedly cut off several of their oldest under branches ; after 

 which, he says, they advanced little or nothing in height, lost their leading 

 shoots, and became ragged and bushy. Notwithstanding this, it is the practice 

 of nurserymen to shorten the lateral branches of the larger plants kept for sale; 

 and it does not appear that they suffer much by it. When the cedar is 

 planted in close masses, either alone or with other trees, the side branches are 

 choked, but still the tree continues to grow almost as rapidly as the larch, or 

 silver fir, when similarly treated ; so that, after all, the cedar is, perhaps, not 

 more injured by the removal of its side branches, than any other pine or fir 

 would be. All the ^bietinae, as we have before stated, suffer more or less 

 by the shortening or removal of branches, whether small or large, which have 

 not begun to decay. 



Accidents, Diseases, eye. The wide-spreading branches of the cedar are apt 

 to be weighed down and broken by heavy falls of snow; but the tree is less 

 liable to be blown down by high winds than the larch, or such pines and firs 

 as do not throw out wide-spreading branches near the ground. It is not 

 subject to diseases, and it is less liable to be attacked by insects, as far as we 

 have heard or observed, than any other species of the pine and fir tribe. The 

 seeds being large are eagerly sought after by squirrels ; but these animals, in 

 parks and pleasure-grounds, are generally considered more ornamental than 

 injurious. 



Statistics. Recorded Trees. The large tree at Hillingdon has been already mentioned, and its 

 dimensions are given in p. 59. The dimensions of the large cedar at Hendon are given in p. 57. ; and 

 those of the Enfielii cedar in p. 48. Another remarkable tree, not so well known as the above, is 

 that already noticed as having been planted by Sir Stephen Fox, in his native village, and burial 

 place, of Farley, near Salisbury, about the same time as, or before, those at Chelsea and Chiswick. The 

 Farley cedar was cut down by the late Earl of Radnor in 1812, and was then 66 ft. high ; the diame- 

 ter of the trunk 5 ft. 6 in., and that of the space covered with its branches, from east to west, 130 ft. 

 It was a remarkably sound tree, not a single branch being decayed. The Hammersmith cedar 

 (fig. 2272. in p. 2406.), cut down in 1836, was 59 ft. high, the diameter of the trunk about 5 ft., and 



