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LAWSON'S FRAGRANT CYPRESS. 



i Chameeeyparis Lawsoniana.) 



'• In Autumn, when the sunlight crowns the cedar-covered hill. 

 Shadows lengthen in the valley — shadows ominous and still." 



SPIRITED before you stands undoubtedly the handsom- 

 est of all our Cypress family, the graceful Oregon Cedar — 

 Port Orford Cedar, otherwise known also as Ginger Pine 

 of lumbermen — every form of it a curve or line of beauty. 

 Behold in detail the little flat and fan-like sprays, every one 

 of them latterally bent and gracefully curved, as the lesser 

 waves curve on the great swell that rolls responsive over 

 another sea of emerald; and the long leader bough that 

 crowns the pinnacle of its glory, bending off at a right angle 

 as it bows to the breeze the most graceful among the ever 

 graceful ostrich-like plumes, as wavelets o'er waves are piled, 

 climbing her ever verdant pyramid of foliage until lost in 

 the clouds or merged far up in the blue; and, over all this, 

 a softened sheen of almost invisible silvery gloss, lovely as an 

 infant's or maiden's skin; indeed there is not a masculine, 

 scarce a mere intellectual angular feature anywhere to be 

 found about this charming tree. Granted space to spread 

 freely in sunlight and air, the slender branches, although 

 early ascending horizontal or depending with rising extrem- 

 ities, nevertheless the final boughs and ultimate sprays 

 always hang down their modest heads — those below, near^ 

 to the ground — and so maintain the ruling feminine expres- 

 sion at all points and at all stages of growth. Free, in the 

 land of the free, she develops as all orderly things should, 

 upon her own God-given type, a light columnoid conic- 

 topped tree of refreshing symmetry ; and no thanks to thee, oh 

 barbarous scissors— the abomination of all the trees. When 

 closed in and crowded by aggressive neighbors, the body is 

 prudish and straight to a line often fifty to one hundred feet, 

 with neither knot nor limb; in such cases trees often attain 

 to one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet or more, with 

 that elegant shaft four to eight feet in diameter. The timber is 

 held in very high estimation for floors, blinds, and doors, fin- 

 ishing work, and for manifold purposes where clear, free, soft, 

 and durable wood is requisite; is rich, very delicately cream- 

 tinted, finishes uniformly smooth, like eastern white pine ; 

 for ceilings of rooms the aroma is found to be in a high 

 degree sanitary; it has become the principal wood used for 

 tubs, pails, etc., and is found excellent for boats and ships, 

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