CEDAR TREE. 



81 



of which one of the most remarkable was destroyed by a 

 hurricane on the 1st of January 1779. It grew on the 

 north side of Hendon-place, in Middlesex; its height 

 was seventy feet ; the diameter of the horizontal extent 

 of the branches was one hundred feet ; the circumference 

 of the trunk, at the lai'gest part, twenty-one feet. It 

 began to branch about twelve feet from the ground ; and 

 the hmbs, of which there were ten, measured from six 

 feet to twelve in circumference. This tree is supposed 

 to have been two hundred years old, and tradition says, 

 it was planted by Ehzabeth herself : but as Martyn justly 

 observes, tradition is seldom to be depended upon, and 

 Queen Elizabeth is a gTeat favourite with tradition- 

 mongers. Is it probable,**' continues he, " if such a tree 

 had existed in 1579? that Gerarde, Pai'kinson, arid Evelyn 

 should know nothing of it ? When blown down it was 

 perfectly sound, and seemed as if not grown to maturity ; 

 it is probable therefore that it was not two hundred yeai's 

 old, for the Cedars at Chelsea attained their full size, and 

 decayed, in less than a century.'' 



There is little strength in this argument, for it has 

 just been observed, that the growth of those trees was 

 accelerated by their vicinity to a pond, and their decay 

 by the filling up of the pond. 



Dr. Hunter describes a fine Cedar growing at Hilling- 

 ton, near Uxbridge, supposed at that time to be aged one 

 hundred and sixteen years. 



" The only relic of Dr. James Sherard's famous 

 botanic garden at Eltham," observes Martyn, " so ele- 

 gantly displayed by Dillenius, is a Cedar of Lebanon, 

 which girts nine feet at three feet from the ground.'' 



Mortimer, in his Art of Husbandry (1708), affirms, 

 that he had raised several Cedars from cones which he 



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