Occasionally one of these trees can be seen in the neighborhood of New 
York and Philadelphia, but it is not hardy in New England. The Cedar 
of Lebanon also grows on the Anti-Taurus in Asia Minor, a much 
colder and more northern region than the Lebanon, and in 1901 the 
Arboretum had seeds collected from the trees in this northern station, 
and these were sown in the spring of 1902. None of the plants raised 
from this seed, although planted in exposed situations, have ever suf- 
fered and some of them are now from fifteen to eighteen feet high. 
This experiment may have important results, but a century at least 
will be needed to show its real success or failure. 
Of exotic conifers usually planted in this country it is found that the 
life here of the Scotch Pine ( Pinus sylvestris) is usually not more than 
thirty or forty years. The tree grows very rapidly here, it is perfectly 
hardy, and, beginning to produce seeds when only a few years old, self- 
sown seedlings often appear in considerable quantities. The so-called 
Norway Spruce ( Picea Abies or excelsa) is another hardy, fast-growing 
European tree which in this climate generally begins to die at the top 
when forty or fifty years old and is not a success here. Experiments 
are being made in the Arboretum with seeds of these trees collected 
from wild trees in Norway and Sweden in the hope that plants raised 
from these seeds will be more permanent here than European nursery 
stock which has usually been planted in this country. 
The Colorado Blue Spruce, so-called, ( Picea pungens ) promises to be 
a disappointment. This tree grows naturally near the banks of streams 
in Colorado, where it is not very common, and never forms forests or 
large groves; and at the end of a few years it becomes thin and 
scrawny, with a few short branches found only near the top of the 
tree. Plants up to twenty or thirty years of age in Colorado and in culti- 
vation are symmetrical, compact and very handsome. No conifer of 
recent introduction has been raised in such large quantities by nursery- 
men here and in Europe, and few ornamental trees have been more gen- 
erally planted in the last twenty years. This must be considered a mis- 
fortune, for judging by old trees in Colorado and by the oldest trees in 
cultivation, this Spruce cannot be for any length of time a valuable 
addition to our plantations. It was discovered by Dr. Parry in 1862, 
and one of the trees raised from seeds which he sent at that time to 
Asa Gray is growing on the southern slope of Bussey Hill in the Ar- 
boretum. This specimen very well shows what this tree looks like at 
fifty years of age. The other Colorado Spruce, Picea Engelmannii, 
although it grows more slowly, promises to be a more permanently val- 
uable ornamental tree than Picea pungens ; certainly as it grows in 
Colorado, where it once formed great forests, at high altitudes, it is 
one of the most beautiful of all Spruces. The trees in the Arboretum 
were raised here from seeds collected in Colorado in 1879 and are be- 
lieved to be the finest specimens in cultivation. They are narrow, 
compact, symmetrical pyramids and until a year or two ago were fur- 
nished with branches to the ground; now they are beginning to lose 
their lower branches and therefore are losing some of their beauty as 
specimen trees. 
It is found here that the northern White Spruce ( Picea canadensis) 
grows rapidly and is very handsome for about thirty years, and then 
begins to become thin and unsightly probably because our climate is 
too warm for this cold country tree. It is found here, too, that the 
Red Spruce {Picea rubra), the great timber-producing Spruce-tree of 
