CEDRUS LIBANI 
39 
But the impossibility of placing plants growing in distant localities, under anything like the same cir¬ 
cumstances, renders all such comparisons of little value. All that we can obtain from them with certainty 
is additional proof of what is sufficiently well known already, that, under favourable circumstances, the 
Cedar grows with as much rapidity as any other conifer, and under unfavourable circumstances, as slowly, 
perhaps more slowly. The favourable circumstances seem to be a rather moist and mild climate, and the 
unfavourable conditions, a bleak one, with a short and cold summer. 
The average rate of growth in this country seems to be about a foot in length each year, until it 
reaches fifty years of age, when the rate gradually decreases. 
We have culled from Loudon’s “Arboretum,” Mr. Palmer’s tables, and our own memoranda, about 
two hundred measurements of Cedars of all ages, and, on calculating their averages, we have obtained the 
following results :— 
Number of 
Trees. 
Age in 
Years. 
Average 
Height in 
Feet. 
Growth in Height 
each Year. 
Number of 
Trees. 
Age in 
Years. 
Average 
Height in 
Feet. 
Growth in Height 
each Year. 
20 
20 
20 
Inches. 
12 
Lines. 
0 
7 
70 
55 
Inches. 
9 
Lines. 
3 
6 
25 
24 
I I 
2 
4 
90 
72 
7 
3 
35 
3 ° 
31 
12 
2 
0 
IOO 
83 
9 
9 
10 
50 
50 
12 
O 
2 
120 
60 
6 
0 
12 
60 
50 
IO 
O 
13 
IOO tO 200 
73 
8 
3 
Those above sixty years of age are more irregular in their height, which may be due to the casualties 
of life thinning them off, as well as to their smaller numbers rendering the averages less characteristic. 
The averages of thickness calculated in a similar manner (although from a smaller number of cases), 
give the following, viz. :— 
Number of 
Trees. 
Age. 
Girth. 
Average 
Breadth of 
Annual Rings 
per Annum. 
Number of 
Trees. 
Age. 
Girth. 
Average 
Breadth of 
Annual Rings 
per Annum. 
I 
20 
Feet. 
4 
Inches. 
6 
Lines. 
5 
IO 
60 
Feet. 
8 
Inches. 
6 
Lines. 
3i 
2 
25 
4 
0 
4 
2 
70 
IO 
6 
34 
IO 
30 
8 
0* 
94 
4 
90 
14 
0 
34 
8 
35 
5 
0 
A 
02 
3 
IOO 
I 2 
2 
nearly 3 
8 
50 
8 
0 
3i 
5 
IOO to 200 
15 
0 
... 
* Average disturbed by exceptional cases. 
Keeping out of view the averages applicable to the thirty years’ period, which are disturbed by a few 
exceptionally flourishing examples, we see that after the first flush of youth is passed the increase goes on 
steadily at the same rate, until the tree reaches one hundred years; and we may thus give a tolerable guess 
at the age of a tree from its girth, provided we know that it is above thirty and under one hundred, and 
growing under no exceptionally favourable or unfavourable conditions—that is to say, exceptional to the 
average of this country. 
This rate of growth is confirmed by the details which Loudon gives of the breadth of the annual rings 
of one of the largest trees at Whitton, which had been blown down in the violent storm of wind in November 
1836. He says that “The lower part of the trunk, after being squared, measured nearly 4 feet on the 
side; and the annual growths were so large, that twenty of them measured 64 inches across. The largest 
of these annual layers was no less than half-an-inch, and the smallest exceeded an eighth.” 
We have also had the opportunity of ascertaining the rate of growth in thickness of one of the old 
Cedars at Chiswick House, which was giving way, and was cut down in 1866. Mr. Edmonds, the 
late 
