Cedar grove

“ Near Tannurin, on one of the feeders of the Duweir, a wild gorge is clothed from top to bottom with a forest of trees, untouched by the axe, the haunt of the panther and the bear, which on examination have been found to be all cedars, some of a large size, from fifteen to eighteen feet in girth. They grow in clusters, or scattered singly, in every variety of situation, some clinging to the steep slopes, or gnarled and twisted on the bare hilltops, others sheltered in the recesses of the dell. There are also cedar-groves at B’sherrah ”

“ From the deck of a passenger steamer it is quite interesting to watch the peculiar proceedings of these dangerous creatures, and many conjectures are exchanged as to what would happen in the event of any one of the watchers falling overboard. On the banks of the river, cedar groves are frequently seen. Florida supplies the world with the wood required for lead pencils, and the inroads made into her cedar forests for this purpose threaten to eventually rob the State of one of its most unique features. ”

“ It literally never rots. The most striking characteristic of the cedars is their almost incredible vitality. The oldest of all are gnarled and twisted, but they have the rough strength of muscle-bound giants. Each year new [172] cones rise above the broad, green branches, and the balsamic juice flows fresh from every break in the bark. In the words of the Psalmist, they still bring forth fruit in old age, and are full of sap and green. “There is not, and never has been, a rotten cedar. The wood is incorruptible. ”

“ She had gone forth from Jamestown "lonely as a cloud," and not without sorrow. The wild flower that grows by the bleakest roadside wilts and droops for a time, at least, when transplanted to even the most sheltered garden. The stunted cedar, clinging to a crevice in the granite, drawing its meagre juices hardly from the niggard soil, yellows and dies when rent by the resistless wind from its rocky resting-place. The barrenness of the mountain-side seems kinder to it than the green meadows to which it is hurled. ”

“ The leaning, top-heavy cedar had tipped so far that several of its roots had pulled loose from their anchorage, bringing with them a section of the shallow soil and exposing the rock below. On one side the roots still held, supplying enough nourishment to the limbs to keep part of them alive. Some of the thick sprays of foliage were brown and dead, but many were still green and flourishing. ”

“ What serene skies—what brilliant sunshine—what tropical wealth of verdure! At every pore the rich earth burst forth into fruit and flower. Two months after the grass had been sunk deep beneath the snow, sheets of strawberries were spread in the woods, an extemporized feast.
One might think that the cottage at Cedar Creek had also bloomed under the fair weather; for when July—hottest of Canadian months—came, the dingy wooden walls had assumed a dazzling white, with a roof so grey that the shingles might have been veritable slates. Resemblance to the lime-washed houses of home was Robert's fancy ”

“ Most of the birds had gone, and about the only trees that had any leaves on were the oaks. An oak tree holds many of its leaves all winter, the old ones being pushed off in the spring as the new ones come on. But there were so many spruce, pine, hemlock, and cedar trees growing all about—trees which remain green from one year to the other—that the woods were not as bare and dreary as are most forests. Cedar Camp was indeed a green Christmas camp, and a most lovely place.
“We’ll have lots of fun here!” cried Freddie, running to the edge of a little hill.
“Lots of fun!” agreed Flossie. ”

“ They were in sight there—the fair maturings of the sun now ready to be turned into offerings to the dark solstice, the low activities of the soil uplifted to human joyance.
One last thing completed the picture of the scene.
The brook that wound across the lawn at its bottom was frozen to-day and lay like a band of jewelled samite trailed through the olive verdure. Along its margin evergreens grew. No pine nor spruce nor larch nor fir is native to these portions of the Shield; only the wild cedar, the shapeless and the shapely, belongs there. ”

“ Mount Ellsworth, 2,500 feet lower than Mount Hillers, bears neither fir, spruce, pine nor aspen. Cedar and piñon climb to the summit, but are not so thickly set as on the lower slopes of the larger mountains. The grasses are less rank and grow in scattered bunches.
Mount Holmes, a few feet lower, has the same flora, with the addition of a score of spruce trees, high up on the northern flank. Its summits are bare.
In a word, the luxuriance of vegetation, and the annual rainfall, of which it is the index, are proportioned to the altitude. ”

“ By no means the least interesting vegetation on Cedar Point are the dune plants, many species of arenophilous species, and efficient soil binders. Some idea of the appearance of a few of such plants may be gained from the cut (Fig. 2) , which shows one of the sand hills held exclusively by the roots of the Red Cedar. Other similar hillocks are held by one of the wild grape vines, Vitis vulpina, and many other plants. ”

“ In the forest bordering the bridle-path, dark shades were noiselessly marshalling beneath the great trees. But the sunset still reddened the river, and the reflected light shone on the windows of Cedar House. He glanced at her chamber window before seeing that she stood on the grass by the front door, giving the swan bits of bread from her fingers while the jealous birds, forgetting to go to roost, watched and scolded from the low branches overhead. ”

“ The nature of this tree is not to elevate its trunk, or the part between the root and the first branches; for the largest Cedars which we saw did not in the height of their trunks exceed six or seven feet. From this low but enormously thick body, prodigious branches rise, spreading as they rise, and forming by the disposition of their boughs and leaves which point upward, a sort of wheel which appears to be the work of art. The bark of the cedar, except at the trunk, is smooth and shining, of a brown colour. ”

“ The cedar of Lebanon, though it has been introduced into many parts of England as an ornamental tree, and has [pg 310] thriven well, has not yet been planted in great numbers for the sake of its timber. No doubt it is more difficult to rear, and requires a far richer soil than the pine and the larch; but the principal objection to it has been the supposed slowness of its growth, although that does not appear to be very much greater than in the oak. Some cedars, which have been planted in a soil well adapted to them, at Lord Carnarvon's, at Highclere, have grown with extraordinary rapidity. ”

“ A gradual hill, partly covered with rich meadow grass, and partly with corn, diversified with foliage, sloped downwards, leading by an easy descent to a small valley, where orange and lime trees, the pine and chestnut, palm and cedar, grew in beautiful luxuriance. On the left was a small dwelling, almost hidden in trees. Directly beneath him a natural fountain threw its sparkling showers on beds of sweet-scented and gayly-colored flowers. The hand of man had very evidently aided nature in forming the wild yet chaste beauty of the scene ”

“ Like the Eastern cedar, however, this white cedar is very durable. I remember seeing in the woods once a fallen log, on which was growing a Douglas fir two and a half feet in diameter. The seed of the fir had fallen on the log and sprouted, and, as the fir grew, it sent down its roots to the ground on either side of the cedar log, so that at last it straddled it. The fir was about two and a half feet in diameter, and so it had been growing there a great many years, but the fallen cedar log was to all appearance as sound as if it had not been lying there a year. ”

“ Cedars of every size and form were above, around, and underneath us; firs more beautiful and more various than I had ever seen, were in equal abundance, but I know not whether they were really such as I had never seen in Europe, or only in infinitely greater splendour and perfection of growth; the species called the hemlock is, I think, second to the cedar only, in magnificence. Oak and beech, with innumerable roses and wild vines, hanging in beautiful confusion among their branches, were in many places scattered among the evergreens. ”

“ They riot in lawless growth, these runaway trees, and welcome their boon companions, crows and jays, spreading an autumnal [127] feast for their delectation and holding the fragments far into the winter that none may go away from a visit hungry. The pasture cedars, that love the river air, but may not live on the marsh, have built seaside colonies on these hillocks and spread a feast of blue cedar berries for all passing flocks. Here the robins, now gathering for their winter flight south, flock and feed, holding their ground at the approach of man, crying “Tut, tut!” ”

“ Good young cedar in forests which are to be handled under the selection system should be carefully protected. It can always be utilized and may bring revenue before anything else can be cut. For the same reason it has been suggested for planting with fir and white pine, either simultaneously as a small proportion or later in blank spaces where the others fail. Under such conditions the main stand will not be modified and the cedar will afford a valuable adjunct. ”

“ The red cedar flourishes on fertile and well-watered soils near sea level, where it grows to an enormous size. In the park it is a smaller tree, 150 to 170 feet high and rarely more than 4 or 5 feet through above the swollen butt. It grows occasionally up to an altitude of 4,000 feet, but is a small and insignificant tree in the high mountains.
In the sapling stage the red cedar grows rapidly. The mature tree increases very slowly in size. It exceeds all other trees in the Cascades in longevity. ”

“ The cedar now becomes an important tree. It will not grow on the plains, owing to the dryness of the climate and the excessive cold; even in the sheltered ravines the wintry winds have power to blight all the tops that rise above prairie level, and where the locality is better adapted for plantations, firs prevail. An interesting effect of climate upon the cedar is quoted by travelers on the Missouri River. At the first Cedar Island (43° N. lat.) large and straight trees appear in the bottom lands, those on the bluffs being of inferior growth ”

“ It has a scraggy, stunted look, and the foliage is apt to be rusty; but it will grow in rocky, sandy places where no other tree would even try to hold up its head, and the wood, when made into timber, lasts for a great many years. Posts for fences are made of the juniper or red cedar, and the shipbuilder, boatbuilder, carpenter, cabinet-maker and turner are all steady customers for it. The 'cedar-apples' found on this tree are one phase of the life of a very curious fungus. They are covered with a reddish-brown bark; and when fresh, they are tough and fleshy, somewhat like an unripe apple. ”

“ The trail here was so wide that Joe could trot ahead and ask Mills.
“Yes, they are cedars,” Mills said. “They call ’em white cedars, I believe. The wood is much softer than your slow-growing cedar in the East. It’s a great forest, isn’t it?” ”

“ The mighty cedar, with its long, grand sweeps of feathery needles, towers up higher even than its comrade the fir; here and there beneath the trees is scattered about an undergrowth of young pines, almost branchless, like bristles or long sticks standing up out of the earth. But [143] the commonest trees in this forest are certainly silver birches. The trunks of these birches stand out sometimes straight and slender, with delicate heads of foliage, looking like cadets in their white shirts; sometimes gnarled, branchy, knotted, with the air of a burly peasant, rugged with labour. ”

“ Dr. Newberry, Mr. Marvine, Dr. Peale, and Mr. Holmes have described allied phenomena in Colorado and New Mexico; and the works of Messrs. Jukes, Geikie, Scrope, and Dana have been among my chief sources of information in regard to igneous mountains in general. If any of these gentlemen feel offended that their names have been attached to natural features so insignificant, I can assure them that the affront will never be repeated by the future denizens of the region. The herders who build their hut at the base of the Newberry Arch are sure to call it “the Cedar Knoll” ”

“ Close even grain, compact structure. Wood light, soft, weak, brittle, easily worked, durable in contact with the soil, and fragrant. Used for ties, posts, interior finish, pencil cases, cigar boxes, silos, tanks, and especially for lead pencils, for which purpose alone several million feet are cut each year. A small to medium-sized tree scattered through the forests, or in the West sparsely covering extensive areas (cedar brakes) . The red cedar is the most widely distributed conifer of the United States, occurring from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Florida to Minnesota. ”

“ Here and there a giant cedar flourished in isolated majesty, lifting its delicately formed cones a hundred and fifty feet above its ancient, gnarled roots. The valley itself was for the most part clear of timber and scrub. The herds had not yet come up here this year, and would not come until the lower end had been thoroughly fed off. For here there would be grazing land in abundance until the winter came and all herds must be moved to the pastures far down the mountains where the snow fall was never more than a few thawing inches. ”