Cedar

“ Nothing, perhaps, in the wide range of garden beauty is more pictorial than an ancient Cedar, dusky and glaucous, with cavernous shadows, holding upright the smooth, pale-brown, rounded cones on its flattened branches, or some grand Silver Fir standing alone in its solemn symmetrical beauty, or even, as may now and then be seen, though rarely, some stately Araucaria, wind-sheltered, whose radiating branches sweep down upon the greensward. ”

“ The leaf of the cedar is small, not unlike the ash; but when I looked up, I noticed that the feelers of this ligneous serpent had twisted round the larger boughs, and blended their broad leaves with those of the tree, so that it looked like two trees grafted into one; but, as Aaron Bang said, in a very few years the cedar would entirely disappear, its growth being impeded, its pith extracted, and its core rotted, by the baleful embraces of the wild fig, of “this Scotchman hugging the Creole.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I love a spray of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet inside bark, or a pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a spike of timothy grass drawn slowly from its close-fitting sheath, or a twig of the birch that tastes like wintergreen.
I think this no strange or unusual instinct, for I have seen many other people doing it, especially farmers around here, who go through the fields nipping the new oats, testing the red-top, or chewing a bit of sassafras bark. ”

“ On level ground it would be accounted a hill, but in the midst of such a range of snowy giants it emerges only like a tiny heap of earth, and to this day nothing grows on it but the cedar—the finest, darkest, most widely spreading specimens of that noble and fragrant tree are here to be found. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The cedar, on whose boughs the snow rests and the fowls nestle, is the work of centuries; and the soil that laps its roots, the air that stirs its branches, the light that plays upon its crest, and the rain that drops upon its foliage, minister to the final development of the original cone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fence posts of white cedar, and cedar pails, shingles, and the like, have a great reputation for durability.
The peculiarity of a red cedar is its fruit. Instead of a cone, a blue, juicy, sweet berry follows the blossoming of this tree. The foliage, too, is erratic. Minute leaves of the scale form, discovered in the other cedars, are found here on most twigs. They are still smaller, and the twigs are much smaller. But on new shoots, and often on a whole branch, the leaves are needle-like, one-half to three-quarters of an inch long, and spreading as the leaves of a spruce. ”

“ As cedar also which everywhere on the Shield is the best loved of forest-growths to be the companion of household walls; so that even the poorest of the people, if it does not grow near the spot they build in, hunt for it and bring it home: everywhere wife and cedar, wife and cedar, wife and cedar. ”

“ Spread wide their giant arms.
The prophet Ezekiel has given us the fullest description of the Cedar: "Behold the Assyrian was a Cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. His boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long. The fir-trees were not like his boughs, nor the chestnut-trees like his branches, nor any tree in the garden of God like unto him in beauty." ”

“ All the year the pasture cedars are beautiful, and it is hard to say whether they are at their best in the spring glow of staminate delight or now when their bronze robes bear the round, exquisitely blue berries which are really cones. I have an idea the birds like them best now. The robins, the cedar-birds, and a host of others eat these berries gladly, and fly far with them, planting the seeds as they go. They find shelter in the close drawn blanket of evergreen foliage which the trees seem to wrap about them to keep out the cold and they fill the pasture with flitting wings all the month. ”

“ The stars above, the mighty entombing forest, in which the trees fell unceasingly after their long centuries of life, the encircling wall, built perhaps by hands that had ceased from their labours hundreds of thousands of years before those trees began to grow; the huge moss-clad cedar upon the mound beneath the shadow of whose branches day by day its worshippers gave up their breath, that immemorial cedar whereof, as they believed, the life was the life of the nation ”

“ 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!” ”

“ From the rugged trunk of the stunted cedar that leans forward from the brink, you may drop a plummet into the river below, where the cat-fish and the turtles may plainly be seen gliding over the wrinkled sands of the clear and shallow current. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All said that the tree was plentiful somewhere, but no one could fix on the precise locality. I believe that the cedar grows, like all other forest trees, in a scattered way, and not in masses anywhere. ”

“ But, in its maturer age, the beauty of the English Cedar is generally gone; it becomes shrivelled, deformed, and stunted; its body increases, but its limbs shrink and wither. Thus it never gives us its two leading qualities together. [073] In its youth, we have some idea of its beauty, without its strength; and in its advanced age, we have some idea of its strength, without its beauty. ”

“ CEDAR, ארז. The cedar is a large and noble evergreen tree. Its lofty height, and its far extended branches, afford spacious shelter and shade, Ezek. xxxi, 3, 6, 8. The wood is very valuable; is of a reddish colour, of an aromatic smell, and reputed incorruptible. This is owing to its bitter taste, which the worms cannot endure, and to its resin, which preserves it from the injuries of the weather. The ark of the covenant, and much of the temple of Solomon, and that of Diana at Ephesus, were built of cedar. The tree is much celebrated in Scripture. It is called, “the glory of Lebanon,” Isa. ”

“ The cedar trees, which are landmarks in many of our northern states, yield light, soft, durable wood that is useful in making poles, fence posts, lead pencils and cedar chests. The wood of the red cedar gives off a peculiar odor which is said to keep moths away from clothes stored in cedar chests, but it is the close construction of the chest which keeps them out. ”

“ 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 Cedar is frequently found growing in churchyards, beside the Yew tree, and a dark, gloomy tree it is. The trunk is covered with a thick rough bark of a pale greenish brown colour, but on the branches this bark is thin and flaky. The Cedar grows very slowly. The tree may be a hundred years old before it produces any seeds, though you sometimes find seedless cones on Cedars that are twenty-five to thirty years old.
The leaves (2) are evergreen, and usually remain on the twigs for four or five years. They grow in tufts, like those of the Larch, on the upper side of the twig ”

“ The incense cedar (Libocedrus decurrens) , when full grown, is a magnificent tree, one hundred and twenty to nearly two hundred feet high, five to eight and occasionally twelve feet in diameter, with cinnamon-colored bark and warm yellow-green foliage, and in general appearance like an arbor vitæ. It is distributed through the main forest from an elevation of three to six thousand feet, and in sheltered portions of cañons on the warm sides to seven thousand five hundred. In midwinter, when most trees are asleep, it puts forth its flowers. ”

“ Deep green the full-leaved boughs of elm and ash, poplar and cedar leaned above the current; and along the little wild-meadows which here and there bordered the stream, where the lumbermen had had camps or "landings", the misty pink-purple blossoms of the milkweed poured a wild sweetness upon the air. In a shallow run near the shore, where the sunlight, falling through an overhanging cedar "sweeper", dappled the clear ripples, and the current was about eight inches deep, and there was no pool near to tempt the larger fish, the active and wary little parr took up his [Pg 40] home. ”

“ The spruce and cedar on its shores, hung with gray lichens, looked at a distance like the ghosts of trees. Ducks were sailing here and there on its surface, and a solitary loon, like a more living wave,—a vital spot on the lake's surface,—laughed and frolicked, and showed its straight leg, for our amusement. ”

“ But first a special word for the tree itself: everybody knows that the cedar is a healthy, cheap, democratic wood, streak'd red and white—an evergreen—that it is not a cultivated tree—that it keeps away moths—that it grows inland or seaboard, all climates, hot or cold, any soil—in fact rather prefers sand and bleak side spots—content if the plough, the fertilizer and the trimming-axe, will but keep away and let it alone. ”

“ Lots of the old houses were built of cedar, and I’ve heard of old cedar furniture to be picked up here and there, as some people buy old oak out of English farm-houses. It is very durable and deliriously scented. People used to make cedar bonfires when the small-pox was about, to keep away infection. The gardens will grow anything, and plots of land are divided by oleander hedges of many colours. ”

“ 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 ”

“ To us in New England to whom a cedar tree thirty feet high is no common sight the stories of these hundred-foot high trees seem strange indeed, and I know of but one red cedar whose diameter is as much as twelve inches. This tree is much less than thirty feet in height, however. It grows by itself on rocky ground in a pasture where it has no close neighbors of any variety. Its trunk divides at eight feet from the ground into many branches which make a round head whose ancient, twigs are hoary with lichens and seem to be in the last stages of senile debility. ”

“ The cedar employed in this business is a considerable tree, which grows in various parts of the world, but especially in the United States, where it occupies large tracts called cedar or cypress swamps. ”

“ CEDAR, or the Pinus Cedrus, L. a species of the pine-tree, usually called the Cedar of Libanon, is a native of Syria. It is an evergreen of the larger kind, bearing roundish cones, with smooth, erect scales, each fruit about five inches long, and four in circumference. The cedar attains a considerable size, and is said to arrive at a greater age than the oak. It appears to have been introduced into England towards the latter end of the 17th century, and may be easily propagated by seed; as it will grow on a poor sandy soil with a mixture of clay. ”