_THE CEDARS_.
"The cypress tribe," said Miss Harson, "differ from the pines, or
Coniferae, by not having their fruit in a true cone, but in a roundish
head which consists of a small number of scales, sometimes forming a
sort of berry. One of the most common of this family is the arbor vitae,
or tree of life--a tree so small as to look like a pointed shrub, and
more used for fences than for ornament. An arbor-vitae hedge, you know,
divides our flower garden from the kitchen-garden and goes all the way
down to the brook."
"I like the smell of it," said Clara. "Don't you, Miss Harson?"
[Illustration: SIBERIAN ARBOR VITAE]
"Yes," was the reply, "there is something very fresh and pleasant about
it; and when well kept, as John is sure to keep ours, it makes a
beautiful hedge. As a tree it has been known to reach forty or fifty
feet in height, with a trunk ten feet in circumference. The leaves are
arranged in four rows, in alternately opposite pairs, and seem to make
up the fan-like branchlets. These branchlets look like parts of a large
compound, flat leaf. The bark is slightly furrowed, smooth to the touch,
and very white when the tree stands exposed. The wood is reddish,
somewhat odorous, very light, soft and fine-grained. In the northern
part of the United States and in Canada it holds the first place for
durability."
"I thought the cypress was a flower," said Malcolm.
"So one kind of cypress is," replied his governess--"the blossom of an
airy-looking and beautiful creeper; but the name also belongs to a
family of trees. The white cedar, or cypress, is a very graceful tree
which generally grows in swamps. 'It is entirely free from the stiffness
of the pines, and to the spiry top of the poplar it unites the airy
lightness of the hemlock. The trunk is straight and tall, tapering very
gradually, and toward the top there are short irregular branches,
forming a small but beautiful head, above which the leading shoot waves
like a slender plume.' The leaves are very small and scale-like, with
sharp points, and grow in four rows on the ends of the branchlets,
giving them the appearance of large compound leaves. The wood is very
durable, and is used for many building-purposes. It is generally of a
faint rose-color, and always keeps its aromatic odor."
[Illustration: IRISH JUNIPER.]
"Is that what our cedar-chests are made of to keep the moths from our
winter clothes?" asked Clara.
"Yes," replied Miss Harson, "but the name 'cedar' is; not correct,
though it is one commonly given to this tree. The wood of the European
cypress is also used for many purposes where strength and durability are
required, for it really seems never to wear out. This tree is described
as tapering and cone-like, with upright branches growing close to the
trunk, and in its general appearance a little resembling a poplar. Its
frond-like branches are closely covered with very small sharp-pointed
leaves of a yellow-green color, smooth and shining, and they remain on
the tree five or six years. The cypress is often seen in burying-grounds
in Europe, and in Turkey it often stands at each end of a grave. The
oldest tree in Europe is thought to be an Italian cypress said to have
been planted in the year of our Saviour's birth; it is an object of
great reverence in the neighborhood. This ancient tree is a hundred and
twenty feet high and twenty-three feet around the trunk.
"The juniper--or red cedar, as it is improperly called--is not a
handsome tree, but it is a very useful one. 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. When dry they become of a woody nature."
"They pucker up your mouth awfully," said Malcolm, who had made several
attempts to eat them; but, do what he would, he could not even "make
believe" they were nice.
"I have no doubt of it," was the reply, "remembering the dreadful faces
I have seen on some of our rambles. But the birds like them, as they do
everything of the kind that is not poisonous."
* * * * *
"Isn't it beautiful?" exclaimed the children, in delight. They were
admiring a magnificent cedar of Lebanon in one of the pictures which
Miss Harson had collected for their benefit, and it seemed no wonder
that the grand spreading tree should be called "the glory of Lebanon."
"It is indeed beautiful," replied their governess; "and think of seeing
a whole mountain covered with such trees! A traveler speaks of them as
the most solemnly impressive trees in the world, and says that their
massive trunks, clothed with a scaly texture almost like the skin of
living animals and contorted with all the irregularities of age, may
well have suggested those ideas of royal, almost divine, strength and
solidity which the sacred writers ascribe to them.--Turn to the
ninety-second psalm, Clara, and read the twelfth verse."
"'The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow like a
cedar in Lebanon.'"
"In the thirty-first chapter of Ezekiel," continued Miss Harson, "it is
written, 'Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair
branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his
top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set
him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent
out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his
height was exalted above all the trees of the field and his boughs were
multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of
waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in
his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring
forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.'"
[Illustration: CEDAR OF LEBANON.]
"Are the leaves like those of our cedar trees?" asked Malcolm, who was
studying the picture quite intently. "The tree doesn't look like 'em."
"They are somewhat like them," replied his governess, "being slender and
straight and about an inch long. They grow in tufts, and in the centre
of some of the tufts there is a small cone which is very pretty and
often brought to this country by travelers for their friends at home. In
_The Land and the Book_ there is a picture of small branches with cones,
and the author says of the cedar: 'There is a striking peculiarity in
the shape of this tree which I have not seen any notice of in books of
travel. The branches are thrown out horizontally from the parent trunk.
These again part into limbs, which preserve the same horizontal
direction, and so on down to the minutest twigs; and even the
arrangement of the clustered leaves has the same general tendency. Climb
into one, and you are delighted with a succession of verdant floors
spread around the trunk and gradually narrowing as you ascend. The
beautiful cones seem to stand upon or rise out of this green flooring.'
The same writer says that by examining the different growths of wood
inside the trunk of one of the trees these ancient cedars of Lebanon
have been proved to be three thousand five hundred years old."
"Oh, Miss Harson!" exclaimed her audience; "could any tree be as old as
that?"
"It is possible. The circle of growing wood which is made each year is a
pretty good method of telling the age of a tree, and these cedars of
Lebanon are considered the oldest trees in the world. Travelers have
always spoken of the beauty and symmetry of these trees, with their
widespreading branches and cone-like tops. All through the Middle Ages a
visit to the cedars of Lebanon was regarded by many persons in the light
of a pilgrimage. Some of the trees were thought to have been planted by
King Solomon himself, and were looked upon as sacred relics. Indeed, the
visitors took away so many pieces from the bark that it was feared the
trees would be destroyed. The cedars stand in a valley a considerable
way up the mountain, where the snow renders it inaccessible for part of
the year."
"Are the trees just in one particular place, then?" asked Malcolm. "I
thought they grew all over that country?"
"The principal and best-known grove of very large and ancient cedars of
Lebanon is found in one place," replied his governess, "but there are
other groves now known to exist. The famous grove was fast disappearing,
until there were but few of them left. The pilgrims who went to visit
them in such numbers in olden times were accompanied by monks from a
monastery about four miles below, who would beseech them not to injure a
single leaf. But the greatest care could not preserve the trees. Some of
them have been struck down by lightning, some broken by enormous loads
of snow, and others torn to fragments by tempests. Some have even been
cut down with axes like any common tree. But better care is now taken of
them; so that we may hope that the grove will live and increase."
"But why weren't they saved," asked Clara, "when people thought so much
of them?"
"It seems to be a part of the general desolation of the land of God's
chosen but rebellious people. In the third chapter of the prophet
Isaiah, verses eleven and twelve, it is said, 'For the day of the Lord
of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every
one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low; and upon all the
cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of
Bashan.' The same prophet says, in the tenth chapter and nineteenth
verse, 'And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a
child may write them.' These words have been particularly applied to the
stately cedars of Lebanon, for 'the once magnificent grove is but a
speck on the mountain-side. Many persons have taken it in the distance
for a wood of fir trees, but on approaching nearer and taking a closer
view the cedars resume somewhat of their ancient majesty. The space they
cover is not more than half a mile, but, once amidst them, the beautiful
fan-like branches overhead, the exquisite green of the younger trees and
the colossal size of the older ones fill the mind with interest and
admiration. Within the grove all is hushed as in a land of the past.
Where once the Tyrian workman plied his axe and the sound of many
voices came upon the ear, there are now the silence and solitude of
desertion and decay.'--Malcolm," added his governess, "you may read us
what is written in the sixth verse of the fourteenth chapter of Hosea."
"'His branches,'" read Malcolm, "'shall spread, and his beauty shall be
as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.' What does that mean,
Miss Harson?"
"It means the fragrant resin which exudes from both the trunk and the
cones of the beautiful cedar. It is soft, and its fragrance is like that
of the balsam of Mecca. 'Everything about this tree has a strong
balsamic odor, and hence the whole grove is so pleasant and fragrant
that it is delightful to walk in it. The wood is peculiarly adapted for
building, because it is not subject to decay, nor is it eaten of worms.
It was much used for rafters and for boards with which to cover houses
and form the floors and ceilings of rooms. It was of a red color,
beautiful, solid and free from knots. The palace of Persepolis, the
temple of Jerusalem and Solomon's palace were all in this way built with
cedar, and the house of the forest of Lebanon was perhaps so called from
the quantity of this wood used in its construction.' We are told in
First Kings that Solomon 'built also the house of the forest of
Lebanon[24],' and that 'he made three hundred shields of beaten gold'
and 'put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon[25].' All the
drinking-vessels, too, of this wonderful palace, which is always spoken
of as 'the house of the forest of Lebanon,' were of pure gold, and its
magnificence shows how highly the beautiful cedar-wood was valued."
[24] I Kings vii. 2.
[25] I Kings x. 17.