Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/41

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Cedrus
461

place in England, as in 1761 many hundreds were planted by Peter Collinson for the Duke of Richmond. Loudon, on page 2414, quotes a MS. memorandum of Collinson's as follows:—'I paid John Clark, a butcher of Barnes, who was very successful in raising cedars, for 1000 plants of Cedar of Lebanon, 8th June 1761, £79:6s., on behalf of the Duke of Richmond. These 1000 cedars were planted at five years old, in my sixty-seventh year, in March and April 1761; in September 1761 I was at Goodwood and saw these cedars in a thriving state. This day, 20th October 1762, I paid Mr. Clark for another large portion of cedars for the Duke of Richmond. The duke's father was a great planter, but the young duke much exceeds him, for he intends to clothe all the naked hills above him with evergreen woods." Of the cedars at Goodwood, Loudon goes on to say that 139 remained in 1837. According to Kent (op. cit. 419, note *), eleven fine cedars were uprooted in Goodwood Park by the fierce gale of 3rd March 1897.

There are some splendid cedars at Wilton of which Lambert[1] writes as follows:—"I am indebted to the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert (author of the celebrated work on Amaryllidaceæ) for the following interesting particulars respecting the cedars at Highclere, the seat of the Earl of Carnarvon: 'The two oldest cedars at Highclere were raised in 1739 from a cone brought from Lebanon by Dr. Pococke[2] in 1738. They were stunted plants for some time, and removed to their present situation in 1767. The largest of the two measured, in 1829, 9 feet in circumference, having grown only an inch in the last two years, the chalk being unfavourable to its growth. The largest cedar at Highclere, though much younger, measured in 1830, at three feet from the ground, 10 feet 1 inch in circumference; it was reared from a cone, which came from the Wilton cedars in 1772, and was about 48 years old before it bore. It was known to the late Earl of Carnarvon that the cedars at Wilton were kept by his grandmother, the Countess of Pembroke, in pots at her window, till growing too large, they were planted upon the lawn, between the house and the water, a situation very favourable to their growth. Supposing them to have been 48 years old, when the cone was gathered from them in 1772, they must have been raised as early as 1724. It is most probable they were between 1710 and 1720; for the Countess of Pembroke who cultivated them died before her husband, who married again after her death, and died in 1733. The oldest cedars at Highclere are, therefore, now (in 1831) 92 years old; those at Wilton at least 106, probably between 110 and 120. Dr. Pococke found the circumference of the largest cedar with a round or single stem to be 20 feet; but he does not state how near the ground he measured it.'" I saw these trees in 1903 and measured them carefully; the best was then about 108 feet high and 21 in girth, with a spread of 109 feet. This tree has lost a large limb, the hollow caused by which has been carefully filled with cement.

At Strathfieldsaye there are also some splendid cedars, a group of which on strongish clay soil have the same upright, small-branched character as the Windsor trees. The best of these is 110 feet high by 11 feet 9 inches in girth, with a clean

  1. Genus Pinus, ii. 91 (1832).
  2. This is not confirmed by Mr. Challis's statement on p. 459; and probably all the Wilton cedars were not of the same age. Dr. Richard Pococke travelled in the East during 1737 to 1742.