The Savannah morning news., 1903-07-05

climate they throve and grew to full
stature, developing into some of the
best of our landscape trees.
The experience gained with these
western frs prompted a similar ex-
pertinent with the cedars of Lebanon.
Since the trees had again and again
proved themselves not hardy enough
for New Englands climate-and that
means for practically all the country
north of the latitude of Central New
Jersey-the Arboretum sought out some
specimens that had already been
through the process of standardization,
finally securing a number of cones from
mountains about Smyrna, the coolest
region in which the tree is found and
one with weather almost as variable
as that of our Atlantic coast. These
seeds from Asia Minor were planted
in January, 1902, and came up in due
course. To-day, when they are year
and half old, the little sprigs stand
two or three inches high, and in a box
hardly a foot square there are 70 of
them-enough to cover the Mount of
Olives, probably; perhaps as many as
were used In building the great court
of the Temple of Solomon with it's
mighty pillars. They are small, but
already they have a most interesting
personality, an amusing air of self-im-
portance, as it were, and one can easily
imagine their undeveloped grandeur
For since the days of Solomon the
cedars of Lebanon have been the type
of majesty and beauty. In maturity
they grow to so feet in hight, with fiat,
wide-spreading branches set symmet-
really about a sturdy trunk The
long life of their fine-fibred wood and
the strong balsam of their seed gave
them wonderful properties in the minds
of the ancients, among whom the ce-
dar was the most valued of trees
When Solomon built his temple and
his place he bought from Hiram, King
of Tyre, the great cedars of Lebanon
to make pillars and beams and walls.
and from him hired his workmen, too
And Solomon had three score and ten
thousand that bare burdens, and four
score thousand hewers in the noun
tains beside the chief of Solomon's Of
ficers which were over the work. three
thousand and three hundred, which
ruled over the people that wrought in
the work. The temple was seven
years in building, And Solomon gave
Hiram twenty thousand measures of
wheat for food to his household. and
twenty measures of pure oil; thus
gave Solomon to Hiram year by year"
The cones of the cedar of Lebanon
are close-knit and hard. Inside, the
little pltchy seeds. packed closely to-
gether in solid core, have wonderful
fiimy wings to carry them far and wide
and drop them so that their sharp
points shall strike into the earth ami
give them permanent Judgment After
they have grown to full size on the
tree the cones are three or four years
in ripening before they burst and scat
ter their seeds, and at the Arboretum
they had to be drilled and set in hot
water to force them open. They were
as fun of fragrant balsam, however. as
If they had been plucked but yester-
day, and as full of vigorous life.
OF course this work of raising little
oedars is still experimental, and the
seedlings are nurtured as carefully as
If they were so many children. At first
they were all kept in the greenhouses,
in their boxes: then, when they had
passed their first birthday. and the