Cedars at Campsea Ash

18

CEDARS

AT CAMPSEA

ASH.

in the water was in more or less globular masses; and, when stranded, it would subside into the flat pats found upon the beach.

Surely a diving bird comes to the surface of the water by mere force of buoyancy, with its beak upwards and eyes open, in which most natural condition of wariness it would have no difficulty in avoiding such opaque globular masses as oil forms. The kick of a leg or the flip of a wing would appear to be all sufficient to secure such a diver's safety.

CEDARS

AT

CAMPSEA

ASH.

B Y LORD ULLSWATER, G . C . B . , L L . D . ,

D.C.L.

are a number of fine Cedars in the garden at Campsea Ash : four on the south side, four on the west, two near a piece of water and five in a group near the gardener's house.

Mr. C. Haukins, now of the Forestry Commission, who inspected them in 1913, reported that " the highest Cedar measures about 103| feet and has a girth of eighteen feet at breast height. The other specimens measure eighteen feet five inches, and nineteen feet eleven inches, respectively at breast height. All appear to be perfectly healthy.

These magnificent Cedars are evidently amongst those of the earliest introduction into this country.

At the south-east corner are five Cedars standing in a group a few feet apart, which have grown to a great height, the bole of each tree leaning outwards and with mostly very clean stems.

Local history says that these fine Cedars were amongst the earliest introduced into this country, and were ' heeled in ' on arrival, and left there. The Cedar of Lebanon was introduced before the year 1683." I may add that all of the Cedars, save one, have clean boles up to about twenty to thirty feet, but one has two huge branches which leave the main trunk at or just above ground-level; and that the largest, though not the tallest, Cedar has a girth of twenty-four and a half feet at five feet from the ground.

THERE

When were these Cedars planted ?

I cannot find any record of them in such archives of the estate as are open to me. According to Bean, Cedars of Lebanon were introduced probably between 1670 and 1680.

Evelyn in his " Sylva " published in 1670 says of the Cedar: " I have frequentlv raised it of the seeds. B y Nature it is almost eternal but is like to be destroyed by our negligence."* From this *Page 135 of the 1729 Edition, our copy of which is inscribed " J. Rodwell, Alderton Hall 1811 ; Claydon 1 8 6 1 . " I t was acquired from Framsden Mill-house a few years ago, and is badly bored by that appallingly destructive beetle, Hypothemus eruditus, Westw., which obviously occurs in Suffolk, consequently.—Ed.

SUFFOLK

DRAGON-FLIES.

19

passage and its context, it would appear that Cedars were practically unknown in England in 1670.

So far as I am aware, it is not known at what date or by whom the garden at Campsea Ash was laid out (the house itself was built by John Glover, who died in 1629) ; but I find that one John Sheppard, born in 1675, owned the place until 1747 when he died.

He seems to have been a " big noise " in his time, and an enterprizing sort of fellow, for he married the Countess of Leicester, Philip Sydney's widow, was twice High Sheriff of Suffolk, viz., in 1709 and in 1714, and after the death of his wife in 1726 was bold enough to embark on a second matrimonial venture.

Can he have been the planter of the Cedars ? and the layer-out of the gardens ? They have a Dutch feeling about them, with their cut Yew fences, bowling green and parallel rectangular pieces of water.

Supposing that John Sheppard planted the Cedars to celebrate this second ührievalty, the trees would be two hundred and five years old.

Is that possible ?

Must we wait until one of them is blown •over and we have an opportunity to count the rings ?— Ullswater, Campsea Ash ; 4th Nov., 29.

[A Cedar, " brought direct from Lebanon and planted at Enfield, about the middle of the seventeenth Century, had a girth of fourteen feet in 1689."-—Scripture Nat. Hist.

For a word-picture of Enfield, at that period, cf. Scott's 'Fortunes of Nigel,' chapt. penult.]

T H E DRAGON-FLIES OF SUFFOLK. Light and airy as a fairy, Darting o'er the tide, Dragon-flies and Water-flies Flash along on every side, Glist'ning in the sun.

Few insects are more conspicuous than Dragon-flies, on account of their large size and the way in which they thrust themselves in the tarnest and most audacious way before our eyes, their glittering wings flashing in the sun, as they pursue their insect-prey in swift gyrations that no aeroplane can hope to imitate.

Technically they are known as ODONATA, a group of the Order NEUROPTERA ; and in their earlier stages of egg, Caterpillar and chrysalis, here called nymph because it is active and walks about unlike the pupa of a moth, all these insects live entirely under water.

Consequently it is not surprising to find that the majority of the kinds occurring in