The Swedish juniper
(now so frequent in our new modish gardens, and shorn into pyramids) is
but a taller and somewhat brighter sort of the vulgar.

3. I have rais'd them abundantly of their seeds (neither watering, nor
dunging the soil) which in two months will peep, and being governed like
the cypress, apt for all the employments of that beautiful tree: To
make it grow tall, prune, and cleanse it to the very stem; the male
best. The discreet loosening of the earth about the roots also, makes it
strangely to prevent your expectations, by suddenly spreading into a
bush fit for a thousand pretty employments; for coming to be much unlike
that which grows wild, and is subject to the treading and cropping of
cattle, &c. it may be form'd into most beautiful and useful hedges: My
late brother having formerly cut out of one only tree, an arbour capable
for three to sit in, it was at my last measuring seven foot square, and
eleven in height; and would certainly have been of a much greater
altitude, and farther spreading, had it not continually been kept shorn:
But what is most considerable, is, the little time since it was planted,
being then hardly ten years, and then it was brought out of the common a
slender bush, of about two foot high: But I have experimented a
proportionable improvement in my own garden, where I do mingle them with
cypress, and they would perfectly become their stations, where they
might enjoy the sun, and may very properly be set where cypress does not
so well thrive; namely, in such gardens and courts as are open to the
eddy-winds, which indeed a little discolours our junipers when they blow
easterly towards the Spring, but they constantly recover again; and
besides, the shrub is tonsile, and may be shorn into any form. I wonder
Virgil should condemn its shadow. _Juniperi gravis umbra_..... I suspect
him mis-reported.

In the mean time, botanists are not fully agreed to what species many
noble and stately trees, passing under the names of cedar, are to be
reckon'd; and therefore (for I cannot but mention those of the Vermuda
again in this place) being so beautiful, tall, thick-set with
evergreen-leaves, like the juniper, with berries indeed much larger, and
may also be propagated by layers: Affording a timber close, ruddy for
the most part; easy to work, and yielding excellent flooring, fit for
wainscot, and all curious cabinet-works; keeping its agreeable odor and
fragrancy longer than the rest: There