Records in Christmas Trees

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2693, 24 December 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

Records in Christmas Trees

The earliest and most elaborate Christmas trees belong to China. As Joiig ago as 247 B.C. a tree with a hundred lamps and flowers was placed in the steps of the audience hall. This appears in the records of Princess Yang, who lived in 713-715 A.D., and who caused a 100-lamp tree, 80 feet .high, to be erected on a mountain. It was lighted during New Year night, and the illumination was seen for hundreds of miles, eclipsing, _ so the Chinese historians said, the light of the moon. The biggest private. Christmas tree ever seen in England was one which the Duke of Norfolk gave so long ago as 1848. It was no less than 70 feet high, and was made of a single fir tree. It weighed nearly four tons, and bore on its branches presents for the tenantry to the value of £4500. The biggest of which any records, exist was seen at the Crystal Palace in 1878. This giant stood 120 feet from the ground to summit, hut it was not all one tree. Its trunk was an enormous Douglas fir, and something like 1600 shrubs were fixed into this central stem. The aggregate value of this tree, with its lights and presents, was £3500. : i ;

A But big as these trees were, they cannot compare in value with Windsor s record Christmas tree, which Queen Victoria gave soon after her marriage to the/Prince Consort.. Though only 40 feet?'in height, its crop of presents was valued at £9OOO. A tree in Liverpool gave the impression of being covered with--ice. This effect had been obtained by dipping the whole tree m molted icing-sugar. As may lie _ imagined, the expense was very heavy. Tliis tree appeared, at first sight, to have no nres-ents upon it—nothing but a crop <n groat, handsome cones, also thickly frosted. When these were cut, each was found to open with a spring, and disclose some small, but . valuable trinket.