X. 1. THE ENGLISH ELM. 301 



Evelyn says it has been known to rise to the height of a hun- 

 dred feet in less than a century. 



Many large elms are described by Loudon and Strutt, and 

 several of the most remarkable in England are figured by the 

 latter in his Sylva Britannica. The finest of these, the Chip- 

 stead Elm, " is sixty feet high, twenty feet in circumference at 

 the base, and fifteen feet eight inches at three feet and a half 

 from the ground. It contains 268 feet of timber. Its venera- 

 ble trunk is richly mantled with ivy, and gives signs of consid- 

 erable age ; but the luxuriance of its foliage attests its vigor, 

 and it is as fine a specimen of its species in full beauty as can 

 be found.'' — Sylva Britannica, p. 60. 



" The Crawley Elm stands in the village of Crawley, on the 

 high road from London to Brighton. It is a well known object 

 to all who are in the habit of travelling that way, and arrests 

 the eye of the stranger at once by its tall and straight stem, 

 which ascends to the height of seventy feet, and by the fantas- 

 tic ruggedness of its wildly spreading roots. Its trunk is perfo- 

 rated to the very top, measuring sixty-one feet in circumference 

 at the ground, and thirty-five feet round the inside at two feet 

 from the base." (lb. p. 62.) This tree is not so large as would 

 seem from this account, as it diminishes very rapidly upwards. 



There are many fine trees of this kind in Boston, Roxbury, 

 Dorchester, and some other neighboring towns, but none of very 

 great size. 



The largest on the Mall, bordering Boston Common, was meas- 

 ured by Prof. Gray and myself in 1844, and found to be twelve 

 feet and three inches in circumference at three feet from the 

 lower side, and eleven feet two inches at five feet. It is a stately 

 and very beautiful tree. The European elms on Paddock's 

 Mall, near Park Street Church, are said to have been planted in 

 1762, by Major Adino Paddock and Mr. John Ballard. In 

 1826, several of them measured nine feet at four from the 

 ground, having grown more than one and a half inches a year. 

 Several of them now measure nine feet ten inches at four feet, 

 having grown only half an inch annually, for the last twenty 

 years. This, however, is not surprising, as they are immedi- 

 ately surrounded on all sides by an almost impenetrable pave- 



