300 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



use in making hubs for wheels, for which purpose they are 

 probably superior to any other wood known. They have come, 

 however, to be far too valuable, as trees of ornament, to be often 

 cut down for use. The English elm is a noble tree. If it has 

 less grace than the American, it has more stateliness and gran- 

 deur. It has more of the strength of the oak. It is distin- 

 guished from the American elm by its bark, which is darker 

 and much more broken ; by having one principal stem which 

 soars upwards to a great height, and by its branches, which 

 are thrown out more boldly and abruptly, and at a larger angle. 

 Its limbs stretch out horizontally, or tend upwards, with an ap- 

 pearance of strength to the very extremity. In the American, 

 they are almost universally drooping at the end. Its leaves are 

 closer, smaller, more numerous, and of a darker color. It has 

 been objected to this elm by Gilpin, {Forest Scenery, I, p. 90,) 

 that it wants a definite character, that it has often so great a 

 resemblance to an oak that it may, at a distance, be mistaken 

 for it. The observation is undoubtedly well founded, but to one 

 who would gladly have the satisfaction of looking on the king 

 of trees, but cannot wait for its tardy growth, it is very far 

 from an objection. The American elm is so planted every 

 where, that it is possible to be weary of seeing it ; in which case, 

 as a variety, the sight of a stately English elm is a relief. It 

 has, moreover, the advantage of being clothed in an unchanged 

 foliage, several weeks longer than our native tree. 



The English elm continues to increase for one hundred, or 

 one hundred and fifty years, and probably much longer, al- 

 though, compared with the oak, it is not a long-lived tree, the 

 very old ones being usually hollow at the base. For several 

 centuries it has been planted for ornament, on avenues and pub- 

 lic walks in France, Spain and the Low Countries, and in 

 England, immemorially. When full grown, it is four or five 

 feet in diameter, and sixty or seventy feet high. Raised from 

 seed, it forms innumerable varieties, distinguished by their 

 difference in habit and appearance, time of leaf and peculiarity 

 of hue, and by the qualities of the wood. These varieties, 

 some of them very valuable, are propagated by shoots, and by 

 grafting. Like the American elm, it is of very rapid growth. 



