288 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



disposition of its principal limbs, and to the extreme elegance 

 of its summit. In Maine, between Portsmouth and Portland, 

 a great number of young white elms are seen detached in the 

 middle of the pastures ; they ramify at the height of eight, ten, 

 or twelve feet, and their limbs, springing at the same point, 

 cross each other and rise with a uniform inclination, so as to 

 form of the summit a sheaf of regular proportions and admira- 

 ble beauty." 



The character of the trunk is almost as various as that of 

 the general form of the tree. You sometimes see it a straight, 

 gradually tapering column, shooting up to sixty or eighty feet 

 without a limb ; at other times, an inverted small branch or two, 

 pushing out at the fork, hangs waving downwards for some feet. 

 Again you see it a verdant pillar of foliage, feathering from the 

 branches to the ground. 



With this endless variety of beauty, it is not wonderful that 

 the American elm should be the greatest favorite with the New 

 England people. And it has the additional recommendation of 

 retaining much of its beauty when the foliage is gone. The 

 sturdy trunk and the airy sweep of the branches are always 

 there, and few objects of the kind are more beautiful than 

 the feathered, alternate regularity of the spray upon the out- 

 most and uppermost boughs. With the earliest spring, these 

 are fringed with numerous bunches of red blossoms, soon to 

 give place to soft, delicious green of the young leaves. 



Coming with such recommendations, the elm is more fre- 

 quently transplanted than any other forest tree, and, from the 

 vigor and number of its roots, it is more sure than any other 

 to live. It is oftener spared, too, in most parts of the country, 

 when the rest of the forest is cut away. We frequently, there- 

 fore, see it standing, for a shade to cattle, in pastures, and by 

 fences and sometimes in mid fields, on tilled land, or left to 

 shade and protect and give an air of comfort to farm-houses. 

 And, in the excellent practice, becoming every year more com- 

 mon, of ornamenting towns and villages and sheltering sunny 

 roads, with rows of trees, the elm is chosen often to the exclu- 

 sion of all other trees, of trees too, which, much as we value 

 the elm, we cannot but consider its equals and often its su- 



