EUROPEAN OR FIELD ELM. 489 



Fifeshire, which is ninety feet high, with a trunk nine feet and .hree inches in 

 diameter, and an ambitus of fifty-one feet. 



In Ireland, the dimensions of several elms are recorded by Hayes, though the 

 species is not named, it is presumed that some of them belong to the Ulmus can?- 

 pestris. Near Arklow, at Shelton, an elm had a trunk five feet and four inches in 

 diameter at the surface of the ground. In the county of Kildare, there stood an elm, 

 which, till the year 1762, was, perhaps, the finest tree of the species in the world. 

 The diameter of the head, taken from the extremities of the lower branches, 

 exceeded thirty-four yards; but in the end of that year the two principal arms 

 fell from the trunk one night, apparently from their own weight, as the weather 

 was perfectly calm. The timber contained in these branches sold for five guin- 

 eas. In this situation the tree continued till the winter of 1776, when a violent 

 storm tore up the whole by the roots, with a great mass of soil and rock adhering 

 to them. Some time previous to this, tlie trunk had been carefully measured, and 

 was found to be thirty-eight and a half feet in circumference. It had been hol- 

 low for many years; and the value of its timber by no means answered what 

 might have been expected, from the sale of the two branches in 1762. There is 

 said to be no certain record as to the age of this tree; but popular tradition sup- 

 poses it to have been planted by the monks of St. Wolstan, some time before the 

 dissolution of that monastery, which happened in the year 1538. In Kilkenny, 

 at Mount Juliet, there is an Ulmus campestris one hundred and two feet in height, 

 with a trunk four feet and two inches in diameter, and an ambitus of thirty-two 

 feet. An elm, at Carton, the seat of the Duke of Leinster, is fourteen feet and 

 eight inches in circumference near the base, diminishing like the shaft of a Doric 

 column, and being thirteen feet in girth, at sixteen feet from the ground. 



The most remarkable Ulmus c. montana on record, as growing in England, 

 is mentioned by Cook, in his treatise on " Forest and Fruit Trees." It stood in 

 Sir Walter Bagot's Park, in Staffordshire, and attained the height of one hundred 

 and twenty feet, with a trunk seventeen feet in diameter at the surface of the 

 ground. It required two men five days to fell it, and it contained forty-eight loads 

 of wood in the head; and yielded eight pairs of naves; eight thousand six hun- 

 dred and sixty feet of boards and planks; and the whole tree was estimated to 

 weigh ninety-seven tons. 



One of the largest and most beautiful specimens of the Ulmus c. montana. in 

 Scotland, is growing at Kinfauns Castle, in Perthshire, and is figured by Mr. 

 Loudon, in his "Arboretum Britannicum." He represents it to be seventy feet 

 high, with a trunk six feet and a half in diameter, and an ambitus of sixty feet. 



In Ireland, at Bawn, near Mansfieldtown, in the county of Louth, there is a 

 remarkable Ulmus c. montana, which is considered to be upwards of one hundred 

 and twenty years old. In 1839, it was seventy feet in height, with a trunk nine 

 feet and eight inches in diameter at the base, five feet and four inches, at six feet 

 above the ground, and with a head ninety feet in diameter. 



In France, the elm was scarcely known, as an ornamental tree, till the time of 

 Francis I. ; and it appears to have been first planted there to adorn public walks 

 about the year 1540. It was afterwards planted largely, particularly in church- 

 yards, by Sully, in the reign of Henry IV. ; and, by the desire of that king, who, 

 according to Evelyn, expressed a wish to have it planted in all the highways in 

 France, it became the tree most generally adopted for promenades and hedge- 

 rows. Many old trees existed at the period of the first French revolution, which 

 were called '-Sully," or " Rosni," and "Henri Quatre;" names that had been 

 given them apparently to commemorate their illustrious planters. Bosc states that 

 he himself had seen some of these elms in Burgundy, with trunks from four to five 

 feet in diameter, which, tbougli hollow, yet supported heads capable of sheltering 

 gome thousands of men. It is said that Henry IV. planted an elm in the garden 

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