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timber of inferior value. Introduced by the Romans to serve as 
stakes and props in the culture of the vine they have over-run the 
land, like the imported rabbits in some of our Colonies. In 
Alfred’s days these hungry aliens had not yet usurped the field, 
and there was still room for the display of the rich variety of 
nature, oak, ash, beech, fir, maple, yew, sycamore, hornbeam, 
holly, poplar, aspen, alder, hazel, wych-elm, apple, cherry, juniper, 
elder, willow, mountain-ash, spindle tree, buckthorn, hawthorn, 
wild plum, wild pear, service tree, &c. But now the fair places 
of the field are encumbered by the tall cousins of the nettle, and 
the most diversified of English counties is muffled with a 
monotonous shroud of out-landish and weedy growth.” (1) 
Interesting as this extract is, I can hardly forgive my friend 
Mr. Earle for his attack on what I consider the grandest and 
most beautiful of our trees. It is true that the English Elm has 
to a certain extent ousted the native trees, but in doing so it has 
only imperfectly copied the example of our ancestors, the Anglo- 
Saxons, who completely ousted the native British from this 
county. 
But whether Professor Earle is right as to the beauty or not, 
will the Elm long continue the prevailing tree in the landscape ? 
I doubt it! To give a reason for my doubt I will take merely 
one district, Batheaston. When I went there about 45 years ago, 
there was a most beautiful avenue of trees from the villa where 
Lady Miller lived, to the place where the celebrated vase, spoken 
of by Dr. Johnson and now in the Victoria Park, stood in her 
time. 
I do not think a single tree of that avenue is left. Numbers of 
the Elms in the grounds have been cut down and other kinds of 
trees substituted. 
= ake] See also ‘‘ British Barrows,” by Greenwell and Rolleston, p. 721, note, 
and De Candolle’s ‘‘ Géographie Botanique Raisonnée,” 1855, Vol. 2, pp. 
645—705, therein cited. 
