NUTTY AUTUMN. 145 



up in the horse-chestnut the prickly-coated nuts hang 

 up in bunches, as many as eight on a stalk. Acorns 

 are large, but not so singularly numerous as the 

 ( berries, nor are hazel-nuts. This provision of hedge- 

 fruit no more indicates a severe winter than a damaged 

 wheat harvest indicates a mild one. 



There is something wrong with elm trees. In the 

 early part of this summer, not long after the leaves 

 were fairly out upon them, here and there a branch 

 appeared as if it had been touched with red-hot iron 

 and burnt up, all the leaves withered and browned 

 on the boughs. First one tree was thus affected, 

 then another, then a third, till, looking round the 

 fields, it seemed as if every fourth or fifth tree had 

 thus been burnt. 



It began with the leaves losing colour, much as 

 they do in autumn, on the particular bough; gradually 

 they faded, and finally became brown and of course 

 dead. As they did not appear to shrivel up, it looked 

 as if the grub or insect, or whatever did the mischief, 

 had attacked, not the leaves, but the bough itself. 

 Upon mentioning this I found that it had been 

 noticed in elm avenues and groups a hundred miles 

 distant, so that it is not a local circumstance. 



As far as yet appears, the elms do not seem mate- 

 rially injured, the damage being outwardly confined to 

 the bough attacked. These brown spots looked very 

 remarkable just after the trees had become green. 

 They were quite distinct from the damage caused by 

 the snow of October, 1880. The boughs broken by the 

 snow had leaves upon them which at once turned 

 brown, and in the case of the oak were visible, the 



L 



