EUROPEAN OR FIELD ELM. 103 
are very often procured from stools, simply by heaping up earth about the shoots 
which proceed from them. These shoots throw out roots into the i arth ; and, 
after growing three or four years, during which time they acquire th< heighl of 
ten or fifteen feet, they are clipped off, when they are either planted in thi 
where they are finally to remain, or in nursery lines. When they are trans- 
planted to their final situations, the side shoots are cut off, and the mam Btem is 
headed down to the height of eight or ten feet ; so that newly-planted trees ap- 
pear to be nothing more than naked truncheons. The first year, a great, many 
shoots are produced from the upper extremity of each plant: ami in the autumn 
of that year, or in the second spring, their shoots are all cut off but one, which 
soon forms an erect stem, and a tree with as regular a head as if no decapitation 
had taken place. This mode corresponds with the recommendatn n of llvlvn, 
to plant trees about the " scantling of your leg, and to trim on their heads at live 
or six feet in height;" and also with Cato's mode of having the stems five 
or six fingers thick, who says that " you can hardly plant an elm too hig, pro- 
vided you trim the roots and cut off the head." All the avenues and rows of 
elm-trees, in Europe, it is said, were planted in this manner, previously to a hunt 
the middle of the last century; and, according to M. Poitean, the same practice 
is still the most general in France. In Britain, young elms having been two 01 
three times transplanted in the nurseries, are removed to their final situations, with- 
out heading down ; and, in the moist climate of that country, they grow rigorously 
the first year without much pruning. But, in the south of Europe, where the cli- 
mate of summer is hotter and more arid, and is attended with a consequent increased 
evaporation from the leaves of plants, the trees are liable to be killed when trans- 
planted with all their branches on ; and hence the mode of depriving them of their 
branches as described above. For similar reasons, the same practice is requisite 
in the United States to ensure success. In France and Belgium, the Tlmus cam- 
pestris.is the most common tree planted by road sides, and along the boulevards 
and streets of cities and towns; and, in such cases, a large pit is previously di 
four or five feet in diameter, and from two to three feet in depth: and a con- 
siderable portion of fine, rich mould is placed in immediate contact with the roots 
of the trees, and the pit filled with the best part of the soil, which had been pre- 
viously dug out of it. During the first summer, water is regularly supplied, and 
the trees, or rather stumps, grow freely; very little attention hem- required ^ after- 
wards, except to encourage the leading shoots, and to shorten in, the lateral 
branches, so as to encourage the plants to assume a tree-like form. In the 
neighbourhood of Paris, and in the south of France, the Ulmus campestns occa- 
sionally bears seeds, which are sometimes sown by nurserymen, m order to pro- 
cure new varieties, and by the managers of the national forests, in order to obtain 
a supply of plants, at a cheap rate; but in Britain, this tree very rarely ripe,. 
seeds, or produces them at all; nevertheless, it has done so. in a few pis 
in Lea Park, near Littlebourne, about four miles from ( Janterbury. It is observed 
by Bosc, that some of the more remarkable varieties, such as the twisted elm, 
(Ulmus c. tortuosa.) &c. come tolerably true from seeds, speaking oi the mass 
of young plants; but that among these are constantly to be found numerous sub- 
varieties The seeds, which fall from the trees as soon as they are ripe, are 
swept up and immediately sown in beds of light rich soil; being placed abou 
an inch apart every way, they are covered to the depth oi about an eighth^ of an 
inch. The plants come up the same season, and are I,, for transplanting into 
nursery lines in the autumn following. 
