62 S Y L V A BOOK i 



afford us ; and that in other specifics, even the most 

 despicable and vulgar elder imparts to us in its rind, 

 leaves, buds, blossoms, berries, ears, pith, bark, Qfc. 

 Which hint may also carry our remarks upon all the 

 varieties of shape, leaf, seed, fruit, timber, grain, 

 colour, and all those other forms that philosophers 

 have enumerated ; but which were here too many for 

 us to repeat. In a word, so great and universal is 

 the benefit and use of this poly-crest, that they have 

 prohibited the transporting it out of Norway, where 

 there grows abundance. Let us end with the poet : 



2 When ships for bloody combat we prepare, 

 Oak affords plank, and arms our men of war ; 

 Maintains our fires, makes ploughs to till the ground, 

 For use no timber like the oak is found. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Of the Elm. 



i. Ulmus the elm, there are four or five sorts, and 

 from the difference of the soil and air divers spurious : 

 Two of these kinds are most worthy our culture, 

 the vulgar, viz. the mountain elm, which is taken 

 to be the oriptelea of Theophrastus ; being of a less 

 jagged and smaller leaf ; and the vernacula or French 



1 Of the ilex and cork (reckon'd among the glandiferus) see Book 11. cap. v. 

 and of the sacred and mysterious Missalto, Book in. cap. i. ; see also more of 

 quercus, Mr. Ray's Hist. Plan. torn. HI. cap. De Quercus, torn. 11. p. 1390. 



2 Si quando armandae naves, & bella paranda, 

 Det quercus nautis tabulata, det arma furori 

 Bellantum ; det ligna foco, det aratra colono, 

 Aut aliis alios porro sumatur in usus. 



Rapiims. 



