CHAP, iv S Y L V A 73 



1 5. Elm is a timber of most singular use ; especially 

 where it may lie continually dry, or wet, in extreams ; 

 therefore proper for water-works, mills, the ladles, 

 and soles of the wheel, pipes, pumps, aquae-ducts, 

 pales, ship-planks beneath the water-line ; and some 

 that has been found buried in bogs has turned like 

 the most polish'd and hardest ebony, only discerned 

 by the grain : Also for wheel-wrights, handles for the 

 single hand-saw, rails and gates made of elm (thin 

 sawed) is not so apt to rive as oak : The knotty for 

 naves, hubs ; the straight and smooth for axle-trees, 

 and the very roots for curiously dappled works, scarce 

 has any superior for kerbs of coppers, featheridge, and 

 weather-boards, (but it does not without difficulty, 

 admit the nail without boreing) chopping-blocks, 

 blocks for the hat-maker, trunks, and boxes to be 

 covered with leather ; coffins, for dressers and shovel- 

 board-tables of great length, and a lustrous colour if 

 rightly seasoned ; also for the carver, by reason of the 

 tenor of the grain, and toughness which fits it for all 

 those curious works of frutages, foliage, shields, 

 statues, and most of the ornaments appertaining to the 

 orders of architecture, and for not being much subject 

 to warping ; I find that of old they used it even for 

 hinges and hooks of doors ; but then, that part of the 

 plank which grew towards the top of the tree, was 

 in work to be always reversed ; and for that it is not 

 so subject to rift ; Vitruvius commends it both for 

 tenons and mortaises: But besides these, and sundry 

 other employments, it makes also the second sort of 

 charcoal ; and finally, (which I must not omit) the 

 use of the very leaves of this tree, especially of the 

 female, is not to be despis'd ; for being suffered to dry 

 in the sun upon the branches, and the spray strip'd 



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