74 S Y L V A BOOK i 



off about the decrease in August (as also where the 

 suckers and stolones are super-numerary, and hinder 

 the thriving of their nurses) they will prove a great 

 relief to cattel in winter, and scorching summers, 

 when hay and fodder is dear they will eat them before 

 oats, and thrive exceedingly well with them ; remem- 

 ber only to lay your boughs up in some dry and 

 sweet corner of your barn : It was for this the poet 

 prais'd them, and the epithet was advis'd, 



1 fruitful in leaves the elm. 



In some parts of Herefordshire they gather them in 

 sacks for their swine, and other cattel, according to 

 this husbandry. But I hear an ill report of them 

 for bees, that surfeiting of the blooming seeds, they 

 are obnoxious to the lask, at their first going abroad 

 in spring, which endangers whole stocks, if remedies 

 be not timely adhibited ; therefore 'tis said in great 

 elm countries they do not thrive ; but the truth of 

 which I am yet to learn. The green leaf of the elms 

 contused, heals a green wound or cut, and boiled 

 with the bark, consolidates fractur'd bones. All the 

 parts of this tree are abstersive, and therefore sover- 

 eign for the consolidating wounds ; and asswage the 

 pains of the gout : But the bark decocted in common 

 water, to almost the consistence of a syrup, adding a 

 third part of aqua ^itce^ is a most admirable remedy 

 for the ischiadica or hip-pain, the place being well 

 rubb'd and chaf'd by the fire. Other wonderful 

 cures perform'd by the liquor, &c. of this tree, see 

 Mr. Ray's History of Plants^ lib. xxv. cap. i. sect. 5. 

 and for other species of the elm, his Supplement, 

 torn. in. ad cap. De Ulmo. torn. n. p. 1428. 



1 fcecundae frondibus ulmi. 



Georg. 2. 



