14-02 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



of June. They ought to be gathered with the hand before they drop, as from 

 their lightness and winged appendages, they are very apt to be blown away by 

 the wind. The seeds may either be sown as soon as gathered, in which case, 

 many plants will come up the same season ; or they may be thinly spread out 

 to dry in the shade, and afterwards put up into bags or boxes, and kept in a 

 dry place till the following March or April. Sang directs the seeds to be 

 chosen from the tallest and most erect and healthy trees ; on the sound 

 principle, that plants, like animals, convey to their progeny their appearance 

 and habits, whether good or bad. Trees, therefore, though having abundance 

 of seeds, if they be either visibly diseased, or ill formed, should be passed over 

 by the collector. Elm seeds should be gathered the moment they are ripe, which 

 is readily known by their beginning to fall. If the gathering is delayed for a 

 single day, the seed is liable to be blown off, and scattered by the slightest gale. 

 (Plant. Cal. y p. 412.) The seeds, whether sown immediately when gathered, 

 or in the following spring, ought to be deposited in light or friable rich soil, and 

 very thinly, in order that the plants that rise from them may be strong and vigo- 

 rous. If they rise too thickly the first year, they are for several years after sensi- 

 bly affected, continuing weak, although carefully thinned out. The best form in 

 which the seed can be deposited is in beds ; and the covering of soil should 

 not be more than \ in. thick. (/rf.,p. 283.) The plants may be transplanted 

 into nursery lines, either at the age of one or two years ; and they may be 

 grafted the following spring. If not intended to be grafted, they may go 

 through a regular course of nursery culture, till they have attained the desired 

 height ; and they will transplant readily at 20 ft. or 25 ft., though not nearly 

 so well at that size as the U. campestris. Few plants succeed more readily 

 by grafting than the elm ; so much so, that when the graft is made close to 

 the surface of the soil, and the scion tied on with matting, the mere earthing 

 up of the plants from the soil in the intervals between the rows will serve as 

 a substitute for claying. The graft, in our opinion, should always be made 6 in. 

 or Sin. above the collar, in order to lessen the risk of the scion, when it 

 becomes a tree, throwing out roots ; which, in the case of all the varieties of 

 U. campestris, would become troublesome by their suckers. 



Statistics. Recorded Trees. Cook (Forest Trees, prof. p. xiv.) mentions a wych elm, which was 

 felled in Sir Walter Bagel's Park, in Staffordshire, which was 120ft. high, with a trunk 17ft. in di- 

 ameter at the surface of the ground. It required two men five days to fell it; after which it lay 40 yards 

 in length, and was at the stool 17ft. in diameter. It broke, in thefall,14 loads of wood ; and had 48 loads 

 in the head. It yielded 8 pairs of naves ; 8660 ft. of boards _**. <s^ 



and planks; and the whole was esteemed to weigh 97 ions. 

 The Tutbury wych elm is mentioned, in Shaw's Stafford- 

 shire, as forming a magnificent feature, both in the near 

 and distant prospect. Strutt, who has given an engraving 

 of this tree, of which fig. 1243. is a reduced copy, to the ^S 

 scale of 1 in. to 50ft. describes it as having a trunk 12ft. r~^ 

 long, and 16ft. 9in. in circumference at the height of /- 

 from the ground. The trunk divides, at the height of 12 ft, ** 

 into 8 noble branches, which are nearly 50 ft. high, and 

 extend between 50 ft. and 60 ft. from the centre of the tree, ^ 

 which contained 689 cubic feet of timber. This tree exists 

 still, and the dimensions and contents given by Strutt 

 have been confirmed to us by Thomas Turner, Esq., Sud- 

 bury. The wych elm at Bagot's Mill is also figured by 

 Strutt (p. 68.), who says that it is a tree more remark- 

 able for its beauty than its size. The largest elms which are known certainly to belong to the 

 species U. montana are supposed to be in Scotland. The following dimensions are taken from 

 Sang's Planter's Calendar ; and the reader may rely on their being of trees of the true U. montana. On 

 the estate of Castle Huntly, there are several fine Scotch elms, which girt, at 3 ft. from the ground, 

 about lift. At Lord Morton's, Aberdour, Fife, there is a Scotch elm, which measured, March 10. 

 1812, 40ft. length of bole, and in girt;il ft. 6 in. Two elms, at Yair, in Selkirkshire, girt each, at the 

 surface of the ground, 13ft. An elm tree, in the parish of Roxburgh, in Teviotdale, called the 

 Trysting Tree, was measured in 1796 ; and its girt, at 4 ft. from the surface of the ground, was .>() ft. 

 An elm, on the lawn at Taymouth Castle, girted, in September, 1814, 15 ft. 9 in. (Sang's Nicol's 

 I'lnnt. Cal., p. 549.) In Ireland, the wych, or native Irish elm, appears to grow with great vigour. 

 Hayes mentions six trees, produced from layers from the stole of a tree felled for that purpose, which 

 in 26 years girted from 3ft. 11 in. to 4ft. 9 in. at 5ft. from the ground. Three out of these six 

 trees would thus, at 26 years' growth, cut into 12 in. planks. (Pntcl. Hints on, Plant., p. 162.) A Scotch 

 elm, remarkable for its fantastic boughs, is figured in Montcith's Forester's Guide, pi. 12., and said 

 to stand on the estate of Touch, Stirlingshire. " My reason for giving a figure of this tree," says 

 Monteith, " is, that it proves to demonstration the different crooks and shapes that, by a timely 

 attention to the growth of trees/they could be brought to grow to. The crooked branch of this tree 

 had evidently once been the main stem ; but was kept down, I am told, by children swinging upon 

 it when young. Hence it has, as will be seen by looking at the dimensions, been brought to form 



