LETTER II 



TO THE SAME 



IN the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to the 

 north-west of the village, on the white malm, stood within 

 these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych haze/, 1 ulmus 

 folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it had lost a 

 considerable leading bough in the great storm in the year 

 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained 

 eight loads of timber ; and, being too bulky for a carriage, 

 was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it measured 

 near eight feet in the diameter. This elm I mention to 

 show to what a bulk planted elms may attain ; as this tree 

 must certainly have been such from its situation. 2 



1 "An elm so named from its wood having been used to make the chests 

 called by old writers ivyches, hucckes, or ivhycches" Prior, " Popular Names of 

 British Plants," 3rd ed., p. 259. [R. B. S.] 



2 The following note on this passage is given by Sir William Jardine in his 

 edition of the present work (p. 6) : 



"The wych elm, the first tree alluded to, has been a subject always annotated 

 upon, this species being far less commonly grown in England than in Scotland. 

 In the former country it is supplanted almost entirely by the small-leaved or 

 English elm, as it is commonly named, a tree which reaches a large size, and ol 



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