GO SYLVA BR1TANNICA. 



THE CHIPSTEAD ELM 



stands on a rising ground, in a retired part of the 

 pleasure-garden of George Polhill, Esquire, of Chip- 

 stead Place, in Kent. It is sixty feet high ; twenty 

 feet in circumference at the base ; and fifteen feet 

 eight inches, at three feet and a half from the 

 ground. It contains two hundred and sixty-eight 

 feet of timber ; but this bulk is comparatively small 

 to what it would have been, had it not sustained the 

 loss of some large branches towards the centre. Its 

 venerable trunk is richly mantled with ivy, and gives 

 signs of considerable age ; but the luxuriance of its 

 foliage attest its vigour, and it is as fine a specimen 

 of its species in full beauty as can be found. 



It may not be amiss to remark in this place, that 

 the Elm is peculiarly liable to injury from the 

 attacks of insects of the beetle kind ; one of 

 which in particular, the hyksinus destructor, of 

 Fabricius, or scolytus destructor, of Latreille, is pe- 

 culiar to it, and is its most formidable enemy. 

 Much valuable information is given on this subject 

 by Mr. Maclery, in his " Report to the Treasury, 

 on the State of the Elms in St. James's Park, 

 in 1824," which may be found in the Edinburgh 

 Philosophical Journal for July, in that year. After 

 several excellent remarks on the ravages committed 

 by certain insects on forest trees, in which he points 



