THE ELMS 213 



The Slippery Elm 

 U. fidva, Michx. 



The slippery elm is also known as the red elm and moose 

 elm, because its wood is red and moose are fond of brows- 

 ing its young shoots. In regions where moose are rarely 

 seen, it is the small boy who browses and often utterly 

 destroys every specimen of this valuable tree. Under the 

 bark of young shoots a sweet substance is found, which 

 gives the tree its common name. What man lives who 

 in the heydey of youth has not had the spring craze for 

 slippery elm bark, as surely as he had the fever for kite- 

 flying and playing marbles .f* The trees in every fence 

 row show the wounds of jack-knives; stripping the bark> 

 the boys scrape from its inner surface the thick, fragrant 

 mucilaginous cambium — a delectable substance that 

 allays both hunger and thirst. Fortunately the bark of 

 the limbs supplies the demand; many a veteran tree still 

 suffers the pollarding process, serving one generation of 

 schoolboys after another. 



The inner bark, dried and ground and mixed with milk, 

 forms a valuable food for invalids. Poultices of slippery 

 elm bark relieve throat and chest ailments. Fevers and 

 acute inflammatory disorders are treated with the same 

 bark, which has passed from the list of mere home remedies 

 to an established place on the apothecary's shelf. • 



How shall we tell a slippery elm tree from the American 

 elm.^ By its leaf in summer. The roughness of the foliage 

 is one of its striking characteristics. Crumple a leaf, and 

 its surfaces grate harslily, for they are covered with stifl^» 

 tubercular hairs. The leaves are larger, often reaching 



