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ULMUS. 



rich, without being heavy or clumpy as a whole, and 

 the head is generally so finely massed, and yet so well 

 broken, as to render it one of the noblest of park trees, 

 and, when it grows wildly amid the rocky scenery of 

 its native Scotland, there is no tree which assumes so 

 great or so pleasing a variety of character ; our asso- 

 ciations with it in such scenes lead us to prize it highly." 

 To attain its full dimensions and characteristic form, the 

 Wych Elm requires a deep rich soil, sufficiently damp, 

 but not near to stagnant moisture ; thus, it luxuriates in 

 those deep alluvial soils, deposited in the valleys watered 

 by our rivers, such as the various river dales of Yorkshire, 

 where it may be seen in its finest forms among the rich 

 inclosures skirting the river Tees, at Easby Abbey near 

 Richmond in Yorkshire, and again in the haughs of the 

 Teviot and Tweed, near Kelso, where noble and thriving 

 examples are now rearing aloft their umbrageous heads, 

 at the same time that the remains of the famed trysting 

 tree, one of the largest Wych Elms on record, is still in 

 existence. It is also from the loose texture and general 

 good quality of the soil, through which moisture percolates 

 with facility, that the deep dells and denes of Scotland 

 and the north of England, become the appropriate habitat 

 of this Elm, and in which it frequently exhibits itself in 

 forms the most picturesque and beautiful, particularly 

 in such as are of a rocky and precipitous character. On 

 dry gravels and clays of almost every description it never 

 thrives well or attains any considerable size, for, though 

 it may grow for a few years after being planted with 

 apparent luxuriance, it only does so as long as the surface 

 soil remains unexhausted by its spongy wide-spreading 

 roots, for it never fails to sicken and show unhealthy 

 symptoms as soon as it touches the clayey substratum 



