150 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
the case. Holinshed’s remarks, made more 
than three hundted years ago, are thus still 
applicable to-day: ‘Of elme we have great store 
in everie high waie and elsewhere, yet have I 
not seene thereof anie togither in woods or 
forests, but where they have beene first planted 
and then suffered to spread at their owne 
willes.’ 
When oak was reserved mainly for the needs 
of shipbuilding, the uses to which elm was put 
were many. ‘Elm is a Timber, Evelyn says, 
‘of most singular Use; especially where it may 
lie continually dry, or wet inextreames; therefore 
proper for Water- works, Mills, Pipes, Pumps, 
Ship-planks beneath the Water-line; and some 
that has be found burried in Boggs, has turn’d 
like the most polish’d, and hardest Ebony, only 
discern’d by the grain: Also for Wheel-wrighis, 
Kerbs of Coppers, Featheridg,’and Weather-boards, 
Dressers, and sundry other imployments.’ 
During the last century hollowed elm stems 
were used in London and other great cities for 
water-conduit before the introduction of leaden 
and cast-iron pipes, while it also commanded a 
high price for making the keels of large ships. 
