44 FAMILIAR TREES 



neighbours bare to the blast, does it commence that 

 after-glow of colour that marks a fine October, one 

 bough becoming a bright golden yellow, and then, 

 while the others follow its example, dying to a pure 

 brown. 



The Common Elm is most abundant to the south 

 of the Trent, and in this district almost every neigh- 

 bourhood has its famous old Elm, celebrated for age 

 and size, beside a roadside inn, or associated with the 

 good Queen Bess or some other historic character. In 

 the home-meadow of an old English grange the row 

 of Elms will generally be clamorous with the hoarse 

 voices of rooks, who are seen in spring deftly arrang- 

 ing dead twigs to form those homes which, when 

 deserted, wave among the bare branches like blots 

 upon the sky. The Elm is not particular as to soil, 

 but flourishes best in a deep clayey loam in sheltered 

 valleys. In sand or gravel its roots spread horizon- 

 tally near the surface of the ground, their ends 

 watered by the drippings from its long limbs, and 

 they are thus liable to be laid bare by the removal 

 of the surface soil through the action of the rain, and 

 to cause, through their loose hold in the earth, the 

 overthrow of the whole tree. Another misfortune to 

 which the Elm is peculiarly liable is the loss of its 

 large horizontal limbs, a loss which, though sometimes 

 attributabk to the action of frost, seems often only 

 to be accounted for by supposing that they have 

 elongated themselves, regardless of gravitation, beyond 

 the cohesive power of their woody tissue ; unless, 

 indeed, we adopt the squirrel's explanation in Richard 

 Jefiferies' charming fable, " Wood Magic " : 



