CHAPTER XIX. 
THE BOX-ELDER. 
Its Nativity.—Range of Growth and Soil Suited to its Growth.—Gen- 
eral Appearance and Duration of Life.—Description of its Wood, 
Bark, and Leaf.— Large Specimens, Where Found.— Manner of 
Sowing its Seed.—A Suggestion by Michaux.—Date of Introduc- 
tion into Europe.—Attained Height. 
Tuis tree is a native of the United States and Canada, 
where, especially in bottoms which skirt rivers, in soil 
deep, fertile, and moist, it is most common, and found to 
attain its greatest size. West of the Alleghanies it flour- 
ishes in open ground with trees of other varieties, though 
in such situations its growth is somewhat more stunted. 
It seldom, however, exceeds fifty feet in height, with a 
trunk twenty inches in diameter. 
Its range of growth does not extend beyond the fifty- 
fourth degree of north latitude, and south to the South- 
ern States, where, in Georgia and Tennessee, it thrives, 
and, when cultivated in soil and situations favorable to it, 
attains its amplest dimensions. Its trunk, separating into 
branches at no great height from the ground, forms a 
loose and wide-spreading head of dense foliage, giving to 
it an ornamental appearance. In America, where effect 
and shade are the objects of its raising, it merits atten- 
tion owing to its rapid growth and massive, showy foli- 
age. It is not a long-lived tree, arriving at maturity in 
fifteen or twenty years. Its wood is fine-grained and of 
a yellowish color, variegated at its heart with bluish and 
rose-colored veins. In middle life the proportion of sap- 
wood to heart is large. In color, the bark of this tree, 
when grown, is brown; but when young the bark is of 
