HACKBERRY 
The elm was in Roman days and is still used in Italy as a 
support to the vine. It is interesting, to a stranger, to see a 
vineyard planted full of small elm trees and the grape vines 
hanging from their branches or trained from one to another. 
The manner of cultivation seems not to have changed from 
ancient times. 
“Tf that fair elm,” he cried, ‘‘alone should stand, 
No grapes would glow with gold and tempt the hand; 
Or if that vine without her elm should grow, 
’Twould creep, a poor neglected shrub, below.” 
—OVID. 
HACKBERRY. SUGARBERRY. NETTLE TREE 
Céltis occidéntalis. 
The name Ce//7s is said to refer to the tree having been known to 
the ancient Celts; another explanation is that it was the ancient 
name of a species of lotus. 
A large tree with a slender trunk, rising to the height of one hun- 
dred and thirty feet, is the Hackberry in the southwest, but in the 
middle states it attains the height of sixty feet with a handsome 
round-topped head and pendulous branches. It prefers rich moist 
soil, but will grow on gravelly or rocky hillsides. The roots are 
fibrous and it grows rapidly. Native throughout the United States 
east of the Rocky Mountains. 
Bark.—Light brown or silvery gray, broken on the surface into 
thick appressed scales and sometimes roughened with excrescences. 
Branchlets slender, light green at first, finally red brown, at length 
become dark brown tinged with red. 
Wood.—Light yellow; heavy, soft, coarse-grained, not strong. 
Used for fencing and cheap furniture. Sp. gr., 0.7287; weight of 
cu. ft., 45.41 lbs. 
Winter Buds.—Axillary, ovate, acute, somewhat flattened, one- 
fourth of an inch long, light brown. Scales enlarge with the grow- 
ing shoot, the innermost becoming stipules. No terminal bud is 
formed. 
Leaves.—Alternate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, more or less falcate, 
two and a half to four inches long, one to two inches wide, very 
oblique at the base, serrate, except at the base which is mostly entire, 
acute. Three-nerved, midrib and primary veins prominent. They 
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