304 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
the same practice is still the most general in France.” —Low- 
don’s Arboretum, Vol. III, p. 1383. 
In England, trees are planted without beg headed down, 
but on the Continent, from the greater warmth of the summers, 
they are apt to be killed, when transplanted with their branches, 
in consequence of the great evaporation from their leaves. Our 
summers are even hotter than those of the Continent of Eu- 
rope, and the practice which has been so long found periectly 
successful there, will be likely to be better suited to our climate 
than the English mode. 
A practice recommended by Evelyn, (Discourse, p. 127,) is 
still in use abroad, and may, in some cases, be very convenient. 
When, as 1s often the case in this country, no suckers spring up 
round the tree, ‘‘bare some of the master-roots of a vigorous 
tree within a foot of the trunk, or thereabouts, and with your 
axe make several chops, putting a small stone into every cleit, 
to Linder the closure, and give access to the wet; then cover 
them with three or four inches of earth, and thus they will send 
forth suckers in abundance; I assure you, one single elm, thus 
well ordered, is a fair nursery, which, after two or three years, 
you may separate and plant in the ulmariwm, or place designed 
for them; and which, if it be in plumps, as they call them, 
within ten or twelve feet of each other, or in hedge-rows, it will 
be better ; for the elm is a tree of consort, sociable, and so af- 
fecting to grow in company, that the very best which I have 
ever seen, do almost touch one another: this also protccts them 
from the winds, and causes them to shoot of an extraordinary 
height, so as, in little more than forty years, they arrive toa 
load of timber, provided they be sedulously and carefully culti- 
vated, and the soil propitious; for an elm does not thrive so 
well in the forest, as where it may enjoy scope for the roots to 
dilate and spread at the sides, as in hedge-rows and avenues, 
where they have the air hkewise free.” 
F have been thus particular in regard to the English Elm, 
because of its great beauty and rapid growth, and the valuc of 
its timber, in which last particulars it is doubtless superior to 
the American Elm, as, in the others, it is little if at all inferior. 
