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The most revered of all American Elms and of all American trees is the 

 Washington Elm on the south side of the Common in Old Cambridge, beneath 

 which George Washington first took command of the American army on the 

 3rd of July, 1775. This tree, undoubtedly over 300 years old, is now, alas, in its 

 sere and yellow leaf, and within a few years at most it must meet the fate of 

 the famous Penn's Treaty Elm, the celebrated Charter Oak, and other sylvan 

 worthies of a venerable past. Among very many other celebrated Elms are the 

 Pratt Elm at Concord, height 85 feet, girth (1 foot from the ground) 22 feet, 

 age 202 years; the great Elm at Westford, Mass., height in 1890, 90 feet, 

 girth at 2 feet, 25 feet 8 inches, age about 200 years; and the wonderful vase- 

 shaped Elm at Lancaster, Mass., height 95 feet, girth at 5 feet, 24 feet 14 inches. 



In longevity the American Elm may not compare with the Oak. It is a 

 strong, rapid grower, and rarely survives two and a half centuries, the most vigo- 

 rous usually showing the first signs of decay ere they have attained their one- 

 and-a-half century mark. Impatient of drought, it usually attains its greatest 

 beauty on fertile intervales or river lands, or where its roots may find abundant 

 and constant moisture. That it often flourishes so well in old homesteads is 

 said to be owing to the nourishment it derives from the garden, or the moisture 

 drawn from the well which its branches have shaded. 



No tree presents such varied forms as the White Elm, this being even observ- 

 able in seedlings where the trees have not been crowded, some growing closely 

 together, some with a bare trunk and main branches, and others thickly plumed 

 from the ground to the topmost boughs with short lateral branchlets. 



These types are variously known as the dome which has a broad, hemispheri- 

 cal head formed by branches of nearly equal size, issuing chiefly from a common 

 centre, and gradually spreading outward with a curve that maybe traced through- 

 out their length, a form naturally occurring in open spaces where the tree has 

 not been interfered with by other arboreal growths ; the vase, bouquet, ewer, or 

 wine-glass, which very closely resembles a graceful vase, ewer or flute, and the 

 trunk of which is sometimes feathered ; the umbrella, parasol, or columnar, that 

 throws out its branches almost perpendicularly at a considerable height in the 

 shape of a huge umbrella ; the W 'Mow, drooping or weeping, which has a strong 

 pendulous character recalling the habit of the Willow tribe, and is generally a 

 very large-growing tree ; the two-storied, where the shaft is more or less divided 

 by foliage ; and, finally, the plume or feather, the most singular of all forms 

 assumed by the White Elm. In this form the trunk, which is sometimes double, 

 is feathered from base to summit with small branchlets, frequently inverted, as 

 if it were clasped by a rampant vine. Some individuals assume most fantastic 

 forms, and, viewed against the sky at dusk, look like some strange animal of my- 

 thologic times, or a gigantic bird with outspread wings pluming itself for flight. 



Mount Hope Nurseries, George H. Ellwanger. 



Rochester, N.Y. 



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