60 



SYLVA BRITANNICA. 



THE CHIPSTEAD ELM 



stands on a rising ground, in a retired part of the 

 pleasure-garden of George Polhill, Esquire, of Chip- 

 stead Place, in Kent. It is sixty feet high ; twenty 

 feet in circumference at the base ; and fifteen feet 

 eight inches, at three feet and a half from the 

 ground. It contains two hundred and sixty-eight 

 feet of timber ; but this bulk is comparatively small 

 to what it would have been, had it not sustained the 

 loss of some large branches towards the centre. Its 

 venerable trunk is richly mantled with ivy, and gives 

 signs of considerable age ; but the luxuriance of its 

 foliage attest its vigour, and it is as fine a specimen 

 of its species in full beauty as can be found. 



It may not be amiss to remark in this place, that 

 the Elm is peculiarly liable to injury from the 

 attacks of insects of the beetle kind ; one of which 

 in particular, the hylesinus destructor, of Fabricius, or 

 scolytus destructor, of Latreille, is peculiar to it, and 

 is its most formidable enemy. Much valuable in- 

 formation is given on this subject by Mr. Maclery, 

 in his " Report to the Treasury, on the State of the 

 Elms in St. James's Park, in 1824," which may be 

 found in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for 

 July, in that year. After several excellent remarks 

 on the ravages committed by certain insects on forest 

 trees, in which he points out with great sagacity 



