50 



BRITISH FOREST TREES. 



from its proneness when so situated to ramify and 

 grow crooked. It is, however, quite possible, with a 

 little early attention, to rear beech as straight and 

 clean as to be valuable, on the outskirts, where it forms 

 a beautiful fringe to the plantation, and aifords ex- 

 cellent shelter. 



Elm — Ulmus. — Broad-leaved, or Scotch, or Wych 

 Elm — Ulmus montana. 



This beautiful and most graceful tree, whose 

 favourite locality is the damp, deep, accumulated 

 soil, free of stagnant water, at the bottom of decli- 

 vities, is, together with its sister, the small- leaved 

 kind, the English elm, ^^^hen so situated, the 

 fastest growing of om* hard-wood trees. Both de- 

 light in easy or gravelly soils, though the small-leaved 

 vdll also prosper in the more adhesive, the allmdal 

 and diluvial clays. 



There are a number of kinds of elm grooving in 

 this country, differing rather more from the common 

 run of U. montana and U. campestris^ than what oc- 

 curs among seedling varieties of untamed plants ; but 

 as these have very probably a power of mingling by 

 the pollen, thence not specifically different, we leave to 



