114 



THE ELM. 



Elms which have been lopped live for a shorter 

 period than others, and should therefore be cut 

 down when no more than seventy or eighty years 

 old. 



A small-leaved species of Elm is selected by the 

 Chinese to be treated in the way described in 

 Vol. i. page 306, as being adopted with regard to 

 the apple. A young tree is planted in a pot, and 

 surrounded with pieces of rough stone to repre- 

 sent rocks, among which mosses and lichens are 

 introduced. It is not suffered to rise higher than 

 about a foot or fifteen inches. No greater supply 

 of water is given than just enough to keep it alive, 

 and every means is used to give it a stunted ap- 

 pearance. The points of the shoots, and the half 

 of every new leaf, are constantly and carefully cut 

 ofi"; the stem and branches are distorted by means 

 of wires, and the bark is lacerated to produce a 

 rugged character. One branch is partly broken 

 through, and allowed to hang down as if by acci- 

 dent ; another is mutilated to represent a dead 

 stump. This treatment produces, in course of 

 time, the appearance of an old weather-beaten 

 forest-tree, and it is then, if unworthy of all the 

 pains that have been bestowed upon it, certainly a 

 curious object. 



Several insects prey on the Elm, among which 

 by far the most mischievous is the Elm-destroying 

 Beetle {Scolytus destructor). The ravages com- 

 mitted by this minute insect, would scarcely be 

 credible, were we not informed that as many as 

 80,000 have been found in a single tree. Two 

 eminent entomologists, Mr. Spence in England 

 and M. Audouin in France, have turned their 

 attention to this subject, and have satisfactorily 



