The Elivi. 



241. AMERICAN ELMS.— There are, according to 

 Michaux, the White Elm and the Red Elm, the former 

 heing the largest and finest tree, and also producing the 

 best timber. These Elms are greatly superior to ours: 

 the tree is much loftier; the foliage, beyond all comparison 

 more beautiful, and the wood finer grained ; and, in every 

 respect, far preferable to ours. The seed sent to me the 

 year before last, which came from the borders of Lake 

 Ontario, were gathered from a tree which had a clear 

 straight stem seventy feet high before it began to ramify. 

 The leaves of these Elms are between three and four mches 

 long, rather narrow in proportion to their length, very 

 pointed, very much sawed, and of a lively beautiful green, 

 which they retain throughout the whole of the hottest 

 summer. 



242. Now if it were to be believed that the seeds of the 

 English Elm cannot be made to grow ; if it were possible 

 to make any rational being believe this, why not import the 

 seeds from America? Nothing can be easier; and I do 

 not say this without having given proof of the fact. I have 

 done the thing myself ; and therefore I have a right to say, 

 that any planter may do it if he will. But, and with this 

 remark I shall close what 1 have to say upon the subject of 

 the Elm, great care must be taken that the seeds be not 

 put together in such a state as to expose them to fermenta- 

 tion. All vegetables are prone to ferment, if put together in 

 considerable quantities. Not one thousandth part, perhaps, 

 of the grass-seeds grow, that have once been in a hay-rick. 

 The sweepings of a hay-loft will produce a prodigious 

 number of plants; but I am convinced, that, if the rick have 

 heated, no growing seeds will come out of any part of the 

 hay, except that part that has lain near the outside of the 

 rick. In the case of seeds like those of the Elm, you do not 



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