THE YOUNG 



NATURALIST. 



7:> 



into each other, but no one who has 

 ever seen the two types of U. Montana 

 and U. campestris growing, will ever 

 mistake or confound the two, their 

 mode of growth is so different. U. 

 campestris has a remarkably erect habit, 

 often rising twenty, thirty, or even 

 forty feet without a branch, or at most 

 two or three huge arms, the branches 

 always form a less or more acute angle 

 with the main stem, the whole forming 

 a compact dense head. Often the 

 trunk is clothed with a multiplicity of 

 small twigs, forming in summer a de- 

 lightful drapery of foliage. The bark, 

 even in the young twigs of two or 

 three years growth, is corky and 

 cracked, and in the main stem becomes 

 rugged and furrowed in an extraordi- 

 nary degree, unequalled by any other 

 British tree ; although it is rivalled by 

 old trunks of the Spanish chesnut, 

 which exhibits the same enormous 

 cracks and fissures in its bark. Young 

 shoots of elm are often made into walk- 

 ing sticks because of this curiously 

 corrugated corky bark. In II. Mon- 

 tana the young twigs are downy, but 

 the bark is entire and smooth till the 

 tree has attained considerable size, 

 when on the trunk it becomes slightly 

 furrowed by age. When growing free, 

 the stem soon splits up into different 

 branches, which diverge at a much 

 more obtuse angle, often spreading 

 nearly horizontally and drooping grace- 

 fully at the extremities-an exaggeration 



of this habit forms the elegant and 

 ornamental weeping elm. The elm is 

 unique amongst British trees by hav- 

 ing the leaves oblique at the base, that 

 is the sides are unequal, the one half 

 being further prolonged down the 

 stalk than the other. All the varieties 

 have a strong family likeness in this 

 respect, as also in the arrangement of 

 the veins, which branch off alternately 

 from each side of the midrib, and run- 

 ning to the margin terminate in a deep 

 tooth, which is again notched, forming 

 a bi-serrate edge ; the surface is rough 

 and wrinkled and less or more hairy. 



In U. campestris the leaves vary 

 from two to three inches in length, 

 whilst in U. Montana they are often 

 six inches long and three in breadth. 

 The leaves are arranged in a distichous 

 manner, that is arranged in a regular 

 row on alternate sides of the twig, thus 

 forming a flat surface with two ranks 

 or leaves. Before the printing press 

 had disseminated such a profusion of 

 calendars of garden operations, the 

 gardener was fain to guide his sowings 

 and plantings by noting the advance 

 of nature's life-current in permanent 

 plants, and his wisdom was concreted 

 in doggrel rhymes thus : — 

 " When the elm leaf is as big as a farding, 

 Tis time to sow kidney beans in the 

 garding. 



When the elm leaf is a big as a penny, 

 You must sow kidney beans if you aim to 



have any." 



It was also useful for the farmer 



