THE ELDER. 
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The Elder {Sambucus nigra). 
The Elder is more a tree of the wayside than of the woodland, 
often of low bushy growth ; but where it finds good loamy soil 
with abundant moisture it attains a height of twenty feet. None 
A, berries ; B, portion of flower-cluster. 
of our trees grows more rapidly in its earliest years, and any bit 
of its living wood will readily take root, so that its presence in 
the hedge is often due to planting for the purpose of rapidly 
erecting a live screen. Its quickly grown juicy shoots soon 
harden into a tube of tough wood with a core of pith which is 
