THE ELM. 
ULMUS CAMPESTRIS. 
“ Follow me, as I sing 
And touch the warbled string; 
Under the shady roof 
Of branching elm, star-proof, 
Follow me! ” 
The elm is a very majestic tree; in beauty, dignity, 
and usefulness, yielding only to the oak. Gilpin gives 
preference to the ash in his scale of precedence, because 
it has more of individuality than the elm, which he 
esteems a great source of picturesque beauty; but he 
allows, at the same time, that this want of distinctive 
character is observable chiefly in its skeleton state: 
when in full leaf, the elm shows itself an elm, and is 
marked by its superiority of height to most other of 
our forest trees, and by the great luxuriance of its 
shadowy foliage, which, however, never looks heavy or 
ungraceful, owing to the smallness of the leaves. 
Some naturalists doubt its right to be considered a 
native, and aver that we are indebted to the Romans 
