PLATE V.—THE CHIPSTEAD ELM. 
In the scale of precedence among Forest trees, the Elm, which is indigenous to England, has a right, both 
with respect to beauty and utility, to claim a place next to the Oak in dignity and rank. One very important 
.property, as regards the usefulness of its timber, is that of being able to bear the alternations of dryness and 
moisture, without rotting ; which renders it more especially fit for all purposes connected with water, or exposure 
to the atmosphere. The hardness of its grain is another quality that adds to its value; nor ought its foliage to 
be forgotten ; forming, as it may do, a substitute for hay and fodder, in times of scarcity: the Roman husband- 
man, indeed, frequently fed his cattle on the leaves of the Elm; hence Virgil reckons the redundancy of them 
among its excellencies : : 
“ Foecunde frondibus Ulmi.” 
No tree bears transplanting better than the Elm. It will suffer removal even at twenty years of age; which 
renders it very desirable for those who may wish to impart to new-built mansions the respectability which leafy 
shades, of apparently long standing, always confer on a habitation. The Elm, is indeed, peculiarly fitted for 
“the length of colonnade,” with which our forefathers loved to make graceful and gradual entry to their 
hospitable halls. Loving society, yet averse from a crowd, delighting in fresh air, and in room to expand its 
roots, and affording its aid to all the weaker plants in its vicinity that may seek its support, it presents a pleasing 
emblem of the class of country gentlemen, whose abodes it is oftenest found to adorn and protect. 
The Chipstead Elm stands on a rising ground, in a retired part of the pleasure-garden of George Polhill, 
Esq., of Chipstead Place, in Kent. It is sixty feet high; twenty feet in circumference at the base; and 
fifteen feet eight inches, at three feet and a half from the ground. It contains two hundred and sixty-eight feet 
of timber ; but this bulk is comparatively small to what it would have been had it not sustained the loss of some 
large branches towards the centre. Its venerable trunk is richly mantled with ivy, and its appearance altogether 
savours enough of antiquity to bear out the tradition annexed to it, that in the time of Henry the Fifth a fair was 
held annually under its branches; the high road from Rye, in Sussex, to London, then passing close by it. Nor 
will that interest, which must be felt for an object by associating it even in the most distant manner with a name 
so renowned in history as that of our fifth Henry, be lessened by the reflection, that this fine tree has for its 
present owner a descendant of John Hampden, and one in whom both the patriotic feeling and the private virtues 
of that illustrious individual find no unworthy representative. 
PLATE VI.—THE TUTBURY WYCH-ELM. 
Tu Wyrcu-Eum, or Wych Hazel, as it is sometimes called, from the resemblance that its leaves and young 
shoots bear to those of the Hazel, is a species of the Elm, which is valuable rather for the quantity of its timber 
than the quality of it. Since the long bow, for the making of which it was much esteemed in former times, has 
fallen entirely into disuse, its worth is proportionally lessened. It is, however, a fine spreading tree, and grows 
occasionally to a prodigious size. The Tutbury Wych-Elm is one of the most remarkable specimens of the sort 
in the kingdom, and is thus mentioned by Shaw, in his History of Staffordshire :—“ In the road leading from 
Tutbury to Rolleston is a very large and beautiful Wych-Elm, the bole of which is remarkably straight, thick 
and lofty; having eight: noble branches, the size of common trees, which spread their umbrageous foliage 
luxuriantly around, forming a magnificent and graceful feature, both in the near and distant prospect. This, if 
not at present, will, in a few years, be as great a curiosity in the vegetable world, as the famous Wych-Elm at 
Field, described by Doctor Plot.” 
The trunk of this tree is twelve feet long, and sixteen fect nine inches in circumference, at the height of five 
feet from the ground; seven feet higher, it divides into the “eight noble branches,” which are nearly fifty feet 
high and extend between forty and fifty feet from the centre of the tree, which contains six hundred and eighty- 
nine cubic feet of timber. The interest that so beautiful an object is likely to impart to the spot on which 
it stands is, in the present instance, increased by the pleasing prospect that it commands of Tutbury Castle ; 
which lifts its venerable remains in the distance, and awakens a train of interesting reflections, connected with a 
remembrance of the virtues of one of its earliest owners, “'Time-honored Lancaster,” and of the vicissitudes to 
which it has been exposed, during the ages that have now left it only the vestige of what it was in the days of 
feudal greatness. ; 
eee PRC den tetre 
