J 402

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART ill.

of June. They ought to be gathered with the hand before they drop, as fromtheir lightness and winged appendages, they are very apt to be blown away bythe wind. The seeds may either be sown as soon as gathered, in which case,many plants will come up the same season; or they may be thinly spread outto dry in the shade, and afterwards put up into bags or boxes, and kept in adry place till the following March or April. Sang directs the seeds to bechosen from the tallest and most erect and healthy trees; on the soundprinciple, that plants, like animals, convey to their progeny their appearanceand habits, whether good or bad. Trees, therefore, though having abundanceof seeds, if they be either visibly diseased, or ill formed, should be passed overby the collector. Elm seeds should be gathered the moment they are ripe, whichis readily known by their beginning to fall. If the gathering is delayed for asingle day, the seed is liable to be blown off, and scattered by the slightest gale.{Flant. Cal., p. 412.) The seeds, whether sown immediately when gathered,or in the following spring, ought to be deposited in light or friable rich soil, amivery thinly, in order that the plants that rise from them may be strong and vigo-rous. If they rise too thickly the first year, they are for several years after sensi-bly affected, continuing weak, although carefully thinned out. The best form inwhich the seed can be deposited is in beds; and the covering of soil shouldnot be more than \ in. thick. {Id., p.283.) The plants may be transplantedinto nursery lines, either at the age of one or two years; and they may begrafted the following spring. If not intended to be grafted, they may gothrough a regular course of uursery culture, till they have attained the desiredheight; and they will transplant readily at 20 ft. or 25 ft., though not nearlyso well at that size as the U. campestris. Few plants succeed more readilyby grafting than the elm; so much so, that when the graft is made close tothe surface of the soil, and the scion tied on with matting, the mere earthingup of the plants from the soil in the intervals between the rows will serve asa substitute for claying. The graft, in our opinion, should always be made 6 in.or 8 in. above the collar, in order to lessen the risk of the scion, when itbecomes a tree, throwing out roots; which, in the case of all the varieties ofU. campestris, would become troublesome by their suckers.

Statistics. Recorded Trees. Cook ( Forest Trees, pref. p. xiv.) mentions a wych elm, which wasfelled in Sir Walter Bagot’s Park, in Staffordshire, which was 120 ft. high, with a trunk 17 ft. in di-ameter at the surface of the ground. It required two men five days to fell it; after which it lay 40 yardsin length, and was at the stool 17 ft. in diameter. It broke, in thefall, 14 loads of wood ; and had 48 loadsin the head. It yielded 8 pairs of naves ; 8660 ft. of boards

and planks; and the whole w T as esteemed to weigh 97 tons.The Tutbury wych elm is mentioned, in Shaw’s Stafford-

shire , as forming a magnificent feature, both in the nearand distant prospect. Strutt, who has given an engravingof this tree, of which fig. 1243. is a reduced copy, to thescale of 1 in. to 50 ft. describes it as having a trunk 12 ft. .long, and 16ft. 9in. in circumference at the height of 5 ft.from the ground. The trunk divides, at the height of 12 ft.,into 8 noble branches, which are nearly 50 ft. high, andextend between 50 ft. and 60 ft. from the centre of the tree,which contained 689 cubic feet of timber. This tree existsstill, and the dimensions and contents given by Strutthave been confirmed to us by Thomas Turner, Esq., Sud-bury. The wych elm at Bagot’s Mill is also figured byStrutt (p. 68.), who says that it is a tree more remark-able for its beauty than its size. The largest elms which are known certainly to belong to thespecies U. montdna are supposed to be in Scotland. The following dimensions are taken fromSang’s Planter's Calendar ; and the reader may rely on their being of trees of the true V. montana. Onthe estate of Castle Huntly, there are several fine Scotch elms, which girt, at 3 ft. from the ground,about lift. At Lord Morton’s, Aberdour, Fife, there is a Scotch elm, which measured, March 10.1812, 40 ft. length of bole, and in girt)llft. 6in. Two elms, at Yair, in Selkirkshire, girt each, at thesurface of the ground, 13 ft. An elm tree, in the parish of Roxburgh, in Teviotdale, called theTrysting Tree, was measured in 1796 ; and its girt, at 4 ft. from the surface of the ground, was 30 ft.An elm, on the lawn at Taymouth Castle, girted, in September, 1814, 15 ft. 9 in. (Sang’s Nicol’sPlant. Cal., p. 549.) In Ireland, the wych, or native Irish elm, appears to grow with great vigour.Hayes mentions six trees, produced from layers from the stole of a tree felled for that purpose, whichin 26 years girted from 3 ft. 11 in. to 4 ft. 9 in. at 5 ft. from the ground. Three out of these sixtrees would thus, at 26 years’growth, cutinto 12 in. planks. (Pract. Hints on Plant., p. 162.) A Scotchelm, remarkable for its fantastic boughs, is figured in Monteith’s Forester's Guide, pi. 12., and saidto stand on the estate of Touch, Stirlingshire. “ My reason for giving a figure of this tree,” saysMonteith, “ is, that it proves to demonstration the different crooks and shapes that, by a timelyattention to the growth of trees,They could be brought to grow to. The crooked branch of this treehad evidently once been the main stem; but was kept down, I am told, by children swinging uponit when young. Hence it has, as will be seen by looking at the dimensions, been brought to form