_Of the Elm._
1. _Ulmus_ the elm, there are four or five sorts, and from the
difference of the soil and air divers spurious: Two of these kinds are
most worthy our culture, the vulgar, viz. the mountain elm, which is
taken to be the _oriptelea_ of Theophrastus; being of a less jagged and
smaller leaf; and the _vernacula_ or French elm, whose leaves are
thicker, and more florid, glabrous and smooth, delighting in the lower
and moister grounds, where they will sometimes rise to above an hundred
foot in height, and a prodigious growth, in less than an age; my self
having seen one planted by the hand of a Countess living not long since,
which was near 12 foot in compass, and of an height proportionable;
notwithstanding the numerous progeny which grew under the shade of it,
some whereof were at least a foot in diameter, that for want of being
seasonably transplanted, must needs have hindered the procerity of their
ample and indulgent mother: I am persuaded some of these were
_viviradices_, & _traduces_, produc’d of the falling seeds.
2. For though both these sorts are rais’d of _appendices_, or suckers
(as anon we shall describe) yet this latter comes well from the _samera_
or seeds, and therefore I suppose it to be the ancient _atinia_, for
such an elm they acknowledge to be rais’d of seeds, which being ripe
about the beginning of March (though frequently not till the following
month) will produce them; as we might have seen abundantly in the
gardens of the Thuilleries, and that of Luxembourgh at Paris, where they
usually sow themselves, and come up very thick; and so do they in many
places of our country, tho’ so seldom taken notice of, as that it is
esteemed a fable, by the less observant and ignorant vulgar; let it
therefore be tried in season, by turning and raking some fine earth,
often refreshed, under some amply spreading tree, or to raise them of
their seeds (being well dried a day or two before) sprinkled on beds
prepar’d of good loamy fresh earth, and sifting some of the finest
mould thinly over them, and watering them when need requires. Being
risen (which may be within 4 or 5 months) an inch above ground
(refreshed, and preserved from the scraping of birds and poultry)
comfort the tender seedlings by a second sifting of more fine earth, to
establish them; thus keep them clean weeded for the first two years, and
cleansing the side-boughs; or till being of fitting stature to remove
into a nursery at wider intervals, and even rows, you may thin and
transplant them in the same manner as you were directed for young oaks;
only they shall not need above one cutting, where they grow less regular
and hopeful. But because this is an experiment of some curiosity,
obnoxious to many casualties, and that the producing them from the
mother-roots of greater trees is very facile and expeditious (besides
the numbers which are to be found in the hedge-rows and woods, of all
plantable sizes) I rather advise our forester to furnish himself from
those places.
3. The suckers which I speak of, are produced in abundance from the
roots, whence, being dextrously separated, after the earth has been well
loosened, and planted about the end of October, they will grow very
well: Nay, the stubs only, which are left in the ground after a felling
(being fenced in as far as the roots extend) will furnish you with
plenty, which may be transplanted from the first year or two,
successively, by slipping them from the roots, which will continually
supply you for many years, after that the body of the mother-tree has
been cut down: And from hence probably is sprung that (I fear) mistake
of Salmasius and others, where they write of the growing of their chips
(I suppose having some of the bark on) scattered in hewing of their
timber; the error proceeding from this, that after an elm-tree has been
fell’d, the numerous suckers which shoot from the remainders of the
latent roots, seem to be produced from this dispersion of the chips: Let
this yet be more accurately examined; for I pronounce nothing
magisterially, since it is so confidently reported.
4. I have known stakes sharpned at the ends for other purposes, take
root familiarly in moist grounds, and become trees; and divers have
essay’d with extraordinary success the trunchions of the boughs and arms
of elms cut to the scantling of a man’s arm, about an ell in length.
These must be chopp’d on each side opposite, and laid into trenches
about half a foot deep, covered about two or three fingers deep with
good mould. The season for this work is towards the exit of January, or
early in February, if the frosts impede not; and after the first year,
you may cut, or saw the trunchions off in as many places as you find
cause, and as the shoots and rooted sprouts will direct you for
transplantation. Another expedient for the propagation of elms is this:
Let trenches be sunk at a good distance (viz. twenty or thirty yards)
from such trees as stand in hedge-rows, and in such order as you desire
your elms should grow; where these gutters are, many young elms will
spring from the small roots of the adjoining trees. Divide (after one
year) the shoots from their mother-roots (which you may dextrously do
with a sharp spade) and these transplanted, will prove good trees
without any damage to their progenitors. Or do thus, lop a young elm,
the lop being about three years growth, do it in the latter end of
March, when the sap begins to creep up into the boughs, and the buds
ready to break out; cut the boughs into lengths of four foot slanting,
leaving the knot where the bud seems to put forth in the middle: Inter
these short pieces in trenches of three or four inches deep, and in good
mould well trodden, and they will infallibly produce you a crop; for
even the smallest suckers of elms will grow, being set when the sap is
newly stirring in them. There is yet a fourth way no less expeditious,
and frequently confirmed with excellent success: Bare some of the
master-roots of a vigorous tree within a foot of the trunk, or there
abouts, and with your axe make several chops, putting a small stone into
every cleft, to hinder their closure, and give access to the wet; then
cover them with three or four inch-thick of earth; and thus they will
send forth suckers in abundance, (I assure you one single elm thus well
ordered, is a fair nursery) which after two or three years, you may
separate and plant in the _Ulmarium_, or place designed for them; and
which if it be in plumps (as they call them) within ten or twelve foot
of each other, or in hedge-rows, it will be the better: For the elm is a
tree of consort, sociable, and so affecting to grow in company, that the
very best which I have ever seen, do almost touch one another: This also
protects them from the winds, and causes them to shoot of an
extraordinary height; so as in little more than forty years, they even
arrive to a load of timber; provided they be sedulously and carefully
cultivated, and the soil propitious. For an elm does not thrive so well
in the forest, as where it may enjoy scope for the roots to dilate and
spread at the sides, as in hedge-rows and avenues, where they have the
air likewise free: Note, that they spring abundantly by layers also.
5. There is besides these sorts we have named, one of a more scabrous
harsh leaf, but very large, which becomes an huge tree, (frequent in the
northern counties) and is distinguished by the name of the witch-hazle
in our Statute Books, as serving formerly to make long bowes of; but the
timber is not so good as the first more vulgar; but the bark at time of
year, will serve to make a course bast-rope with.
6. Of all the trees which grow in our woods, there is none which does
better suffer the transplantation than the elm; for you may remove a
tree of twenty years growth with undoubted success: It is an experiment
I have made in a tree almost as big more as my waste; but then you must
totally disbranch him, leaving only the summit intire; and being careful
to take him up with as much earth as you can, refresh him with abundance
of water. This is an excellent, and expeditious way for great persons to
plant the accesses of their houses with; for being disposed at sixteen
or eighteen foot interval, they will in a few years bear goodly heads,
and thrive to admiration. Some that are very cautious, emplaster the
wounds of such over-grown elms with a mixture of clay and horse-dung,
bound about them with a wisp of hay or fine moss, and I do not reprove
it, provided they take care to temper it well, so as the vermine nestle
not in it. But for more ordinary plantations, younger trees, which have
their bark smooth and tender, clear of wenns and tuberous bunches (for
those of that sort seldom come to be stately trees) about the scantling
of your leg, and their heads trimm’d at five or six foot height, are to
be prefer’d before all other. Cato would have none of these sorts of
trees to be removed till they are five or six fingers in diameter;
others think they cannot take them too young; but experience (the best
mistress) tells us, that you can hardly plant an elm too big. There are
who pare away the root within two fingers of the stem, and quite cut off
the head; but I cannot commend this extream severity, no more than I do
the strewing of oats in the pit; which fermenting with the moisture and
frequent waterings, is believed much to accelerate the putting forth of
the roots; not considering, that for want of air they corrupt and grow
musty, which more frequently suffocates the roots, and endangers the
whole tree.
7. I have affirmed how patient this tree is of transplantation; not only
for that I observe so few of them to grow wild in England, and where it
may not be suspected, but they or their predecessors have been planted
by some industrious hand; but for that those incomparable walks and
vistas of them, both at Aranjuez, Casal del Campo, Madrid, the Escurial,
and other places of delight, belonging to the King and Grandees of
Spain, are planted with such as they report Philip the second caused to
be brought out of England; before which (as that most honourable person
the Earl of Sandwich, when his Majesty’s Ambassador Extraordinary at
that Court writ to me) it does not appear there were any of those trees
in all Spain. But of that plantation, see it more particularly describ’d
in the Eighth Chapter, Book III^d of this Discourse, whither I refer my
reader: Whilst (as to my own inclination) I know of no tree amongst all
the foresters, becoming the almost _interminat lontananza_ of walks and
vistas, comparable to this majestick plant: But let us hear it as
sweetly advised as described;
An elm for graceful verdure, bushy bough,
A lofty top, and a firm rind allow.
Plant elm in borders, on the grass-plots list,
Branches of elm into thick arbours twist;
A gallery of elm draw to the end,
That eyes can reach, or a breath’d race extend.{69:1}
8. The elm delights in a sound, sweet, and fertile land, something more
inclined to loamy moisture, and where good pasture is produced; though
it will also prosper in the gravelly, provided there be a competent
depth of mould, and be refreshed with springs; in defect of which, being
planted on the very surface of the ground (the swarth par’d first away,
and the earth stirred a foot deep or more) they will undoubtedly
succeed; but in this trial, let the roots be handsomly spread, and
covered a foot or more in height; and above all, firmly staked. This is
practicable also for other trees, where the soil is over-moist or
unkind: For as the elm does not thrive in too dry, sandy, or hot
grounds, no more will it abide the cold and spungy; but in places that
are competently fertile, or a little elevated from these annoyances; as
we see in the mounds, and casting up of ditches, upon whose banks the
female sort does more naturally delight; though it seems to be so much
more addicted to some places than to others, that I have frequently
doubted, whether it be a pure _indigene_ or _translatitious_; and not
only because I have hardly ever known any considerable woods of them
(besides some few nurseries near Cambridge, planted I suppose for store)
but almost continually in tufts, hedge-rows, and mounds; and that
Shropshire, and several other counties, and rarely any beyond Stamford
to Durham, have any growing in many miles together: Indeed Camden
mentions a place in Yorkshire call’d Elmet; and V. Bede, _Eccl. Hist.
l._ 11. c. 14. (speaking of a fire hap’ning there, and describing of the
harm it did thereabout, _ulmarium_ or _ulmetum_) _evasit autem ignem
altare, quia lapidium erat, & servatur adhuc in monasterio r. abbatis &
presbyteri thrythwuelf, quod in sylva elmete est_; but neither does this
speak it miraculous, (for the altar it seems was stone) or that the elms
grew spontaneously. In the mean time, some affirm they were first
brought out of Lombardy, where indeed I have observ’d very goodly trees
about the rich grounds, with pines among them, _vitelus almi_; for I
hear of none either in Saxony or Denmark, nor in France, (growing wild)
who all came and prey’d upon us after the Romans. But leaving this to
the learned.
9. The elm is by reason of its aspiring and tapering growth, (unless it
be topped to enlarge the branches, and make them spread low) the least
offensive to corn and pasture-grounds; to both which, and the cattel,
they afford a benign shade, defence, and agreeable ornament: But then as
to pastures, the wand’ring roots (apt to infect the fields and grass
with innumerable suckers) the leading mother-root ought to be quite
separated on that part, and the suckers irradicated. The like should be
done where they are placed near walks of turf or gravel.
10. It would be planted as shallow as might be; for, as we noted, deep
interring of roots is amongst the catholick mistakes; and of this, the
greatest to which trees are obnoxious. Let new-planted elms be kept
moist by frequent refreshings upon some half-rotten fern, or litter laid
about the foot of the stem; the earth a little stirred and depressed for
the better reception and retention of the water.
11. Lastly, your plantation must above all things be carefully preserved
from cattel and the concussions of impetuous winds, till they are out of
reach of the one, and sturdy enough to encounter the other.
12. When you lop the side-boughs of an elm (which may be about January
for the fire, and more frequently, if you desire to have them tall; or
that you would form them into hedges, for so they may be kept plashed,
and thickned to the highest twig; affording both a magnificent and
august defence against the winds and sun) I say, when you trim them, be
careful to indulge the tops; for they protect the body of your trees
from the wet, which always invades those parts first, and will in time
perish them to the very heart; so as elms beginning thus to decay, are
not long prosperous. Sir Hugh Plat relates (as from an expert carpenter)
that the boughs and branches of an elm should be left a foot long next
the trunk when they are lopp’d; but this is to my certain observation, a
very great mistake either in the relator, or author; for I have noted
many elms so disbranched, that the remaining stubs grew immediately
hollow, and were as so many conduits or pipes, to hold, and convey the
rain to the very body and heart of the tree.
13. There was a cloyster of the right French elm in the little garden
near to Her Majesty’s the Queen-Mother’s Chappel at Somerset-House,
which were (I suppose) planted there, by the industry of the F. F.
Capuchines, that would have directed you to the incomparable use of this
noble tree for shade and delight, into whatever figure you will accustom
them. I have my self procured some of them from Paris, but they were so
abused in the transportation, that they all perished save one, which now
flourishes with me: I have also lately graffed elms to a great
improvement of their heads. Virgil tells us they will join in marriage
with the oak, and they would both be tryed; and that with the more
probable success, for such lignous kinds, if you graff under the earth,
upon, or near the very root it self, which is likely to entertain the
cyon better than when more exposed, till it be well fixt, and have made
some considerable progress.
14. When you would fell, let the sap be perfectly in repose; as ’tis
commonly about November or December, even to February, after the frost
hath well nipp’d them: I have already alledged my reason for it; and I
am told, that both oak and elm so cut, the very saplings (whereof
rafters, spars, &c. are made) will continue as long as the very heart of
the tree, without decay. In this work, cut your kerfe near to the
ground; but have a care that it suffer not in the fall, and be ruined
with its own weight: This depends upon your wood-man’s judgment in
disbranching, and is a necessary caution to the felling of all other
timber-trees. If any begin to doat, pick out such for the axe, and
rather trust to its successor. And if cutting over-late, by floating
them 2 or 3 months in the water, it prevents the worm, and proves the
best of seasons.
15. Elm is a timber of most singular use; especially where it may lie
continually dry, or wet, in extreams; therefore proper for water-works,
mills, the ladles, and soles of the wheel, pipes, pumps, aquæ-ducts,
pales, ship-planks beneath the water-line; and some that has been found
buried in bogs has turned like the most polish’d and hardest ebony, only
discerned by the grain: Also for wheel-wrights, handles for the single
hand-saw, rails and gates made of elm (thin sawed) is not so apt to rive
as oak: The knotty for naves, hubs; the straight and smooth for
axle-trees, and the very roots for curiously dappled works, scarce has
any superior for kerbs of coppers, featheridge, and weather-boards, (but
it does not without difficulty, admit the nail without boreing)
chopping-blocks, blocks for the hat-maker, trunks, and boxes to be
covered with leather; coffins, for dressers and shovel-board-tables of
great length, and a lustrous colour if rightly seasoned; also for the
carver, by reason of the tenor of the grain, and toughness which fits it
for all those curious works of frutages, foliage, shields, statues, and
most of the ornaments appertaining to the orders of architecture, and
for not being much subject to warping; I find that of old they used it
even for hinges and hooks of doors; but then, that part of the plank
which grew towards the top of the tree, was in work to be always
reversed; and for that it is not so subject to rift; Vitruvius commends
it both for tenons and mortaises: But besides these, and sundry other
employments, it makes also the second sort of charcoal; and finally,
(which I must not omit) the use of the very leaves of this tree,
especially of the female, is not to be despis’d; for being suffered to
dry in the sun upon the branches, and the spray strip’d off about the
decrease in August (as also where the suckers and stolones are
super-numerary, and hinder the thriving of their nurses) they will prove
a great relief to cattel in winter, and scorching summers, when hay and
fodder is dear they will eat them before oats, and thrive exceedingly
well with them; remember only to lay your boughs up in some dry and
sweet corner of your barn: It was for this the poet prais’d them, and
the epithet was advis’d,
fruitful in leaves the elm.{74:1}
In some parts of Herefordshire they gather them in sacks for their
swine, and other cattel, according to this husbandry. But I hear an ill
report of them for bees, that surfeiting of the blooming seeds, they are
obnoxious to the lask, at their first going abroad in spring, which
endangers whole stocks, if remedies be not timely adhibited; therefore
’tis said in great elm countries they do not thrive; but the truth of
which I am yet to learn. The green leaf of the elms contused, heals a
green wound or cut, and boiled with the bark, consolidates fractur’d
bones. All the parts of this tree are abstersive, and therefore
sovereign for the consolidating wounds; and asswage the pains of the
gout: But the bark decocted in common water, to almost the consistence
of a syrup, adding a third part of _aqua vitæ_, is a most admirable
remedy for the _ischiadicæ_ or hip-pain, the place being well rubb’d and
chaf’d by the fire. Other wonderful cures perform’d by the liquor, &c.
of this tree, see Mr. Ray’s _History of Plants_, lib. XXV. cap. 1. sect.
5. and for other species of the elm, his Supplement, tom. III. _ad cap.
De Ulmo._ tom. II. p. 1428.
FOOTNOTES:
{69:1}
Ut viror est ulmo lætus, ramique comantes,
Arduus, alta petens & levi cortice truncus.
Ulmum adhibe ordinibus, quoties sudenda per hortum,
Sunt serie spatia ingenti, texendaque totis
Æstivos contra soles umbracula campis:
Una alias inter texendis aptior ulmus
Marginibus spatiorum, exornandoque vireto.
Seque adeo series, plano super æquore, tendat
Ulmorum tractu longo; quantum ipsa tuentum
Lumina, vel gressus valeant lustrare sequentum.
_Rapinus._
{74:1}
.........fœcundæ frondibus ulmi.
_Georg. 2._