1. Ulmus campestris.—The English Elm, though not the producer of the most valuable timber, or of a kind for more refined purposes, is still one of the most extensively useful of any kind whatsoever. The long straight balks of this Elm caused it at one time to be employed for water-pipes; these can be readily cut into boards of great length and width, which are useful for a variety of purposes. Selby sums up an account of its character as follows:—
The wood when matured is of a deep-brown colour, compact and fine-grained; according to Loudon, it loses nearly two-thirds of its weight in drying, as when cut it weighs nearly seventy pounds the cubic foot, and when seasoned not more than twenty-eight pounds and a half. In the lateral adhesion of its fibre it surpasses the U. montana, though perhaps inferior to it in longitudinal toughness, and therefore not capable of supporting so severe a cross strain. The former property, however, eminently qualifies it for every purpose where a strong wood that will not split or crack, either from concussion or the action of sun and wet, is required; on this account, Matthew, in his able treatise on naval timber, strongly recommends it for the “blocks, dead-eyes, and other wooden furniture of rigging.” In country carpentry it is very extensively used in all the Southern parts of England; but the purposes to which it is applied it is unnecessary to enumerate, these having already been described by Evelyn and subsequent authors. Its durability under water, as well as the straightness and great length of its stem, qualifies it for making the keels of large ships, for which purpose it sells at a very high price.
As an ornamental tree for general purposes, few can surpass the elm, as when well-grown and not too much interfered with by the forester, it has a gracefully aspiring form without a disposition to lankiness: its foliage is thick enough to afford any amount of shade, and yet is never of a heavy appearance.
It flourishes best in good deep soil, in which the most solid balks are grown: when planted on poor land or on gravel-beds it decays at the heart at a very early age. Some of the English elms in Hyde Park have thus decayed, whilst others have attained a respectable size and age, having been injured by storms:—
The wintry winds had passed
And swept an arm away,
And winter found a wound at last,
In which to work decay.
In good soil the English elm grows to an enormous size, remaining perfectly solid to a good old age. We remember the felling of a tree called “Piff’s Elm,” on the high-road between Cheltenham and Tewkesbury, in which the hole measured 28 feet in circumference at 4 feet from the ground, and we counted 198 rings of annual growth. Still, when grown in poor gravelly soils and in the usual hedge mode, in which they are periodically shrouded and crippled, they often begin to decay in the centre at less than twenty years of age.
There are varieties of the U. campestris, which, as they are not of any particular importance as timber trees, need only be lightly touched upon in this place. They are as follows:—
1. Ulmus suberosa—Cork Elm, bark of the limbs exceedingly corky.
2. Ulmus carpinifolia—Hornbeam-leaved Elm, leaves strongly-veined, serratures blunt; branches nearly smooth.
3. Ulmus stricta—Cornish Elm, leaves smooth and shining above, doubly serrated, with obtuse teeth; branches bright-brown, smooth, erect.
4. Ulmus glabra—Small-leaved Elm, leaves small and smooth; branches pendulous.
2. Ulmus montana.—The Scotch Elm, the broad-leaved elm (wych hazel) of most parts of England and Scotland, is well distinguished by its large broad leaves, hop-like fruits, large limbs diverging from a less towering trunk at an obtuse angle, branches more or less lax and pendulous, bark of the twigs dark brown, smooth and not corky; of stem when rough, not suberose.