CHAPTER IV.
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 IIId 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.