the shade of a tree nearly two feet in diameter, which towered above all around it, say, "This tree, after I had been many years successful in business, and in a change of fortune had retired to this farm, with a little that remained, I stuck into the ground after I had used it as a stick in a ride of eight miles from P."

"From its having been so long a favorite, it has been more frequently spared, and oftener transplanted than any other tree. There are, in all parts of the state, many fine old trees standing." "In Springfield, in a field a few rods north of the hotel, is an Elm which was twenty-five feet and nine inches in circumference at three feet from the ground." The great Elm on Boston Common measures, at the same distance from the ground, seventeen feet eleven inches in circumference. "It is said to have been planted about the year 1670, by Captain Daniel Henchman, an ancestor of Governor Hancock. It is, therefore, more than one hundred and seventy-five years old." "There is an Elm in Hatfield, near the town-house, which measures at the ground forty-one feet; at three and one half feet from the ground it measures twenty-seven feet in circumference. The smallest place in the trunk is seven feet four inches in diameter. The top spreads over an area of one hundred and eight feet in diameter, making a circle of three hundred and twenty-four feet, covering a surface of over seven thousand five hundred square feet." "The Washington Elm, in Cambridge—so called because beneath its shade, or near it, General Washington is said to have first drawn his sword on taking the command of the American army—measured, in 1842, fifteen feet two inches at one foot, thirteen feet two at three feet from the ground. The celebrated Whitfield preached under the shade of this tree in 1744." "Two Elms were set out by the Indians in front of the house of the Rev. Oliver Peabody, who succeeded, in 1722, to the venerable Eliot, the Indian apostle, in the same truly Christian ministry, in Natick," Massachusetts. "This voluntary offering of the grateful savages they called Trees of Peace."

There is an Elm standing in front of Mr. J. Chickering's house, Westford, Massachusetts, which I recently measured eighteen inches from the ground. Its circumference was twenty feet, and its spurs were not prominent, as will be inferred from the fact that at four feet from the ground it measured eighteen feet in circumference. Seven and a half feet from the ground it divides into two branches, each of itself a very large trunk, the largest of which would measure three feet and a half in diameter. Seven or eight feet from the first division, at short intervals, the main branch, which grew on the west side next the house, divides into eight more branches, all nearly equal in size, and averaging a circumference of four and a half feet. About forty feet from the base of the tree these eight branches subdivide into twenty-one other branches, and so on indefinitely to the terminating twigs. The east main branch was divided into four principals, equal in size to the corresponding ones on the other side, and were subdivided also in the same manner as the one described.

In height it is about seventy feet, vase-topped, with a pendent border. The extent of the spreading branches, northwest and southeast, was one hundred and five feet; those corresponding with the exact opposite points of the compass extended ninety-five feet, giving an area of three hundred feet in circumference. Some of the pendent branches, which drooped within a few feet of the ground, I judged to be forty feet in length. These, stretched to a horizontal position, would give a breadth of one hundred and eighty feet to the top. Various opinions obtain respecting the number of solid feet it contains, ranging from nine to eleven hundred.

An old gentleman residing in the immediate vicinity, now eighty years old, told us that he could very well remember it when but a small tree, from which we infer its age to be about one hundred years. It appears to be perfectly sound, and now thrives as vigorously as a young sapling. It is a magnificent specimen of the vegetable kingdom, majestically imposing, awakening in the spectator a feeling of veneration in spite of himself. So ample is its wide-spreading Etruscan-shaped top, that at fifty rods' distance (were the trunk hid) one might mistake it for a group of twenty good-sized trees.

"The Slippery Elm has a strong resemblance to the common Elm. It has less of the drooping appearance, and is commonly a much smaller tree." "The inner bark of this Elm contains a great quantity of mucilage. Flour prepared from the bark, by drying perfectly and grinding, and mixed with milk, like arrowroot, is a wholesome and nutritious food for infants and invalids." "Dr. Darlington says that, in the last war with Great Britain, the soldiers on the Canada frontier found this, in times of scarcity of forage, a grateful and nutritious food for their horses."

'The English Elm is said to have been introduced by importation, and planted by a wheel-wright for his own use in making hubs for wheels, for which purpose they are probably superior to any other wood known.' In its appearance it is said to have 'less grace than the American Elm, but more stateliness and grandeur.' 'It is distinguished from the American Elm, also, by the rough, broken character of its bark, which is darker, and also by having one principal stem, which soars upward to a great height, and the boldness and abruptness with which it throws out its branches. The leaves are of a darker color, smaller, and closer.'

'The largest dimensions given of the English Elm on the Continent is sixty feet high, and twenty feet in circumference at the ground, containing two hundred and sixty-eight feet of timber.' "The Crawley Elm stands in the village of Crawley, on the high road from London to Brighton. Its trunk measures sixty-one feet in circumference at the ground, and thirty-five feet round the inside at two feet from the base. This tree is not so large as would seem from this account, as it diminishes very rapidly upward."

"The noblest and most beautiful English Elms in this country are found in Roxbury, the largest of which measures fifteen feet five inches five feet from the ground; it holds its size fully to the height of twenty or twenty-five feet, where it divides into three large branches, the main central one of which rises upward to a height much above one hundred feet." "As among the ancient Romans, so in France at the present day, the leaves and shoots are used to feed cattle. In Russia, the leaves of a species of the Elm are used as a substitute for tea. The inner bark is in some places made into mats, and in Norway they kiln-dry it, and grind it with corn as an ingredient in bread."

THE BIRCH.

Of the Birch family there are several varieties, called the Black, Yellow, Red, Canoe, the Gray, and the Dwarf. Of these the Yellow and Canoe Birches are the most interesting and useful. The general outlines of the Yellow Birch often resemble the Elm, the root-spurs rise high up the trunk, protruding much beyond the regular circle of its shaft. It is very firmly rooted, capable of withstanding a violent blast. It attains to the height of seventy or eighty feet, and often measures from nine to ten feet in circumference three and four feet from the ground. Its wood is very useful for cabinet purposes, and is excellent for fuel.

The White or Canoe Birch is most remarkable for the beautiful thin sheets of bark which it affords, from which the Indian canoe is constructed. It also makes excellent covering for a tent. In some parts of the northern regions it is said to attain a diameter of six or seven feet.

The White Birch possesses "in an eminent degree the lightness and airiness of the Birch family, spreading out its glistening leaves on the ends of a very slender and often pencil spray, with an indescribable softness. So that Coleridge might have called it as he did the corresponding European species,