The Forest Or Rambles in the Woodland Author:Jefferys Taylor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE ELM. " The Elm has lofty dignity, combined with elegance. It rises to a greater height than English trees in general do. Its foliage, though the leaves ar... more »e small, is ample, yet it hangs lightly on the aspiring branches, and forms a fine subject for the painter, and landscape engraver. It is the first considerable tree, which introduces a bright and cheerful green in spring; but, before this, its boughs are darkened with innumerable flowers of a dusky hue, which indeed are often as full as the foliage. " Elm timber is valuable for a vast variety of purposes ; but, as it grows quicker and is inferior in quality to oak, it bears a much lower price. It ia chiefly employed for weather boards to out-buildings,waggons, carts, mill-wheels, water-pipes, furniture called Windsor chairs, and for coffins, because it is peculiarly durable in moist situations. It burns slowly; and as it splits with difficulty, it receives nails and iron-work with advantage. Some writers tell us that bread and beer, in times of scarcity, have been made from the inner bark of this tree." " A time of scarcity indeed !" said Mr. Longhurst. " It is better known and valued—the bark I mean —as a medicine; an excellent decoction is obtained from it, which is useful in many complaints." "Speaking of the elm," said Mr. Longhurst, "reminds me, as it is a tree which bears transplanting, perhaps, better than any other, of some surprising schemes, which have been executed by enterprising men in that way—ladies and gentlemen, did you ever hear of transplanting a forest ?" A wondering negative was the reply. " The thing has been done, and to a very considerable extent," said Mr. Longhurst. " So long ago asthe time when Theophrastus, the ancient Greek writer on rural economy, lived, the Greeks were in t...« less