storehouse of delights for lovers of insects and lovers of birds and lovers of mosses and lichens, aye, and for lovers of merry children too, who like to hear the screams of good-humoured play, as the small people jump out of their hiding-place, or make the smooth inside a castle or cottage peculiarly their own, for enjoying their own little secrets and keeping their hoards of pretty stones and pebbles.

You can now perceive why it is so important in carpentering to cut the wood the right way, lengthways, that is to say, so as to break into as few as possible of the little tubes. If cut the cross way all the tops of the tubes would be cut open and laid bare, so as to let the minute drops of damp trickle into them and cause decay; besides, it is much smoother to go along with the tubes. The grain of the wood and the different patterns on boards are caused by the rings of the heart-wood, the larger ones being innermost and nearest the centre.

Now then for the elm itself.

In March and April you may see its branches thickly covered with clusters of small dark brown blossoms, and when you can get a near view of them you will find that these are small greenish brown cups, containing five red stamens and two styles, growing out of a little round germ; but the seed is not apt to ripen, and the tree usually propagates itself by throwing up suckers from the

root.

The leaves are small, egg-shaped, and serrated, the bark rough, though of a finer grain than the oak, and less apt to be overgrown with moss and lichen. The wood is not so hard nor so enduring as oak, and though it is very useful for many purposes, the especial value of the tree is rather in its lifetime than after it is cut down. How de

lightful is the cool shade of a lane shut in on either side with hedgerow elms, those firm grand arms of theirs reaching out and embracing, far overhead-hedgerow elms, I mean, allowed to grow to their proper form and beauty; not trimmed close and deprived of all their fine long branches, as they are in some of our counties, where they look more like tall Jacks-in-the-green than like the fair-spreading elm tree.

Or think of a churchyard bordered round with elms, casting their quiet shadow on the graves around, and perhaps over a clear streamlet, fencing it in on one side, and dividing it from the fresh green meadows beyond, the sunlight making its way through the thick leaves, and falling in patches on the grass and water and the old gray walls of the church, and quivering and moving about so pleasantly when the wind shakes the branches. What a fair peaceful spot it is! closed in from all the world, and those noble trees making a sort of outer church, with pillars and arches, where the thoughts of the living may be sobered, and where the dead rest within the shadow of the church.

Or how pleasant it is to see some park, the greensward shaded by tall elms, in threes or pairs, sheltering the cattle on hot sunny days, and in early spring loaded with the multitudinous nests of noisy rooks. Rooks like elms much better than any other tree, and their black satin coats and hoarse chattering voices seldom fail where these trees are numerous, as in the spring they fight over the sticks they carry to build their nests. In the summer they teach their black children to fly before they can feed themselves, and in autumn and winter fly circling round and round in the air, collecting for an evening assembly, and evidently having a friendly conversation on

the best fields for grubs and chaffers, before going to roost, like large black fruit on the elm trees.

Grandest and best of all is the elm tree when it stands alone in its pride, its magnificent trunk rising like a column, and stretching out its protecting arms all round, like a monarch in charge of the country. Elm trees grow very fast, but they live very long, and some of these fine single elms are recorded to be of a great age. There was one at Gisors, on the frontier of Normandy, where the kings of France and dukes of Normandy used to hold conferences together, and which was large enough to shelter both their trains. It was more than two hundred years old when it was cut down by King Philippe Auguste, out of hatred to our Plantagenet kings. At the first French Revolution a great many fine old elms were cut down which bore the name of King Henri IV. (who died in the year 1610). He had planted many with his own hand, and had recommended the planting of many others round churchyards, and to form avenues at the entrance of

towns.

The first elm trees in Spain were taken thither from England by Philip II., who planted them near his palace of the Escurial; and at the beautiful Moorish Grenada, in the midst of all the glowing sunshine and southern beauty, the English traveller is surprised to find himself in an alley of over-arching elms, green and shady as those in the lanes of his own home.

Queen Elizabeth was a planter of trees, and the oldest elm known to exist in England is a stump at Richmond, now fenced in and covered with ivy, which was planted by her hand, and therefore has always been known by the name of the Queen's elm.

The most interesting of all our English elms is, how

ever, one which still stands near the entrance to the passage leading to Spring Gardens, for it is that one on which King Charles looked as he was going to his martyrdom, saying, "That tree was planted by my brother Henry," that brother the remembrance of whose boyish days might well

"Haunt him in no vexing mood,

When all the cares of life were over."

There is another kind of English elm with broader leaves, called the Wych elm, and another sort proper only to Scotland, where our English elm was not known till after the union of the two kingdoms.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE CATKIN RACE

ALL the trees that follow have their stamens in the small dusty scales of their catkins, or pussy-cats' tails.

There is the birch, dark barked, with purple catkins, each with four stamens tightly packed away; and many and many a kind of willow.

Who does not love, in early February, to walk out by the side of the hedge or coppice wood, while all is moist and fresh, as the sun melts the morning frost, and shines with a sweet warm brightness that makes us talk of spring coming fast, and spy about to see if the dear green world within the brown hedge is feeling it yet?

The honeysuckle is thinking about it, aye, and on certain purplish twigs there shine tufts of silver down, growing alternately on each side of the stem. "Pussy, pussy!" we scream with joy-the withy is putting on its silver buttons, and up we scramble to pull down a shoot, and stroke our lips with that softest, silkiest of down, the little scales, within which the buds are safely and warmly guarded from the frosts that will nightly brace the young bough; or, should the spring be rainy, this same down serves, like the fur of a cat or the feathers of a duck, to