nnoticed.
When the silver maple bravely pushes out its hardy buds in earliest
spring--or often in what might be called latest winter--the elm is
ready, and the sudden swelling of the twigs, away above our heads in
March or April, is not caused by the springing leaves, but is the
flowering effort of this noble tree. The bloom sets curiously about the
yet bare branches, and the little brownish yellow or reddish flowers are
seemingly only a bunch of stamens. They do their work promptly, and the
little flat fruits, or "samaras," are ripened and dropped before most of
us realize that the spring is fully upon us. These seeds germinate
readily, and I recall the great pleasure with which a noted
horticultural professor showed me what he called his "elm lawn," one
summer. It seemed that almost every one of the thousands of seeds that,
just about the time his preparations for sowing a lawn were completed,
had softly fallen from the great elm which guards and shades his
dooryard, had found good ground, and the result was a miniature forest
of tiny trees, giving an effect of solid green which was truly a tree
lawn.

[Illustration: The delicate tracery of the American elm in winter]

But, after all, I think it is in winter that the American elm is at its
finest, for then stand forth most fully revealed the wonderful symmetry
of its structure and the elegance of its lines. It has one advantage in
its great size, which is well above the average, for it lifts its
graceful head a hundred feet or more above the earth. The stem is
usually clean and regular, and the branches spread out in closely
symmetrical relation, so that, as seen against the cold sky of winter,
leafless and bare, they seem all related parts of a most harmonious
whole. Other great trees are notable for the general effect of strength
or massiveness, individual branches departing much from the average line
of the whole structure; but the American elm is regular in all its
parts, as well as of general stateliness.

As I have noted, the people of the New England States value and cherish
their great elms, and they are accustomed to think themselves the only
possessors of this unique tree. We have, however, as good elms in
Pennsylvania as there are in New England, and I hope the day is not far
distant when we shall esteem them as highly. The old elm monarch which
stands at the gingerbread brownstone entrance of the Capitol Park in
Pennsylvania's seat of government has had