a hard battle, defenseless as
it is, against the indifference of those whom it has shaded for
generations, and who carelessly permitted the telegraph and telephone
linemen to use it or chop it at their will. But latterly there has been
an awakening which means protection, I think, for this fine old
landmark.

The two superb elms, known as "Paul and Virginia," that make notable the
north shore of the Susquehanna at Wilkesbarre, are subjects of local
pride; which seems, however, not strong enough to prevent the erection
of a couple of nasty little shanties against their great trunks. There
can be no doubt, however, that the sentiment of reverence for great
trees, and of justice to them for their beneficent influence, is
spreading westward and southward from New England. It gives me keen
pleasure to learn of instances where paths, pavements or roadways have
been changed, to avoid doing violence to good trees; and a recent
account of the creation of a trust fund for the care of a great oak, as
well as a unique instance in Georgia, where a deed has been recorded
giving a fine elm a quasi-legal title to its own ground, show that the
rights of trees are coming to be recognized.

I have said little of the habitat, as the botanist puts it, of the
American elm. It graces all North America east of the Rockies, and the
specimens one sees in Michigan or Canada are as happy, apparently, as if
they grew in Connecticut or in Virginia. Our increasingly beautiful
national Capital, the one city with an intelligent and controlled system
of tree-planting, shows magnificent avenues of flourishing elms.

But I must not forget some other elms, beautiful and satisfactory in
many places. It is no discredit to our own American elm to say that the
English elm is a superb tree in America. It seems to be
characteristically British in its sturdy habit, and forms a grand trunk.

[Illustration: The English elm in winter]

The juicy inner bark of the red or "slippery" elm was always acceptable,
in lieu of the chewing-gum which had not then become so common, to a
certain ever-hungry boy who used to think as much of what a tree would
furnish that was eatable as he now does of its beauty. Later, the other
uses of the bark of this tree became known to the same boy, but it was
many years before he came really to know the slippery elm. One day a
tree branch overhead showed what seemed to be remarkable little green
flowers, which on examination proved to