Country Life
ELMS AND THE GALE.
In the great gale of Saturday last many trees crashed that were thought to be sound. In one particular case a forester who had previously tapped his trees with the butt of his axe to test their solidity by sound, had just condemned a sound tree and passed a rotten one. It is often a very difficult thing to detect inner weakness ; but with an elm there is one sign said to be singularly accurate. If the bole bulges just above the base so that the girth is bigger than at the very base, a weak heart may be inferred. The elm, however, is the most treacheroui of trees. It will " wait ten years to drop a limb," on your head, as Jefferies said, and Kipling says, the same in rhyme, and the very soundest tree will fall over from 'mere want of taproot. In Saturday's gale the tearing off of boughs was more remarkable than the falling of whole trees. I saw one group of trees robbed of many boughs ; but of the many rooks' nests not one was stirred from its place.
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