Sept. 18. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



269 



done such good service to the correction of other 

 passages in the text, that I am induced to think 

 some one of your able correspondents will suggest 

 a remedy for this perplexing passage, or that it 

 may be found in the corrected copies of Mr. Col- 

 lier or of jSIr. Halliwell. S. W. Singer. 

 3Iickleham, Aug. 28. 1852. 



LARIX OR LARCH TREE. 



The vegetating power still existing in Egyptian 

 mummy wheat, as noticed in " N. & Q.," Vol. v., 

 p. 538., and the progressive development and 

 transmutation of species of plants, mentioned in 

 "iST. & Q.," Vol. vi., p. 7., are strong instances of 

 the vitality of the vegetable kingdom. 



My Query, I am sorry to say, refers to the un- 

 expected decay and probable extinction in this 

 country of one of the most useful of all the trees 

 of foreign origin ever naturalised in this island, 

 the lai'ch. Loudon, I see, in his EncyclopcBdia of 

 Gui'dening, states that this tree was introduced 

 into Britain in 1629 ; I do not know his authority 

 for this. Marshall, in his treatise on Planting and 

 Rural Ornament, mentions his having, in 1792, 

 measured one in the grounds of Blair, in Athol — 



*' Which at five feet high girted upwards of eight 

 feet, and contained by estimation four tons of timber, 

 which larch, by the indisputable evidence of a person 

 Avho remembered its being planted, was not at the time 

 we measured it fifty-four years old ; and at Dunkeld 

 we measured another of very little more than fifty 

 years old, which girted at the same height eight feet 

 six inches, its height near a hundred feet, and its con- 

 tents from four to five tons of timber." 



These trees, therefore, must have been planted 

 about the year 1738. I believe that the trees 

 mentioned by Marshall are the oldest now in ex- 

 istence in this country ; and the tradition is that 

 they were brought in pots from the Alps, by or for 

 the Duke of Athol, about 1738. From that time 

 till within the last ten or twelve years, the value 

 of the wood at an early age, and the rapidity of its 

 growth, as well as the elegance of the tree itself as 

 an ornamental plant, caused its more and more 

 extensive use in forming plantations ; and the ex- 

 istence at this time of some of the trees first 

 brought to this country, at Dunkeld, at Blair, and 

 at Monzie in Perthshire, gave strong evidence of 

 their durability. But, alas ! for the hopes of many 

 a sanguine planter, this most valuable tree seems 

 likely to become extinct in this country as a timber 

 tree. 



Within the last twelve or fourteen years a mor- 

 tality began amongst the larch trees of a few years' 

 growth. The tops began to wither and die ; then 

 the ends of the side branches ; and so gradually, 

 in the course of four or five years, the trees died 

 altogether, except where they were cut down on 



account of their unsightliness, and to make what 

 use could be made of them before they rotted 

 altogether. It was at first thought that nursery- 

 men had used degenerate seed, gathered from im- 

 proper subjects ; but the disease, after a few years, 

 spread to the older trees, and those of fifty, sixty, 

 and seventy years old are now dying in the same 

 manner. Whether this general decay has yet 

 reached the giants of the tribe in Perthshire, I 

 know not. Some of the largest I have still hold 

 their ground, but they are probably not above a 

 century old ; and even for them I now tremble. 



This disease is not local nor confined to peculiar 

 soils. It attacks trees growing in the finest and- 

 deepest, as well as in the most barren or rocky 

 soils,rand in those most suited to them, and at all" 

 elevations above the sea. I do not know how far 

 south the mortality has spread, but I know it exists 

 in Oxfordshire, and northward in Cumberland, 

 Northumberland, and throughout all the south of 

 Scotland. 



Many endeavours have been made to trace the 

 cause of this general decay of this species of tree, 

 but hitherto, so far as I know, in vain. It does 

 not, so far as can be observed, arise from any 

 disease in the root ; and though sometimes the 

 trees are found decayed in the heart, yet as fre- 

 quently they are found quite sound. 



I venture to propose as a Query, What is the 

 cause of this general decay and death of the larch 

 tree in Britain ? The solution of the question 

 would be satisfactory to many anxious sufferers, 

 and might suggest a remedy. Perhaps it might 

 be worth while to procure seed from the shingly 

 and rocky slopes of the Alps and Apennines, its 

 original habitat. 



The decay of the potato plant, wliich might 

 properly be the subject of another Query, has 

 hitherto in like manner baffled all inqiriry as to its 

 real cause, though various have been the theories 

 and assertions on the subject, but none of them 

 have stood the test of investigation. I believe 

 Cobbett did not consider the destruction of this 

 esculent as a misfortune to Ireland ; but none, I 

 believe, who know anything of the larch will dis- 

 pute that the loss of it in this country will be a 

 great one. J. S. S. 



iKtn0v <^vitxit^. 



Burials and Funerals. — The appendix to No- 

 ble's Memoirs of the Cromwell Family contains 

 extracts from various registers, among them one 

 from All Saints, Huntingdon. It is — 

 " Anno 1600. 



Mistris Oliver Cromwell, of Godmanchester, biiriede 

 the 27th July, and her funerall was the 17th of Au- 

 gust." 



Was it then the practice at once to consign the 

 dead to the grave without ceremony, and at a 



