REPORT ON LARCH FORESTS. 371 



Botanically, we have described the varied colour of flowers, 

 proportions of male and female catkins, size and quality of flowers 

 and fruit ; any of these, however, are too unimportant to deter- 

 mine the quality and condition of larch timber, or to mark the 

 source of its disease. 



The geographical boundaries of the larch-growing countries 

 are not easily defined. The eastern provinces of France, Switzer- 

 land, the north of Italy, Tyrol, and Baden, are considered the 

 principal larch-growing countries ; but it is also mentioned as 

 growing in Asia, and several other countries as well, all going 

 to prove that it is a tree adapted to different localities, and might 

 therefore grow in many countries into which it has not yet been 

 introduced. 



Much importance is attached by some writers to the circum- 

 stance of larch growing upon sloping, precipitous, or rocky 

 ground. The accounts of this by travellers are somewhat con- 

 flicting. While some say the largest and best trees are upon 

 the slope, others say they are best upon table land. 



Larch is less choice of climate than it is of soil, and yet a low 

 temperature at certain seasons is inimical to its growth. 



From the circumstance of the larch being a deciduous tree, its 

 foliage suffers nothing in winter ; and should a severe frost occur 

 either late in spring or early in autumn, the tree, if otherwise 

 healthy, though frost-bitten, will in time recover, with few excep- 

 tions, though much retarded in growth. 



The larch, when it has matured its wood in autumn, may be 

 considered safe from the severest winter frosts ; it dreads no 

 weather in its normal state. In spring, however, the case is 

 widely different, and where the trees are situated in a sheltered 

 valley, they come early into leaf; and unless abundantly clothed 

 with branches, and otherwise in good health, they are certain to 

 suffer severely from frost ; and a repetition of such frost before 

 the tree has fully recovered will in all likelihood prove fatal. 



In valleys where the soil is damp, and water stagnant, frost is 

 most destructive to larch ; but where a rapid flowing stream 

 occurs, or a river flows, frost is thereby dispelled — hence larch 

 will succeed well, soil and other circumstances being favourable. 



While the temperature of the atmosphere of this country 

 generally, and those formerly named, is such as to favour the 

 growth of the larch, it is vastly different with regard to the 

 temperature of the soil. No tree with which the writer is ac- 

 quainted is so easily injured as the larch, when planted in soil 

 of a low temperature. What the temperature of the soil is at 

 which the tree perishes is probably unknown. 



Two examples may be adduced to establish the above state- 

 ment. In 1862-63 the writer superintended the planting of 

 500,000 larch plants interspersed amongst Scots pines, upon a hill 



