EErOKT ON LARCH FORESTS. 375 



from them. A very successful method of planting deep moss is 

 to wheel upon it a quantity of sand, clay, marie, gravel, or any 

 other earth, laying it down in heaps six feet apart, or if difficult 

 to procure, at a greater distance, say nine feet apart, one wheel- 

 harrow load, or even less, in each heap. The heaps are laid up 

 with a spade in shape of a cone, and a larch planted upon the 

 top of each. By this means the roots are kept upon, or near the 

 surface of the ground, which, upon damp, flat, or table-land, is a 

 decided advantage to the trees. Larch planted upon the mound, 

 or hillock system, not only grows faster, but is less liable to 

 ground-rot than those planted in the usual way. In a larch 

 plantation with which the writer is acquainted, one portion was 

 planted upon mounds, and the other upon the flat surface of a 

 deep moss. At about forty years old the difference in value of 

 the two classes of trees was as pounds to shillings in favour of 

 the mound planting. 



In planting moss it is essential that it be thoroughly drained 

 to a depth of about four feet. In order sometimes to secure this 

 depth of dry soil above the water table, for want of fall to 

 deepen the drains, ditches have to be cut, and the soil thus 

 excavated employed in raising the ground between them till 

 sufficiently high above the water. Second, Moss suitable for 

 growing larch must be pure decomposed vegetable matter, such 

 as presents no resistance to the progress of the roots. Third, 

 The trees planted in such a manner that the roots may run 

 upon the surface ; and in order to promote the latter object, 

 the branches should have ample room to spread ; otherwise, 

 from a well-known law, the tap and other roots are forced to dip 

 perpendicularly, to the ultimate decay of the core of the tree. 



The surface of gravelly soils, as well as of moss, does not always 

 indicate what is underneath ; but that larches have both suc- 

 ceeded and failed on gravelly soils of various qualities is certain. 

 At first sight, it is not very easy to discover why a certain 

 gravelly soil, whose granules are nearly the same both in size 

 and proportions, should fail to produce a good crop of larch, 

 when another gravel, exactly like it should yield, a valuable crop. 



The difference is mechanical, not chemical, and is simply ex- 

 plained by the circumstance of one gravel being sufficiently 

 loose and open for the roots to enter and run, while the other 

 is compact, solid, and resistive of the roots, all depending upon 

 the solid or loose condition of the soil. 



Amongst others, the following examples may be quoted. A 

 plantation of larch in Strathspey was planted upon a hard, 

 gravelly plain, in which pits had been formed by digging gravel 

 for roadmaking. In and around these pits, which consisted of pure 

 shingle and sand, larches were planted ; and while those on the 

 plain unbroken ground were struggling for existence, and many 



