BEPOBT ON LAECII FORESTS. 405 



cases the trees upon the outside of the plantations have their 

 branches and tops killed, leaving it doubtful whether or not the 

 trees will recover. All along the coasts of the shires of Banff, 

 Moray, and Aberdeen, the larch has been twice during the past 

 summer, in exposed places, quite defoliated. This is not the 

 effect altogether of the sea air, as larches ten miles inland have 

 also suffered, though not to such a degree. 



If the soil is good, and the tree otherwise healthy, it may 

 struggle on and attain a fair size and medium age ; but when 

 the soil is cold, or otherwise such as to produce a weakly tree, 

 the likelihood is that it will die prematurely, and if not, it will 

 continue unsightly and uproductive of wood. 



Some years ago the writer observed a plantation in Tweedside 

 where the larches were pruned of a large proportion of their 

 branches ; and on inquiry of the reason, was informed that it 

 was believed the branches contracted disease, and that pruning 

 was done with a view of preventing it. 



The writer thinned a mixed plantation on one occasion, and 

 in order to relieve some hardwoods he cut off or shortened a 

 quantity of larch branches, and on examining the plantation 

 two years afterwards, found the shortened branches making 

 fresh shoots, and the trees had an improved appearance ; but 

 this undoubtedly arose more from the additional room afforded, 

 and the admission of sun and air, than from pruning. On the 

 Marquis of Lothian's estates at Mounteviot, Ferniehurst, Oxnam, 

 &c, and also at Cortachy and Airlie Castles, the property of the 

 Earl of Airlie, and at Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, the 

 chief residence of His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, and several 

 other places, the foresters prune off all the dead branches from 

 the larch ; and to this there is no important objection, though 

 from the orifice left in the trunk where the branches are broken 

 (instead of sawn off), the rosin and turpentine occasionally oozes 

 out, but when the trees are healthy, little or no harm arises 

 from this circumstance, and the trunks grow cleaner without 

 them. 



A farmer in Strathspey planted some larch trees around his 

 garden when he was a boy ; the trees in time grew up, and the 

 branches overhung his garden, which suggested pruning, which 

 he did. Two of the number not overhanging so much as the 

 rest were left unpruned ; and at the present time, when the trees 

 are sixty-four years old, the unpruned trees are more healthy, 

 and contain more than double the quantity of timber the others 

 do. If the branches of healthy larch are foreshortened mode- 

 rately, it will do little or no harm, but evidently no good can 

 arise from pruning in any form to unhealthy or diseased trees, 

 unless perhaps in such cases where blasting winds have destroyed 

 the vitality of the ends of the branches ; in such cases snag 



