406 REPORT ON LARCH FORESTS. 



pruning will induce fresli shoots, or at all events remove the un- 

 sightly dead parts of the branches. 



Some foresters attribute much of the larch failure to confine- 

 ment of the trees, keeping them so close together as to destroy 

 the vitality of their lower branches. Of this view there appears 

 scarcely room for division of opinion ; the rule seems to be, to 

 keep the latter in life till the heartwood is fully formed with 

 which the branches are connected. The shedding of the 

 branches should never supersede the forming of the heartwood. 

 The importance of branches, and their uses in developing a tree> 

 are too well known to require further comment. 



One circumstance of considerable weight ought not to be over- 

 looked, namely, larch in its native countries receive no such aid 

 as the pruning-knife. If pruning, therefore, were essential to 

 health and development, such trees as those at Dunkeld, Mony- 

 musk, Kippenross, Castle Menzies, &c, would undoubtedly have 

 come short of the perfection they have attained. 



Again, it is maintained that all the diseases of larch are en- 

 gendered in the nursery, either by crowding the plant in the 

 nursery beds, or stimulating their early growth by strong 

 manures. All nursery-grown plants, however, are by no means 

 crowded, neither are they all forced by manure, although the 

 first planted larches in this country, being grown in the London 

 nurseries, were probably so raised. In selecting the plants 

 for small plantations, choice is generally made of trees which 

 have stood open and clear of each other in the nursery ; but 

 as it has been shown to the writer's satisfaction, that the best 

 grown specimens fall a prey to disease as well as those less 

 favoured, and even self-sown plants, though standing as single 

 specimens grown free from all artificial manures, fall a prey to 

 disease along with those otherwise raised and planted amongst 

 them. 



Strong and exciting manures are decidedly injurious and 

 objectionable, and ought to be carefully avoided with larch. 

 Diseased seed is also regarded by some as the cause of disease 

 in the trees grown from it. It is maintained that a strong 

 analogy exists between plants and animals, and that the off- 

 spring inherits the constitution of the parent, be it healthy or 

 otherwise. The result of sowing diseased seed appears to the 

 writer to be, either no plant produced, or a small and weakly 

 one. In the latter case, time and attention may restore it to 

 strength and vigour which, if once attained by natural and 

 proper means, there appears no good reason why it should after- 

 wards relapse into a state of degeneracy and disease. If the 

 diseases of plants are hereditary, we may assume that each 

 species of disease will propagate its own kind ; hence, in sowing 

 or planting from seeds taken from trees variously affected, we 



