420 report ox lurch forests. 



growth, in many districts throughout Scotland, arises from their 

 being too tender; and the display of dead wood they present, with 

 a few young shoots emerging here and there from their stems, is. 

 just the symptom which all other half-hardy plants present when 

 frost-bitten. This casualty frequently occurs in the vicinity of 

 very healthy larch woods standing on the same description of 

 soil, showing that it arises not from disease, but from the want 

 of that hardiness in the one case which is possessed in the 

 other. 



The want of hardiness at the present time is apparent in the 

 Ccdrus Dcodara in a similar manner ; the casualty arrests the 

 tree at the time of its greatest vigour, the top fails, and dead 

 branches appear. The evil is seen with singular uniformity 

 throughout the country. 



Before leaving this subject, T. should have been glad to have 

 been able to support my statements by referring to authors who 

 have written in favour of the necessity of acclimatising or inuring 

 plants to a climate in which they are not indigenous ; but I 

 have only found very few that notice the subject. It appears, 

 however, that Sir Joseph Banks and Dr M'Culloch both ably 

 advocated that doctrine. The late King of the Belgians may 

 also be quoted as a firm believer in the importance of having 

 plants acclimatised.* 



I have frequently heard that, during his tour through Scotland 

 about the year 1817 (then Prince Leopold), his remarks on the 

 larch plantations in the Highlands awakened an interest for the 

 tree among some of the landowners ; and afterwards, in forming 

 a large forest of the tree in Belgium, his Majesty gave special 

 orders to have the plants from the nurseries of Messrs John 

 Grigor & Co., Torres, giving the orders twelve months before re- 

 quiring the plants, each year, during three years, until the forest 

 was completed. These plants, being all the produce of Scotch- 



* Leopold of Belgium, whose loss we lament in this country almost as much 

 as do his own subjects, had a character for shrewdness which the subjoined ex- 

 tract from a pamphlet of our friend Professor E. Morren of Liege, will go towards 

 justifying. Speaking of the progress of horticulture and botany, the good old 

 king remarked on the benefits conferred on the world at large from the alliance 

 of the two branches of science, and expressed his opinion that " we need not pay 

 so much attention to the discovery of plants likely to be useful as food for man, 

 as to those capable of being employed as forage plants. The human race spread 

 throughout the world must be in possession of nearly all the plants profitable as 

 sources of food for man ; but with reference to those indirectly useful there is 

 more scope. Moreover," continued the sagacious monarch, "it is not necessary to 

 ransack the whole world ; China and Japan are the most important countries for 

 us in this particular. In them is to be found a very ancient civilisation and 

 skilful culture, carried on in a climate like our own. It is more advantageous to 

 seek what we want under such circumstances than to begin anew with wild 

 nature. We shall find in those countries plants adapted for cultivation and for 

 our requirements, offering less resistance to our proceedings than those that we 

 procure direct from their native wilds. Centuries are required to acclimatise 

 plants."— Gardener's Chronicle, 18G5, p. 1178. 



