428 HEPOET ON LAECH FOKESTS. 



over, and the dead and decaying parts of broken roots very 

 frequently engender the rot or myceleum, which being exactly 

 in contact with the living root, is absorbed into the trunk. 

 Again, trees for want of thinning are reduced to too scanty a 

 supply of foliage, so that after a severe summer frost, when the 

 foliage becomes inoperative, there is a marked difference between 

 the rapid recovery of a tree well furnished with branches and 

 one that is sparingly supplied ; in the former case, the casualty 

 often disappears in a week or two, while in the latter the new 

 foliage is more slow to break out ; and this being the condition 

 of the tree most favourable for the larch aphis {Coccus laricis), 

 this insect prevails, and often destroys not only the growth of a 

 season, but, in the case of trees previously enfeebled by confine- 

 ment, the attack becomes altogether ruinous. 



The difference in the health of larch plantations in Scotland in 

 a favourable year, compared with an unfavourable, is very great. 

 1865 was far better than any of the four preceding years. 

 Casualties will come to many kinds of trees in spite of every pre- 

 caution ; yet precaution can effect much, while cure is seldom or 

 never applicable to the disease of a forest. 



Respecting the produce of our fields, the efforts of the High- 

 land and Agricultural Society have already effected much. "With 

 animals of every kind the greatest care is now taken to have the 

 stock of a pure and unclegenerate order ; care is bestowed also 

 in the pedigree and cultivation of our various agricultural crops, 

 and though only the growth of a season, the vigilance exercised 

 in the propagation of the various strains of excellence has brought 

 numerous kinds to a high state of perfection. The inquiry of the 

 Society into the formation, progress, present condition, and pros- 

 pects of larch forests, cannot fail to be productive of the best 

 results, the importance of which is greatly enhanced by the length 

 of time the crop occupies the ground, therefore no tree is more 

 worthy or stands more in need of investigation. 



Numerous specimens of the tree, fully acclimatised, and of the 

 soundest constitution, are felled for railway sleepers and other 

 purposes every winter, where seeds are commonly readily obtained, 

 and when care is taken in procuring such of worthy extraction, no 

 tree, with the exception of the native Highland pine, is adapted to 

 yield so much to the general wealth of our country. With respect 

 to both, the spirit is needed which animated that patron of plant- 

 ing and prince of English letter-writers, Horace Lord Walpole, 

 when he wrote inviting a friend to Walterton, Norfolk, May 29, 

 ] 745. After giving a description of his residence, he says — " It 

 is encompassed with a most delightful and innocent array of 

 vegetable striplings of my own raising, which are already 

 (though but of twenty years' urowth from the seed) with a 



