458 REPORT ON TREES XOT LIABLE TO BE DESTROYED BY RABBITS. 



tips of the leaves of the lately planted Laricio, stumping back 

 their points, but without at all damaging the health of the plant, 

 which, notwithstanding, made a leading shoot that season of 

 about 2 inches, quite as much as could be expected after being 

 transplanted that year. In January 1867, Lord Ducie reports, 

 that " although the leaves are somewhat cropped, the plant is 

 substantially sound, and promises a strong growth this year." 

 Lord Leicester has also demonstrated this innate repellent quality 

 of the Laricio at Holkham ; and Mr Gorrie there recommends it 

 highly, unless in any locality where vermin swarm so thickly as 

 to have difficulty in getting an ample food supply from natural 

 sources near their burrows, and he considers it very likely to 

 stand uninjured until almost every other tree has fallen a prey 

 to their destructive attacks. In the extensive and varied pine- 

 tum of Durris (Aberdeenshire), Mr Gordon informs us that he is 

 at a loss to know what description of young trees hares and 

 rabbits will not eat when hard pressed for food, and starved 

 during a snow-storm, and that, under such circumstances, the 

 Laricio is not safe, although it is the last tree they seem to care 

 to touch. In other localities we have been told that this valu- 

 able property alleged to be possessed by the Laricio is erroneous, 

 and that in some quarters it is quite as much eaten as the Finns 

 austriaca, or any other pine ; but this, we think, is a mistake, 

 and has arisen from the fact, that some years ago, when the 

 demands for plants of Pinus Laricio was very great, after the 

 larch disease became so generally prevalent, many thousands of 

 young plants were imported and sent out as Laricio, which were 

 not the true variety, but of a description more allied to the Pinus 

 pyrcnaica ; for we have not yet found, after trial, that the true 

 Pinus Laricio is at all palatable either to hares or rabbits. 



Unless very hard pressed for food, we have found that the 

 common spruce, about one foot in height, resists their attacks 

 very well, and is one of the very safest pines to plant where 

 hares and rabbits abound ; and we know instances where parts 

 of a plantation have been got up by use of this tree, when the 

 forester had been baffled with everything else. 



Among the lists of newer coniferse, whose flavour and fibre 

 seem most distasteful to these vermin, we may name the Sequoia 

 scnupcrvircns, W ellingtonia gigantca, Ceclrus atlantica, Thuja 

 gigantea. and Thujopsis borealis, and, indeed, many of the Picea 

 family, the Juniperus tribe, and many of the Cupressus. They 

 seem to resort more to the Pinus species, and eat out the young 

 buds from the lateral branches within their reach. Of the young 

 tender buds of the Pinus Pinsajjo, and especially of its terminal 

 shoots, they are particularly fond ; and as an instance of their 

 partiality for the larch, we may remark that in January 1867, at 

 Ilarewood, near Leeds, ten acres of cover were planted with a 



