]88G.] MISCELLANEOUS. 059 



person stated that immense quantities of European larches were 

 grown from seeds collected from his own trees. I followed the 

 matter up very closely, and found that the seeds were imported like 

 our own. Mr. Meehen, of the Gardeners Montlilij, inspected the 

 cones from tlie Bartram specimen in Philadelphia, over 100 years 

 old, and the oldest tree of the kind in America, Itut never found a 

 perfect seed. 



" Several years later I examined Mr. Eay's larch plantation on 

 Cape Cod, and his brother's plantation at Lynn. On the latter, the 

 second time I examined it, I did find two larch seedlings. Being 

 in company with good Dr. Warder, I called his attention to them 

 as in my opinion quite a remarkable find. Last August, while 

 examining a plantation of foreign trees at Hanover, X. H., that had 

 been presented to the college there some years ago, I found a 

 large number of European larch trees as fine as I ever saw of 

 their age. In the coolest part of this plantation, standing on two 

 steep hill-sides and the narrow valley between, I saw a large num- 

 ber of larch seedlings. This fact established that which previously 

 had been only theory to me. These larches stood in a cold, exposed 

 situation, farther north than I had ever found larch trees of bearing 

 age. But even here, judging from the ages of the seedlings, it is 

 only now and then a year that European larches in this country 

 will produce perfect seeds. The larches we sent to Minnesota 

 planted by Leonard Hodges along the railroad between St. Paul and 

 Duluth, I think should be now or very soon producing perfect seed. 

 Give the European larch a cool, moist climate, and it will, I think, 

 prove itself to be of more value than any other imported forest tree." 



Clearing Forests in the Pyrenees. — The desolation of mountain 

 regions by the clearing of forests is strikingly illustrated in the 

 Pyrenees. Formerly the plains were cultivated, and inundations 

 were much less frequent and less destructive than nowadays. As 

 roads came to be opened, the profit from sheep and cattle became 

 greater, and the clearing of forests was begun to make room for 

 pasturage, and to some extent for timber, until by degrees the slopes 

 of the mountains were denuded, and the rains, having nothing to 

 hinder, began to form eroding torrents, the south slopes suffering 

 most, because first cleared and directly exposed to the sun's heat. 

 The extremes of flood and drought became excessive, and extensive 

 tracts have been ruined for present occupation from this source. 



Extensive preparations are being made by the lumber firms of 

 Ottawa, Canada, for operations on a large scale during the present 

 winter. Great satisfaction is expressed at the proposition contained 

 in President Cleveland's message to remove the import duty on 

 lumber. 



