NOTES ON TREES. 43 
The Larch is, no doubt, our most useful tree for estate pur- 
poses, but in view of the ravages of Larch disease, and the new 
pest with which it is threatened, the Larch saw-fly, it seems 
imprudent to trust to it so much as has been the custom. I 
have seen no signs of this terrible insect so far, but the plague 
‘may soon reach us, and the prospect is alarming. As the Larch 
saw-fly generally commences operations on the tops of the highest 
trees, it seems only too obvious that any human effort short of 
burning whole plantations will probably be powerless to check 
its advance. The remedies suggested by our watchful Board of 
Agriculture, such as gathering the insects from the ground in 
the pupa state, and scraping or burning the surface of the ground, 
certainly seem to me impracticable on a sufficiently large scale 
to be of any use. Birds may help us, but the larva of the Larch 
saw-fly much resembles the destructive gooseberry caterpillar, 
and I have never seen any bird but one feeding on them. That 
one bird was the cuckoo, which I observed some years ago 
regularly frequenting the gooseberry bushes in my garden when 
we had a plague of those saw-fly caterpillars. 
During the past year young Silver Firs have suffered 
severely from a species of Aphis attacking the young shoots and 
leaves. Numbers of young Silvers of all sizes up to 10 or 12 
feet high have been killed, and much larger trees badly dam- 
aged. The remedy for this and other Aphis plagues is the 
importation of lady birds, if a sufficiently hardy species can be 
found somewhere. I believe the fruit growers of California im- 
ported four or five different species from New Zealand with 
- most successful results. 
bcc 
There seems also to be a new disease on the Ash. We 
have long been familiar with a sort of black canker which 
attacks the branches,.and proves fatal in a year or two, but very 
recently numbers of Ash trees have been dying from some 
disease which shows no symptom except the withering and falling 
of the leaves in summer, and a marked brittleness in the wood. 
The twigs of a healthy Ash, are, of course, tough and supple; 
_ those of an affected tree snap like sticks of sealing-wax. 
In conclusion, I should like to recommend the London 
Plane, Platanus orientalis, or more general use for ornamental 
planting, and especially in our own ‘town of Dumfries. It is 
hardy enough to stand our hardest winters, and though it does 
