Conifers 



In British Columbia these huge trees grow within a 

 few feet of one another on a soil which is only a few 

 inches deep, and generally only porous gravel of glacial 

 origin. The climate is cool, with a long vegetation 

 period and a rainfall of about 70 inches. There is much 

 in what one hears of the forests in British Columbia 

 which tends to make planters in Scotland exceedingly 

 envious. 



The only one of these trees which has been tried in 

 this country on a considerable scale is the Douglas fir, 

 and this has been a great success. 



Larch has been hitherto the main stand-by of British 

 forestry, but doubts are nowbeing expressed as to whether 

 after all this is the best tree for our insular climate. 



Buhler and Kirchner consider that the larch requires 

 plenty of sunshine. In Europe it only grows naturally 

 on a rather narrow strip of country which runs from 

 Dauphine (France) by the Vorarlberg and Salzburg Alps 

 to the Highlands of Poland, where it bends south to- 

 wards the Carpathians. Throughout this natural larch 

 country there is at least 1750 hours of sunshine in the 

 year. 



No part of Britain is so fortunate in its sunshine as 

 to possess more than 1700 hours, and where larch is 

 grown on a large scale, as in the Highlands and Western 

 Scotland, there is probably only 1400 hours of sun, or 

 far less than this amount. 



On the other hand, the climate of British Columbia 

 seems to be very like that of the Highlands of Scotland 

 and part of Wales and Cumberland. 



Still the well-known and valuable larch often does 

 extremely well on sunny steep-sided slopes even in this 

 country, and if this is so no one would suggest trying 

 any other tree instead of it. 



It is now thought that the ravages of the larch disease 



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