2358 



ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 



PART HI. 



2264 



allusion to this, that Caesar, in his Commentaries, speaks of the larch as 

 " robusta larix, igni impenetrabile lignum." Several other wonders relating 

 to the larch, and taken from ancient writers, are mentioned by Evelyn ; 

 one of which is, that the wood is so transparent, " that, in the dark night, 

 when cabins made of the thin boards have lighted candles in them, people 

 who are at a distance out of doors would imagine the whole room to be on 

 fire!" {Hunt. Evel., i. p. 310.) Evelyn also quotes from Witser (a Dutch 

 writer on naval architecture) an account of a ship made of larch wood and 

 cypress, which was found in the Numadian sea, 12 fathoms under water; and 

 which, though it had lain 1400 years submerged, was yet quite hard and 

 sound. In latter times, the wood of the larch appears to have been much 

 used in Venice, both for piles and houses ; and, in some very old mansions 

 in that city, beams of larch have been found of enormous size, and showing 

 no symptoms of decay. 



The larch is mentioned, and very well described, both by Tusser and Gerard ; 

 but the first account we have of larch trees growing in Britain is in Parkinson's 

 Paradisus, in 1629, where he speaks of the tree as "rare, and nursed up but 

 with a few, and those only lovers of variety." Evelyn, in 166 1, mentions a larch 

 tree of " goodly stature, growing at Chelmsford, in Essex ; " but the tree appears 

 to have been still rare in his time. Miller, in the first edition of his Dictio- 

 nary, published in 1731, says, "This tree is now pretty common in English 

 gardens ;" adding that there were then some large trees at Wimbledon, which 

 produced annually a great quantity of cones. In the edition of 1759, he 

 says that " the larch was then very plenty in most of the nurseries in Eng- 

 land ; " and, " of late years," there had been " great numbers of the trees 

 planted ;" adding that those which had been planted in " the worse soil and 

 situations" had " thriven best." In confirmation of this, Mr. Gorrie informs 

 us that, " on the rich and fertile soils on the braes of the Carse of Gowrie, 

 Perthshire, which consist of strong black loams, yielding, with ordinary cul- 

 ture, five (juaricrs of wheat per acre, the larch does not thrive nearly so well as 

 farther north, on both sides of the Tay, where the soil is gravelly, or poor, 

 inert, and somewhat moist sand ; and hence there are no fine larch trees in 

 that fertile district." Harte, in 1764, and again in 1770, in his Essays on Hus- 

 bandry, sjjeaks very highly of the larch, and strongly recommends its cul- 

 ture as a timber tree ; a proof that then plantations were, at least, not common. 

 In the Account of llic Larcli Plantations on the Estates of At hoi and Dunkeld, 

 published in the Transactions of the Highland Society, &c. (vol. xi. p. 169.), it is 

 stated that Cioodwood, the seat of the Duke of Kichmontl, near Chichester, 

 was probably the first place where the larcli was planted as a forest tree, and 

 even there it was only in small numbers. In 1782, a very extensive planta- 

 tion of larch was (ornied at Ilafod. In 1786, we find the Society of Arts 



