REPORT OF THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE OF EXPERIMENTAL FORESTRY. 
The Larch and its Importance in Swedish Forest Economy. 
By GUNNAR SCHOTTE. 
(Swedish text, page 539—840). 
This treatise aims in the first place at giving an account of the results so far 
attained in the cultivation of different kinds of larches in Sweden. As material 
for this purpose there has been principally used sixty-six experimental plots, 
in mixed or pure larch-stands, belonging to the Swedish State Institute of 
Experimental Forestry. But in addition to this there has been worked out 
a more monograph-like survey of the forest qualities of the larch from older 
and recent literature, Swedish as well as foreign. The Swedish literature 
has been perused and cited almost in its entirety. Of the foreign literature 
the author has principally made use of German and English books, because 
the larch has been previously discussed in those languages in a large number 
of treatises, though they too lack a complete monograph on the larch. — 
A special table of contents is given on page 530. 
Chap. I. Introduction. 
The Swedish forests are extremely poor in species. While the coniferous 
forests in Sweden are represented by only two kinds of trees that form woods 
to any great extent, pine and spruce, there are in similar climatic regions 
in the eastern portions of the Old World, in addition to these or to forms 
which correspond to them, larch, silver fir, and arolla pine. And regions in 
sAAmerica and Japan which are comparable with Swedish forests can show a 
great number of species of valuable coniferous trees. 
Excellent though the pine and spruce are in Sweden, it can nevertheless 
not be denied that the poorness of the Swedish forests in species has to 
some extent a bad effect on their power of regeneration and production. 
This to some extent unfavourable circumstance has led to the idea of intro- 
ducing foreign kinds of trees in Sweden. Neither the climate nor the soil 
need raise any direct obstacle in the way of this. The fact is, that it is 
chiefly the peculiar circumstances in the immigration of Swedish trees into 
the country, and the isolated position of the country, that are the main 
reasons why the Swedish forests are so poor in species. 
CARL VON ÅINNÉ urged the introduction of foreign trees as long ago as 
1754 in his treatise »Tankar om nyttiga växters planterande på de lappska 
fjällen» (122). [>Reflections on the planting of useful trees on the Lapland fells».] 
During the latter part of the eighteenth century — about 150 years ago — 
there were made the first attempts on a large scale to introduce foreign 
trees, especially the larch, into the west of Sweden. During the nineteenth 
century the larch was introduced in more and more places, especially in 
Bergslagen, and the commoh silver fir came to be used in several places. 
