THE LARCH AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN SWEDISH FOREST ECONOMY. LXIII 
tioned in Chap. III B., the Scottish race derives from some few trees, or per- 
haps from some few successful experimental woods. 
This race, however, seems not to have been sufficiently studied in Scotland. 
Of its purely forestal characteristics have been there is very little information, 
and opinions vary greatly as to its value. The few existing statements about 
it are summarized on pp. 607—9608. 
As regards larch-plantations in Sweden, it became clear to the present 
writer, while engaged in laying out experimental areas, that our larch-woods 
belonged to different races. It became important, therefore, to search through 
our older literature of forestry and agriculture for information as to the origin 
of the better known larch-woods. As appears from the historical account given 
in Chap. III B., this attempt succeeded beyond expectation. Thus it has been 
possible to show that all the older larch-woods in Sweden derive from Scot- 
land. Experience shows that older larch-woods — especially those born before 
the middle of the nineteenth century are distinguished by many good qualities; 
while younger larch-woods often have ill-formed stem and scrubby crowns. This 
has also been confirmed by investigations, This makes it clear that the plants 
obtained from Scotland in particular belong to a race especially conspicuous 
through the forestal characteristics of the trees. The woods whose Scottish 
origin was known for certain were then compared with other stands of worse 
appearance which had usually been raised by German foresters who had im- 
migrated into Sweden. In the course of this investigation it proved, as MATTS- 
SON (r34) has developed in detail in a later article, that the Scottish larches, 
are especially distinguished by a strikingly thin bark. Thus, for instances, it 
appeared that the average bark-percentage breast-high on 15 cm. stems for 
Scottish wood amounted to 12 &, while the Tyrolean larch had 14.6 &. This 
means a bark about 9 mm. thick in the Scottish race, as compared with 11 
mm. in the Tyrolean laren: 
In some few cases, where the origin of the larch could not be directly dis- 
covered, the thickness of the bark and the age of the wood (woods over 50 
—60 years of age are Scottish, as a rule) have been allowed to determine to 
which race it should be referred. In such cases, however, the provenience 
has been marked in the tables with a query. 
In the valuation of the experimental plots it was obvious that the Scottish 
race is also distinguished by a high percentage of straight stems, while the 
Tyrolean larch is -often very crooked. In order to show this by figures a 
summary has been made in Table 6, showing the distribution of the tree- 
classes in the different plots. ”? 
! See GUNNAR SCHOTTE, Orm gallringsförsök [>On Experiments in Thinnings] in 
»Rapports of the State Institute of Experimental Forestry», Part 9; Skogsvårdföreningens 
Tidskrift 1912. 
In this work on the sample plots the present writer distinguishes not only between four 
different tree-strata set out in accordance with the height of the trees in the wood itself, 
but also between certain tree-classes arranged according to the nature of the crowns and ot 
the stem. In this way the trees receive a special denotation in stem-number-list, with the 
exception of the ”well-formed trees”, on whose stems and crowns there is no remark to make. 
Apart from these the different denotations bear the following meaning: 
a. Side-pressed trees, i. e. with the crowns pressed from one side and thus fully formed 
only on one half of the circumference; 
b. Rankly growing trees with rather large boughs (trees of a better "wolf-type”); 
