34 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



with the pest by merely cutting out the diseased stems, as this 

 would leave too thin a crop on the ground ; here simultaneous 

 under-planting is necessary. But in comparatively healthy young 

 woods, like parts of Cnoc-an-Eiliknaidh, Temple Park and others, 

 it is desirable to check the further progress of the attack by 

 at once removing, during the winter when the spores are inactive, 

 all diseased stems from the least infected areas ; and the 

 enemy's advance may be met thus until the proportion of attacked 

 trees becomes too great for this treatment, when, again, simul- 

 taneous under-planting must be resorted to. Such thinning and 

 under-planting would not, ordinarily, in healthy woods, be done 

 before from the twentieth to the twenty-fifth year of the crop's 

 age; but the progress here made by the disease necessitates 

 application of the treatment at an earlier stage. It would be 

 an advantage if all parts of the diseased thinnings which cannot 

 be utilised could be burnt. In plantations such as the two last- 

 named, where larch occurs either as a . pure crop or as the 

 principal constituent of the stock, it might be worth while, as an 

 experiment, to clear of larch, at intervals of from 200 to 300 yards, 

 strips of ground about 25 feet wide, running in a direction approxi- 

 mately from north to south, and to plant these up with Douglas 

 fir and rapidly-growing species of hardwoods ; this might have 

 some effect in impeding the distribution of the spores. 



The prevalence of larch disease on the estate necessitates con- 

 sideration as to whether the continued planting of larch otherwise 

 than as a disseminated species is justifiable. The temptation to 

 run some risk by growing it in pure crops up to a certain age is 

 considerable, in view of the high prices obtainable for the timber, 

 and of the fact that thinnings, consisting of badly diseased twelve- 

 year-old stems, which were sold as " sheep-net stickings " from Cross 

 Hills in 1897, realised a profit of ,£6, 2s. per acre. But this was 

 an exceptional price; similar produce would not now bring in more 

 than half the amount. There can be little doubt that at present 

 the wisest general rule will be to restrict the raising of larch to 

 localities which are not unfavourable to it, and to limit the number 

 of plants to a small proportion of the stock, evenly distributed 

 among the principal species. Any of these trees which may 

 survive to the end of the rotation will add materially to the value 

 of the final crop, while even if the majority of them should be lost, 

 their disappearance would not seriously impair its density. But 

 experiments in the growing of young larch as a pure crop, and as a 



