NOTES AND QUERIES. 323 



for the country. It is in the power of the Royal Scottish 

 Arboricultural Society to make a strong and ui'gent appeal to 

 Parliament to have the restrictive duties removed. 



D. F. Mackenzie, 



Mortonhall. 



The Tap-Root of the Larch. 



The above heading may appear an unnecessary one to many of 

 your readers whose properties or charges lie in sheltered places. 

 To me, unfortunately, it is a very serious question, as I am anxious 

 to plant larch, and my property is exposed to all the winds that 

 blow. Unless I can get my trees to send down their tap-roots, I 

 shall have to give up the idea of planting larch on the more ex- 

 posed places, and content myself with planting in its place trees 

 that will send their roots down, and so resist the wind and not 

 be blown down, My experience as a forest-tree planter in this 

 country is comparatively limited, and I therefore write to your 

 paper in the hope that some of your readers may be able to assist 

 me from their practical experience. 



I notice that the larch seedling in the nursery bed in good free 

 soil has a distinct and straight tap-root. On the other hand, the 

 mature larch tree, when blown down, shows no tap-root, or rather 

 its tap-root has turned into a lateral root, and runs along a few 

 inches under the ground. What is the cause of this 1 Is it caused 

 by bad planting, or from the subsoil being too hard or cold for the 

 tap-root to penetrate. 



No doubt many of your readers will be able to state whether 

 they have found the tap-roots of mature larch, growing in free 

 soil with good subsoil draining, descending several feet ; also 

 whether they have ever seen a mature larch tree with a tap-root 

 of that description blown down 1 If, under suitable circumstances, 

 the mature tree has a deep tap-root, and if trees of that sort are 

 seldom found blown down, I think we may assume that by 

 getting the larch to send its tap-root down, we may avoid the 

 loss and disappointment of the wholesale sweeping over of trees 

 by our winter gales. The question is, how is this to be done 1 



If the reason for the tap-root refusing to descend is the coldness 

 of the subsoil, then I conclude the remedy is deep and close 

 draining, to do which effectively is a costly business. If, on the 



