THE ANNUAL EXCURSION. 521 



after it was introduced, and there were no records of our climate 

 having changed for the worse since the larch was introduced. 



Mr Robertson, Dunrobin, said he had long experience of larch 

 grown from home-saved seed, and also of larch grown from 

 foreign seed, and he was clearly of opinion that the plants from 

 foreign seed were better disease-resisting plants than those grown 

 from home-saved seed. The plants from foreign seed came into 

 leaf pretty early, and were liable to get damaged by spring 

 frosts, but, so far as his experience had gone, he was certainly 

 of opinion that trees from foreign larch seed resisted disease 

 better than those from home-saved seed. The larches planted 

 in the early times of larch growing in Scotland grew well, and 

 were free from disease, and these larches were all grown from 

 foreign seed. The larches planted from forty to sixty years ago 

 were to a great extent grown from home-saved seed, and it was 

 on these larches that they first began to see the blister and the 

 heart-rot. When they came to the larches from ten to thirty 

 years old, they saw still more of the blister and a great deal 

 more of the heart-rot, and a greater proportion of these trees 

 also were grown from home-saved seed. 



Mr Pitcaithley, Scone, said his experience exactly accorded 

 with that of Mr Robertson. The first grown larches were free 

 from disease. The larch was introduced into Perthshire in 1 708, 

 and it was not till 1839 that they had any record of disease 

 having appeared in the Atholl plantations. Before the intro- 

 duction of the disease, the larch grew so well on any soil that 

 many people began to plant it on soil that was not suitable for 

 it. There was a widespread idea that Scots fir grown from 

 Scotch seeds was better than that from seed grown out of the 

 native habitat of the tree. But the thing cuts both ways. Some 

 foresters, in sending to nursexymen for Scots firs, stipulate that 

 the plants must be grown from seed saved in Scotland, which 

 was the native habitat of the Scots fir. It was natural to 

 expect that the Scots fir would be healthier if grown from seed 

 raised in its native habitat, and in the same way the Tyrolese 

 larch seed was grown in the native habitat of the larch, and the 

 larch trees should be healthier if grown from seeds raised in the 

 native habitat of the larch. He held that the Tyrolese larch 

 seed should be called native seed, and that the Scotch saved 

 larch seed should be called foreign seed. 



Mr Crabbe, Glamis, said he once grew 20,000 seedlings off 



