LARCH PLANTATIONS AND THE LARCH DISEASE. 233 



century, it seems difficult to find any certain point of view, because 

 the most competent men hold opposite views on nearly all the 

 elementary questions regarding the Larch and the Larch disease. 

 I begin with the first noteworthy publication, which I remember 

 having read with delight thirty years ago. 



As this publication 1 is rarely mentioned, it seems to me that 

 it is almost forgotten, and considering the value of its contents, 

 which have been approved by practical results during a century, 

 I now appreciate it still more, and I venture to say that it 

 is quite an extraordinary one. Although written more than 

 a hundred years ago, and published in 1832, it has kept its 

 freshness and originality and the stamp of the author. It deals 

 not only with the arboricultural side of the question, but with 

 the politico-economic as well ; for we can learn from it how to 

 turn wide ranges of waste, barren, and uninhabitable land into a 

 productive, healthy country, with an active population. 



John, Duke of AthoU, who succeeded to the title as fourth 

 duke in 1774, must have been a most extraordinary man to 

 engage himself in such a far sighted enterprise. The whole 

 history of Forestry does not reveal a similar case of a large 

 proprietor having taken such an interest in afforestation as did 

 John, Duke of Atholl, with a surprising perseverance, during 

 fifty years from 1774. His Parliamentary and other representa- 

 tive duties, entailed on him by his high social position, very likely 

 made it necessary for him to reside a great part of the year in 

 London, while the scene of his planting operations was about five 

 hundred miles off — a distance which, one hundred and twenty-five 

 years ago, took much more time to cover by stage-coach than 

 it does nowadays in the " Flying Scotchman." We may imagine, 

 therefore, that the Duke had many public duties to. perform ; but 

 on reading his day-books they give the impression that he was an 

 enthusiastic forester, whose lifelong problem had been : planting 

 the Larch, and treating every question concerning the Larch. 



We do not find in those times many men of highest rank who 

 began to plant the bare mountain ranges with forests, and took 

 part in introducing a new species into our forests of indigenous 

 trees, after having been convinced ' ' that the results of experience 



^ Account of the Larch Plantations on the Estates of Atholl and DunTceld, 

 by the late John, Duke of Atholl. Drawn up from papers and documents 

 communicated by his Grace's Trustees to the Highland Society of Scotland, 

 1832. William Blackwood, Edinburgh. 



VOL, XVII. PART II. Q 



