234 TRAXSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in Scotland accord exactly with the expectations of reason " ; and 

 we find very few who had the courage to invest a very large 

 capital in such an undertaking — a rare thing even in present 

 times. 



The Larch had been introduced from the Tyrol into the Atholl 

 forests by Dake James in 1738. Before his death in 1764 he 

 had the wood examined, and even in this rather young state the 

 result proved very satisfactory, for the wood of the then only 

 twenty years old trees was found to be much sviperior in quality 

 to the wood of all the indigenous coniferous trees of the same age ; 

 so his heir continued the trials, and planted till his death in 1774 

 about 11,000 Larches. 



The "plantin' Duke" followed in 1774. He saw the great 

 advantages of planting the Larch, coming as it did from the 

 continental Alps, and having the peculiar property of thriving 

 in the most elevated positions, and at the same time of producing 

 most excellent timber on inferior soils. " Immense extents of 

 mountain ranges may thus be applied to useful purposes, which 

 otherwise would have been quite unavailable," says the Duke; 

 and he continues, " Scots Fir thrives at an elevation below 900 

 feet, but the Larch ascends to 1600 feet above the sea, and it 

 may ascend higher. This is an important fact in a national point 

 of view. Much of that mountain land of Great Britain which is 

 at present worthless may grow timber to supply her navy and 

 merchant shipping without at all interfering with the land which 

 produces her cereal crops, or even her fine pasture land in a lower 

 situation." I think these few words of the Duke explain the 

 whole Larch question. It is very strange that we find the Larches 

 at Dunkeld often mentioned, but scarcely ever anything about the 

 Duke's experiences as recorded in his day-book. If we had taken 

 advantage of these experiences there would have been no Larch 

 question, as nearly all our difficulties are the natural consequence 

 of ill-treatment of this noble tree with alpine nature ; and, as the 

 Duke says, "the failure must be ascribed, not to the nature of the 

 materials, but to the misapplication of the tests employed." 



When Duke John succeeded his father in 1774 he began with 

 completing the plantation of 225 acres which his father had left 

 unfinished. It took some years to do this, owiag to the difficulty 

 of obtaining larch plants. They were dear at that time, costing 

 6d. a piece, but the price went down to 35s. per thousand as more 

 plants were raised. The demand increased as planting Larch 



