1 66 TRANSACTIOxVS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY 



hollow, fairly well sheltered. It was soiled where necessary at 

 considerable expense, and planted, chiefly with Japanese larch, 

 European larch, Scots pine, Douglas, Norway, and a few Sitka 

 spruces ; the spruces being chiefly in the damper spots. 



After six years the result is interesting. All the Douglas 

 firs are dead or dying, the Sitkas are not conspicuous, and the 

 common spruces not very large, but larger than the Sitkas. The 

 Japanese larches are all in splendid form, and on the dry knoll 

 the common larch and Scots pines are doing well, but are not equal 

 in quality to the Lan'x leptolepis. The trees were all carefully 

 planted in pits in regular lines and exactly 3|- feet apart, the 

 spruces and Douglas firs in one line and the L. leptolepis in the 

 next. The larches are 6 to 8 feet high, with a growth of i foot 

 to 1 8 inches, while the spruces are not much more than a foot 

 or two high altogether. 



This plantation is nearly a mile from the clump (C) in which 

 the larch disease is so rampant, and my idea in planting so 

 many of the Japanese species, was to test this tree on a gravelly 

 soil under good conditions which do not exist at the higher 

 level, where the soil is stiff and wet. The gravelly land, 

 although fairly moist at places, is devoid of clay and therefore 

 does not seem to suit the Sitka fir. 



These observations may perhaps appear to the professional 

 forester, with large resources at his back, trivial and premature, 

 as all my recent planting operations are on small areas, and 

 do not extend beyond the last ten years ; and it is possible that a 

 very diff"erent story may have to be told after another decade has 

 passed. The Sitka spruce and Japanese larch may thrive quite 

 well at first in this country, but, like precocious children, they 

 may live to disappoint the hopes of their early years. I have, 

 moreover, no experience of the quality of the timber these trees 

 will produce ; but this is certain, that the Sitka spruce develops 

 an exceedingly strong, tough stem with a good, red heart at an 

 early age, and although it grows so fast, it is, in its youth at 

 least, a far stronger tree in a gale than either the common 

 spruce or the Japanese larch. To succeed in living well when 

 other trees will not live at all must in itself be an excellent 

 testimonial to the hardiness of its constitution, if not to the 

 quality of its timber, and a tree that adapts itself so well to our 

 climate and soil from its very babyhood, is surely a desirable 

 immigrant whose acquaintance is worthy of further cultivation. 



