SOME JAPANESE AND NORTH AMERICAN TREES. 77 
endeavour to make clear how greatly the soil and climate 
differ from those of Great Britain, and how few trees there 
are in Japan from which we can expect good economic results 
here. The Japanese larch, so highly esteemed in Britain on 
account of its rapid growth up to 30 to 40 years and its apparent 
resistance to disease, grows in the mountains of Central Japan, 
though only on volcanic soil, so far as I saw. It sometimes 
grows in pure or nearly pure woods, but is often scattered in 
mixed woods of deciduous and coniferous trees, and it attains its 
best development at an elevation of 4000 to 6000 feet. From 
May to October the climate is there warmer and moister than in 
any part of Great Britain,! while the winter is long, cold, and 
dry; hence the tree is not exposed during its growing-season to 
the frequent changes which it must endure here, and it gets a 
longer and more complete rest in winter. Notwithstanding 
these very favourable conditions, it never attains the height or 
gitth of the European or the Siberian larch, or of the western 
larch of North America, a much finer tree from every point of 
view, except as to rapidity of growth. The largest trees I saw 
did not exceed 80 feet in height and 12 feet in girth, when 
growing amongst deciduous trees; and in pure forest 5 to 6 feet 
in girth was about the average size of the full-grown tree under 
the best conditions. I do not think it is nearly such a long- 
lived tree as the common larch, and though it does not in Japan 
usually have such a wide-branching habit as it assumes in this 
country, I should look on it as a forest tree inferior to our 
larch in every point except its power of resisting disease, and 
only likely to attain considerable size on better land than the 
1 Mr Elwes seems to be under some misconception as to the relative 
degree of moistness of the climate of the United Kingdom (see also the 
Transactions, vol. xviii., 1905, p. 145). The climate throughout the United 
Kingdom is certainly moist rather than dry; and the maximum rainfall 
recorded for Europe is said to be the 244 inches measured during 1872 at the 
Styhead Pass (1077 feet in elevation) in Cumberland. The whole of the west 
of Scotland, as well as the west of Ireland, possesses a very damp climate; 
and it is, doubtless, deficiency in summer warmth and in intensity of sunlight, 
far more than want of humidity, which must be the main regulating factor 
to which Mr Elwes here refers. In support of this statement, one need only 
quote what was said by Admiral Sir W. J. L. Wharton, F.R.S., in his address 
as President of Section E, Geography, at the meeting of the British Association 
(in Cape Town) on 16th August 1905: ‘‘ Zake the United Kingdom, notoriously 
warm and damp for its position in latitude ; this 7s mainly due to the 
prevalence of westerly winds.” —Hon. ED. 
