78 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
European larch requires to bring it to perfection.! The timber 
is very similar to that of our larch, and is found so useful in 
Japan for telegraph poles, railway sleepers, ship- and house- 
building, that it is being planted very largely in certain districts, 
especially in the central parts of the main island, and in the 
cultivated parts of the northern island, usually known as Yezo, 
but always called Hokkaido by the Japanese. I have raised 
this tree at home from seed produced in Scotland, England, and 
Japan, and have found the home-grown seed produce the best 
and strongest plants on poor limestone soil. 
Another Japanese larch, Lavix kurilensis, H. Mayr (syn. Larix 
dahurica, Turcz.),? grows in the very cold, foggy, and damp climate 
of the Kurile Islands, and in the island of Saghalien, where it is 
reported to attain a much greater size than in the Kuriles; but 
though this tree has been introduced, it is too little known as yet 
to judge of its fitness for general cultivation here. It certainly 
seems at least as well worth a trial as Larix leptolepis, especially 
in the west and north-west of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. 
None of the other Japanese conifers, except, perhaps, 
Cryptomeria japonica, seems to have any special qualities 
recommending them to Scottish foresters. For though there are 
splendid forests of spruce and fir in Hokkaido which are now 
being largely worked for timber, and though Cupressus obtusa 
and TZhuya dolobrata of the central island are beautiful, 
ornamental trees, producing a large amount of valuable timber 
in Japan, they do not grow fast enough, and they require so 
much better conditions than our European conifers, that they 
cannot be looked upon as useful forest trees in Great Britain. 
With regard to the Cryptomeria, however, I am inclined to 
think that if seed were procured from the north, where I saw 
magnificent forests in the province of Akita, it might well be 
tried as a forest tree in the warmer parts of England and in the 
south-west of Scotland and Ireland. It ripens seed freely here, 
1 See editorial footnote to page 149 of the Zvazsactions, vol. xvili., 1905. 
It is very questionable if the Japanese larch will long continue comparatively 
immune from the insect attacks and fungous diseases to which the common 
larch is subject; and in the event of this comparative immunity (which has 
hitherto obtained) coming to an end, the Japanese species can then have no 
claim whatever to superiority over the European species, as its timber is 
certainly not likely to be so good and durable.—Hon. Ep. 
2 According to Kent (Veitch’s A/Zanual of the Conifere, 2nd ed., p. 391), 
“‘ Dr Regel distinguished three forms of Larzx dahurtca: (1) typica ; (2) prostrata; 
(3) japonica; the last-named probably the Z. £urzlenss of Mayr.” —Hon. Ep, 
a te 
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