20 THE LAECH. 



Yarious and somewhat conflicting accounts are given 

 by many authors as to the introduction and early mode 

 of culture of the larch. Parkinson, in his " Paradisus," 

 notices the larch to be a rare tree, and nursed up with 

 but few, and those only lovers of variety ; and Miller, 

 in his "Dictionary," published in 1759, states that 

 the larch had become plentiful and common in most 

 of the English nurseries, and that of late years great 

 numbers of the tree have been planted, adding that 

 those that had been planted in the worst soil and 

 situation had thriven best. 



From this period the nature of the tree became 

 better known ; and as none of the fir tribe, after 

 having begun to yield cones, seeds more abundantly 

 than the larch, the trees spread rapidly. From the 

 accounts we have of the introduction of the larch into 

 Scotland, some state that it was first planted in 1725 

 at Dalwick in Tweeddale, and several years afterwards 

 at Dunkeld, Menzie, and Blair, but the dates of the 

 various reports do not exactly correspond. A report 

 on the agriculture of Angus or Forfarshire, by the Eev. 

 James Headrick, published in 1 8 1 3, says : " I saw 

 three larch trees of extraordinary size and age in the 

 garden near the mansion-house of Lockhart of Lee, on 

 the northern banks of the Clyde, a few miles below 

 Lanark. The stems and branches were so much 

 covered with lichens that they hardly exhibited any 

 sif^ns of life or vesfetation. The account I had of 

 them was that they had been brought there by the 

 celebrated Lockhart of Lee, who had been ambassador 



