EARLY MODES OF CULTURE. 25 



to the soil, &c., in which it is favourably or unfavour- 

 ably planted. The writer is prepared to point out 

 trees of every shade of colour of flower in a sound and 

 healthy condition, and also to show every variety in 

 various stashes of disease. 



There is certainly some difference between trees 

 whose seed is direct from Tyrol and that of home- 

 grown larch, in their first and early stages of 

 GROWTH. The difference, at least in the nursery 

 ground, especially in the seed-bed, is at times quite 

 obvious, and in other cases it is scarcely distinguish- 

 able. 



When home-grown seed is plump and well-grown, 

 and that from Tyrol of inferior quality, as sometimes 

 happens, and the two sorts are sown side by side by 

 way of experiment, and in order to compare the two 

 sorts together, the difference is so small as scarcely to 

 be distinguishable; while in other cases where similar 

 trials have been made, and the seed happens to be 

 of opposite extremes of quality, the difference is so 

 obvious as to produce an honest impression that the 

 varieties of larch are different. Good sound Tyrolese 

 seed produces plants several days earlier than Swiss 

 or Scotch seed, and the plants are admittedly more 

 tender for some years. "When the plants grow older, 

 the marks of distinction become fainter, till at last 

 they quite disappear; and though a good deal is 

 said about the superiority of the Tyrolese seedlings, 

 nothing is heard of the older trees, nor can they be 

 pointed out in the mixed forest. 



