38 THE LARCH. 



the spade, he knows which are suitable and which are 

 not. 



The north of Scotland is better adapted to grow 

 larch than the south; the reverse is the case with 

 regard to England, the south being better than the 

 north, owing to the soil being drier, and less moisture 

 in the atmosphere. 



The essentials of soils calculated to produce health, 

 rapid and vigorous growth, and sustain trees till seventy 

 or eighty years old, are briefly these : — soil dry, free, 

 and open, to a depth of two feet; virgin soil, or soil 

 rather poor (not exhausted by cropping) ; situation 

 elevated, or freely exposed to evaporation, but pro- 

 tected from cutting winds while in foliage, and above 

 the frost line. 



In planting trees the future circumstances of clearing 

 them off the ground when ripe as a crop are too seldom 

 considered. It is well known that trees are sometimes 

 grown in a place which it is next to impossible to 

 take them out of, and the labour of doing so would 

 consume the profit. Of all species of forest trees there 

 are none so easily cleared as the larch, therefore it may 

 be planted where no others should be. Larch, when 

 cut and peeled, becomes very light, and when cut into 

 short lengths, as for fencing posts, gate posts, mining 

 props, or railway sleepers, implements, &c., it can be 

 floated down ravines and valleys, with comparatively 

 little water, which is usually present in the winter 

 season in such valleys. Or where it cannot be so 

 floated, it can, by means of block and tackle, be taken 



