42 THE LARCH. 



cambium begins to form, it is exceedingly liable to 

 injury either from frost, cold, wet, or even a hard 

 wind. At this stage of growth many withered branches 

 are seen to make their appearance, and to many they 

 are quite unaccountable, hard winds or frost not being 

 suspected. April and May I have long regarded as 

 the most critical season for the larch, and next to it 

 August and September. If the two latter months are 

 cold and wet, or the other extreme, dry and hot, the 

 young wood is not ripened nor the alburnum properly 

 matured ; hence the unfavourable results which mani- 

 fest themselves in the succeeding spring, and which often 

 alarm and panic-strike those who do not know the 

 cause. The difference of hardiness of the many varieties 

 also renders the different results very perplexing. It 

 sometimes happens that one tree will manifest a special 

 form of disease, from which all the surrounding ones are 

 exempt — such as blister, Coccus Laricis, &c. — and no 

 one be able to assign the cause, which not unfrequently 

 is a nip of frost or damp low temperature, at the very 

 time the tree was most tender and unable to bear it ; 

 whereas, had the tree either been a few days later or 

 earlier in foliating, no such disaster would have occurred. 

 In any plant bed, nursery line, young or old planta- 

 tion, the same distinctions of variety are to be seen ; 

 but as this is fully dwelt upon under another heading, 

 nothing need be further said here. 



In regard to the planting of larch as a successive 

 crop after its own kind, Scotch pine, or other coniferae, 

 there are different and conflicting opinions ; but it is 



