CHAPTEE XI. 



MECHANICAL PECULIARITIES— TWISTING 

 PREVENTED. 



It is very wonderful how nature so amply provides 

 for all her requirements, and in nothing is this more 

 obvious than in the whole structure and economy of 

 the larch. Let us look closely into some of those 

 provisions. There is, in the first place, its thorough 

 adaptation to withstand storm, tempest, and hurricane. 

 Its natural habitat is that of the peak, ridge, undulat- 

 ing surfaces, serried and chasmed slopes. On its native 

 Alps it enjoys all these, and along with them free ex- 

 posure to sun, air, and clear atmosphere. Mr. Gregor, in 

 his excellent book on arboriculture, says at page 217: 

 " Although frequently fine specimens of the tree are to 

 be met with on flats of sandy loam, on clayey gravel, 

 and on various other qualities of soil, yet it is on the 

 declivities, along the slopes of ravines, on the shat- 

 tered debris and the disturbed soil of the land-slip 

 and avalanche, that the tree is found to luxuriate in 

 its greatest vigour. On the Alps and Apennines it 

 luxuriates at a great height, and some scattered speci- 

 mens of it are to be met with near to the hicjhest ran^^e 



