132 THE LAP.CH. 



has no rival, and by a recent Act of Parliament it can 

 now be used for herring barrels, a purpose for which it 

 was formerly excluded, as it is found in practice that 

 larch wood retains the brine equally as well as birch, 

 sycamore, alder, and those kinds of hardwood hitherto 

 usually employed for that purpose. 



It is also used for sleepers for cellar floors, lintels, 

 pillars for supporting sheds, and indeed for any part of 

 a building, if it be at all well grown and thoroughly 

 matured. 



The skin or covering of herring and other boats, fths 

 thick, is now almost invariably made of larch. 



It is said that in Switzerland the houses are covered 

 with boards one foot square, and the resin it emits 

 fills the joints, cracks, and crevices. It is white 

 when put on, but in a few years turns black and 

 shining. 



The larch is useful for some purpose or other at 

 almost all stages of growth, every size of tree, and 

 every part of it — the bark for tanning, the branches for 

 wattle fencing, while the juices yield the turpentine of 

 commerce. It also yields a gum known in Eussia as 

 the gum of Orenburg, containing properties similar to 

 that of gum-arabic, and is used by the Eussians as 

 an article of food. The leaves of the larch and young 

 shoots exude a substance called manna, which is sold 

 in the shops of France as Manne de Briangon. It forms 

 in small white concrete drops, and is gathered in the 

 morning before it can be dissipated by the sun's rays, 

 has a sweet taste, somewhat similar to that of new 



