USES AND VALUE OF WOOD. I 37 



dry oak will be in a blaze beyond the ordinary means 

 of extinction. Larch, however, is heavier to trans- 

 port and elevate, and also much harder to work, 

 than pine ; and as these circumstances are all against 

 the profits of the builder, they probably often prevent 

 the introduction of this most safe and durable timber. 

 The Venetian houses constructed of it show no symp- 

 toms of decay ; and the complete preservation of some 

 of the finest paintings of the great masters of Italy is, 

 in some respects, owing to the panels of larch on 

 which they are executed. 



According to Sang, the superiority of the larch over 

 the Scotch pine is that it brings double the price at 

 least per measurable foot ; that it will arrive at a use- 

 ful timber size in one-half or a third of the time which 

 the pine in general requires ; and above all, that the 

 wood of the larch at forty or fifty years old, if in a 

 suitable soil and climate, is in every respect superior 

 to that of the pine at one hundred years old. 



The bark of the larch is more than half as valuable 

 as that of the oak in tanning, and the tree yields 

 turpentine by incision. The best timber is that which 

 has grown on elevated, cold, and bare soils. 



The larch yields a large proportion of the Venice 

 turpentine of commerce. A hole is bored with an 

 auger into the heart of a stem of not less than a foot 

 in diameter, and at a point about two feet from the 

 ground, and a small pipe is fitted into the hole to 

 convey the slowly flowing turpentine into vessels. 

 Quantities of turpentine are obtained in this manner 



