232 THE LAECH. 



frost occur ; at that stage it may prove fatal to it. 

 On the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December i860, 

 when most forest trees suffered, and millions were 

 killed, the larch suffered nothing ; and that is believed 

 to be as thorough a test as any that could be adduced 

 on the subject, for the frost then was more intense than 

 it ever was known in the memory of the oldest living 

 person. Mr. E. J. Lowe, writing to the " Times " from 

 his observatory at Beeston, near Nottingham, says : 

 " This morning the temperature at four feet above the 

 ground was 8° below zero, and on the grass 13.8° 

 below zero, or 45.8° of frost." In the year 1234 a 

 whole pine forest was killed at Eavenna in Italy, but 

 it is thought no larches were in it. A young larch 

 plantation, eight years old, situated in a glen upon the 

 Marquis of Lothian's estate near Jedburgh, suffered 

 much from a frost which occurred in April 1859. 

 The trees in the bottom of the glen, wliich was rather 

 wet, were nearly all killed, and those which escaped 

 were all less or more injured, while tho»e on the tops 

 of the banks on either side, at about 60 to 80 feet 

 higher altitude, escaped without harm. Experience 

 has proved that it is much safer to plant Norway 

 spruce or AMes Douglasii in damp, low-lying districts 

 liable to late spring frosts, than larch. In the summer 

 of 1868 a severe easterly wind prevailed in the North 

 of Scotland between the i 5th and 20th of May, which 

 left the larch, where exposed to the north-east or east, 

 quite red, and in some cases the trees upon the margins 

 of the plantations had their branches and tops killed, 



