DISEASES. 243 



also see that they are very much benefited by the good 

 preparation and improvement of the soil previously to 

 their being planted. I am quite at a loss to reconcile 

 facts apparently so discordant. I should not think 

 that anything but an examination of the soil on a great 

 scale, and in many places, can possibly detect the causes 

 of the mischief.' 



" Shortly after I received this letter, I met with a 

 passage in the ' Gardener's Magazine ' directly appli- 

 cable to the subject under consideration. It is to be 

 found in vol. vii. p. 374 of that work, and is from 

 the ]3en of an able correspondent, Mr. Archibald 

 Gorrie, bearing date February loth, 183 1. After 

 stating that the larch has been found to decay, and 

 also to remain unaffected by disease in almost every 

 species of soil and subsoil, Mr. Gorrie observes : 

 — ' This being the case, we are led to suppose that 

 the rot in the larch takes its rise from something- 

 accidental, rather than from any natural property in 

 the soil.' The practice of planting larches after 

 Scotch pines has, he considers, led to fatal results. 

 He ' has recently discovered, in numerous instances, 

 that where this has taken place, the rot uniformly 

 commences in fearfully numerous individual instances! 

 The disease takes place in seven or eight years after 

 planting ; ' while plantations of the same kind on 

 the same estate, planted at the same period, and in 

 every respect similarly circumstanced as the other, 

 loitli the imioortant exception that they did not follow 

 the Scotch pine, continue entirely free from the rot.' 



