244 THE LARCH. 



More to the same effect, and bearing upon the same 

 fact, follows ; and so impressed was I by this to me 

 new view of the exciting cause of the malady, that I 

 copied the whole passage, and sent it immediately to 

 the Duke of Portland. Two days afterwards I received 

 an answer from His Grace, wherein he shortly ob- 

 serves : ' I am sorry to say that the decay of the 

 larches in Nottinghamshire is not to he accounted for in 

 the manner supposed by Mr. Gorrie ; for there certainly 

 they had not teen 2^receded hy the Scotch firs' 



" Thus then rests the whole case at present. We 

 are baffled in every conjecture." 



M. de Candolle of Geneva, having been written to 

 by the editor of the " Quarterly Journal of Agricul- 

 ture " about 1833, responds as follows, after a few pre- 

 fatory remarks : — " When I wished to answer you, I 

 felt the necessity of gaining information from some 

 friends who inhabit some of the Alpine cantons, where 

 I can see the greater number of larch trees. I have 

 at last received the greater part of those documents, 

 several of which I owe to M. de Charpentier (the 

 illustrious geologist who has so well described the 

 Pyrenees), and to Emmanuel Thomas. Notwith- 

 standing those communications and my own obser- 

 vations, you will perhaps think that your questions 

 are not completely or satisfactorily answered ; but you 

 will at least perceive, from my anxiety to get infor- 

 mation, how much I wished to enter into your \iews. 



" Although I have traversed large forests composed 

 of larches, and in very different situations, yet I have 



