DISEASES. 251 



choice of seeds, I am not one of those who attach 

 great importance to it; but it cannot be denied that 

 trees CTOwinsr from seeds taken from diseased trees 

 must be more liable to these same diseases : therefore, 

 you would do well to get your seeds from the Alps. 

 In choosing these seeds, care should be taken to ascer- 

 tain how they have been gathered. They assure me 

 that in the Tyrol they place the cones near the fire 

 to make them open ; consequently they are too much 

 dried, which alters their quality. Those gathered in 

 the Yalais are generally opened by the heat of the sun 

 or over a slow fire, and are considered better. Emma- 

 nuel Thomas, who trades in them at Berg, in the Can- 

 ton de Yaud, sells them at 2 francs 50 centimes the 

 half kilogramme (about 2s. for 3 J pounds, English 

 money and weight), and all our agriculturists praise 

 their quality. If experience has proved to you the 

 superiority of foreign seeds, could you not obtain the 

 importation of them, free of duty, as an article which 

 may be considered of first importance; or at least might 

 not your Agricultural Societies for some time reim- 

 burse the duty (6d. per lb.) to those who should sow 

 the imported seed ? 



" I have forgotten to say that, as a practical advice of 

 M. Thomas, he recommends that the transplantation of 

 larch plants should take place in autumn and not in 

 spring. I do not know what your custom is in this 

 respect, therefore I do not know how far this observa- 

 tion may be useful to you. 



" I think I have answered all your questions, and I 



