420 Observations on Larch. 
The small larch I have used were thinned out of plantations 
for upright paling, rails and hurdles. ‘Those fit for sawing, were 
sawn through the middle; the smaller used round, with the bark 
on. I have found young larch, So used, more durable than oak 
copse wood of twenty-four years’ growth. 
1795.—The larger aud older larch which I have cut, have been 
used for a variety of purposes. Boats built of it have been found 
sound, when the ribs, made of oak forty years old, were decayed. 
T have for years built all my ferry and fishing-boats of larch. 
In mill-work, and especially in mill-axles (where oak only used 
formerly to be employed), larch has been substituted with the 
best effect. 
1806.—Last winter, in cutting up an old decayed mill-wheel, 
those parts of the water-cogs, &c. which had been repaired with 
larch about twenty years before, though black on the surface, on 
the hatchet being applied, were found as sound and fresh as when 
put up. * 
There is not a sufficient quantity of larch of fit growth, to bring 
that wood into general use for country purposes; but such as has 
been cut and sold, has brought two shillings per foot, in some 
instances more. About the year 1800 I received twelve guineas 
for a single larch-tree of fifty years’ growth. I was at the same 
time offered twenty pounds for another larch, which I declined 
cutting. The tree sold had eighty-nine solid square feet of wood ; 
and the purchaser cut two if not three axles for mills out of it. 
1806.—Last year I cut out twenty larch-trees from a clump 
where they stood too thick. J left the finest trees standing, and 
received one hundred guineas for the twenty trees taken out, be- 
ing at the rate of two shillings per foot. ‘The largest of the 
twenty trees measured one hundred and five feet in length, five 
feet eleven inches in girth at four feet from the ground, and con- 
tained ninety-four square feet of timber. One tree measured one 
hundred and six feet ; two, one hundred and seven ; and one, one 
hundred and nine feet in length; but, being drawn up by stand- 
ing too close, did not contain so much solid wood as the first. 
It is not in the quality only of the wood that I consider the 
larch a great acquisition ; hut in the nature of the ground, where 
it will not only grow luxuriantly, but I am persuaded will arrive 
at a size fit for any purpose to which wood can be applied. 
The lower range of the Grampian Hills, which extend to Dun- 
keld, are in altitude from one thousand to seventeen hundred 
feet above the level of the sea; a range of mountains to the 
height of twelve hundred is now in the course of being planted. 
They are in general barren and rocky, composed of mountain 
schist slate andiron stone. Up tothe height of twelve hundred 
feet, larch are planted, and grow luxuriantly, where the Scotch 
fir, 
