THE NEW FORESTRY. 205 



long, as many as ten blisters, most of them well developed, 

 might be seen. In another and opposite case, in the north 

 of Yorkshire, in a plantation about the same age as the above, 

 and in a valley beside a stream, the disease had begun in good 

 time but had not made nearly so much progress as in the 

 Norfolk plantation. Such puzzling examples are common. 

 What struck one in the Norfolk case, moreover, was the enor- 

 mous number of bark wounds which the trees must have 

 received if, as experts say, the larch fungus can enter at a 

 wound only. Hartig says that slow-growing trees are soonest 

 overtaken by the disease and soonest succumb ; but we 

 venture the opinion that the disease makes most progress on 

 gross, luxuriantly growing trees, and least progress on those 

 that are well ripened and hard in the texture of their wood. 

 Gumming, or canker, in peach trees, is caused by a fungus, 

 and is so like larch blister in its general appearance and effects 

 that the one might almost be mistaken for the other but for 

 the smell of the resin in the larch and the bark, and all 

 gardeners know that gumming is never bad on well-ripened 

 trees, but only on trees with gross, ill-ripened growth. 

 Gumming is quite under control under glass, but is often 

 destructive out of doors. We believe that the larch disease is 

 likely to be least troublesome on high and dry slopes where 

 the soil is, if anything, rather thin and poor and the annual 

 growth is likely to be well-matured. 



Beetles and insects named as attacking the Scotch and 

 other firs also attack the larch, but the worst plague is the 

 Ckermes lards, or larch bug. It is worst in dry summers and 

 on poor trees, which it soon covers, but one bad attack does 

 not indicate another attack the following season. The attacks 

 come and go, the trees being, as a rule, comparatively free 

 from attacks where the conditions are favourable to its growth. 



DEODAR AND WELLINGTONS. Neither of these species 

 suffer noticeably from diseases or insects, but the wellingtonia 

 does not stand cold, keen winds in open situations, where it 

 should be grown as a plantation tree. 



