458 PROTECTION AGAINST FUNGI. 



The larch roots can then spread freely and obtain plenty of 

 nourishment, and the tree then grows vigorously, and either 

 escapes the disease or grows away from it. 



It is probably everywhere in the British Isles damp enough 

 for the fertile spores to be produced, though the disease is not 

 yet prevalent in Ireland ; but it is stated that on good fertile 

 soil near the Scotch lakes the larch grows so rapidly as to 

 outgrow the disease, even when infected. 



Vigorous larch trees are growing at Colesborne, in 

 Gloucestershire, on the banks of a stream in a damp valley, 

 and the larch -blister is more fatal in the drier, flatter eastern 

 parts of Britain than in the moister hilly west, or in Ireland. 



The disease causes loss of increment, and reduces the 

 quality of the timber, it encourages insect attacks and snow 

 and wind break, and may kill trees outright. Wherever, 

 therefore, larch grows badly owing to unfavourable soil, or 

 climate, it is better to give up planting it. 



c. Protective Rules. 



i. Great care should be taken in the selection of sites for 

 larch plantations ; pure larch-woods should be avoided, except 

 in early youth, and larch should be given plenty of room. It 

 prefers northerly aspects and well- drained but not dry soil, 

 slopes of hills and mountains, fertile but not too binding 

 soil, plenty of room for root-development, and abundance of 

 dead leaves or snow on the soil, so that the ground may not 

 be heated and the larch forced into growth early in spring 

 and afterwards retarded by the spring-frosts. No tree requires 

 more light or room than the larch. 



ii. Larch grows best when mixed with beech, silver-fir, 

 or spruce, which may be introduced after the larch poles 

 have been thinned. 



iii. Great care should be taken in thinnings to avoid wounds, 

 especially in knocking off dead branches, which should never 

 be done with the sharp side of a billhook. 



iv. All badly cankered larches should be cut out in thinnings. 

 Plantations ruined by the disease should be felled and replanted 

 with another species. 



