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In the memoirs of the royal fociety of 

 agriculture at Paris for the year 1787, there 

 is an elTay by 1VL le Prefident de la Tour 

 d'Aigues, on the culture of the larch; in 

 which it is celebrated as one of the moil ufeful 

 of all timber- trees. He tells us, that in his 

 own garden he has rails, which were put up in 

 the year 1743, partly of oak, and partly of 

 larch. The former, he fays, have yielded to 

 time ; but the latter are ilill found. And in 

 his caille of Tour d'Aigues, he has larchen 

 beams of twenty inches fquare, which arc 

 found, tho above two hundred years old. The 

 fineil trees he knows of this kind, grow in 

 fome parts of Dauphiny, and in the foreil of 

 Baye in Provence, where there are larches, he 

 tells us, which two men cannot fathom. I have 

 heard, that old, dry larch will take fuch a polim 

 as to become almoil tranfparent ; and that, in 

 this ilate it may be wrought into the moil 

 beautiful wainfcot. In my encomium of the 

 larch, I muil not omit, that the old painters ufed 

 it, more than any other wood, to paint on, 

 before the ufe of canvas became general. 

 Many of Raphael's pictures are painted on 

 boards of larch. 



The 



