ig6 Practical Forestry 



Unfortunately the attacks of the larch miner are by no 

 means confined, as is usually supposed, to trees growing 

 under unfavourable conditions, for I have this season noticed 

 in an unusually healthy, fast-growing plantation in Sussex 

 that almost every tree was more or less affected. Certainly 

 in another large extent of larch in Gloucestershire which 

 I examined lately, where nine-tenths of the trees were 

 being ruined by the Peziza, the larch miner was very 

 abundant ; but, I think, that young trees, whatever may be 

 their state of health, suffer alike, although where hard- 

 wooded trees form a portion of the crop the larch certainly 

 suffers less than when grown in pure woods. The moth lays 

 its eggs at the end of June on the needles of the larch ; the 

 caterpillar mining into and feeding upon the interior of the 

 needle causes it to turn faded and yellow. It lives in the 

 tube thus formed during the winter, changing to a pupa, 

 and ultimately to a moth. It is a most difficult matter in 

 the case of this insect, as, indeed, of all others that are fairly 

 abundant, to suggest a remedy, and I have looked over and 

 examined larch plantations that are differently situated in 

 many respects to find out under what condition the attacks 

 are most persistent, but with little or no success healthy 

 and unhealthy, native or Tyrolese, faring alike when grown 

 as a pure crop. 



Where the larches are intermixed with hard- wooded trees 

 sycamore, oak and beech the attacks are certainly less 

 frequent, as I have noticed in a number of cases. Trees 

 growing at high altitudes do not seem to suffer less than those 

 only a few feet above sea-level, and this point I have paid 

 particular attention to. 



Whether the wounds caused by this insect will serve as a 

 nidus for the spores of Peziza Willkommii has yet to be deter- 

 mined, but special importance should be attached to all 

 larch-feeding insects, and their depredations minimized to 

 as great an extent as possible. 



The Pine Sawfly (Lophyrus Pini). Fortunately, this 

 insect is not abundant in the British Isles, though on the 

 Continent the damage it does in the pine forests is by. no 

 means inconsiderable. The insect may readily be recog- 



