LANDLORD. 



LARCH TREE. 



it will admit of the soil being ploughed at an 

 earlier period of the spring and later in autumn ; 

 while it may be tilled with greater facility, and 

 kept clean from weeds at a very small expense. 

 LANDLORD. One who owns lands or 

 houses, and has tenants under him. See TE- 

 NANT, CUSTOMS OF COUNTIES, LEASE, AGBEE- 



MEXT, &C. 



LANDMARK, signifies in a general sense 

 any thing by which the boundary of a propeuy 

 is defined. In ancient times the correct division 

 of lands was an object of great importance ; 

 and various means were adopted to give dis- 

 tinctness and permanency to the boundaries of 

 every man's property. Stones and hillocks 

 were the most usual landmarks. The import- 

 ance of this subject among the Israelites par- 

 ticularly, may be judged of from the denun- 

 ciation of Moses, "Cursed be he that removeth 

 his neighbour's landmark." 



LANDSCAPE GARDENING. The art of 

 laying out grounds so as to produce the effect 

 of a natural landscape. Its principles are the 

 same as those upon which the landscape painter 

 proceeds in composing a picture ; and though 

 it is an art of which, like many others, every- 

 body thinks he is a judge, it requires to be pro- 

 perly practised, and the possession of powers 

 of a much higher order than fall to the lot of 

 most men. Mr. Brown, commonly called Ca- 

 pability Brown, was the first who practised the 

 art in England, so as to render himself worthy 

 of the name of artist. To lay down the prin- 

 ciples of this art here would be quite impossi- 

 ble ; but this general observation contains the 

 sum of them ; let selected and beautiful nature 

 be constantly your model, and success must 

 follow. London's Enc. of Gardening, and Down- 

 ing's Landscape Gardening, recently published in 

 New York, may be consulted with advantage 

 by those desirous of practising the art. 



LANDSLIP. A portion of land that has slid 

 down in consequence of disturbance by an 

 earthquake, or from being undermined by the 

 action of water or other means. 



LAND SPRINGS. Land springs are sources 

 of water which only come into action after 

 heavy rains ; while constant springs which 

 derive their supplies from a more abundant 

 source, flow throughout the year. All springs 

 owe their origin to rains. In the case of land 

 springs, the water when it sinks through the 

 surface, is speedily interrupted by a retentive 

 stratum, and there accumulating soon bursts 

 out into a spring, which ceases to flow a short 

 period after the cause which gave it birth has 

 ceased to operate ; but the water which sup- 

 plies constant springs sinks deeper into the 

 earth, and accumulates in rocky or gravelly 

 strata, which become saturated with the fluid. 



LAND STEWARD. A person who has the 

 care of a landed estate, and whose duties vary 

 in different countries, according to the mode 

 in which landed property is managed. In Eng- 

 land, where the landlord very commonly under- 

 takes to keep the buildings and fences of his 

 tenants in repair, the duties of the land steward 

 are constant and multifarious ; while in Scot- 

 land, where the buildings and fences are kept 

 in repair by the tenant, the duties of the stew- 

 ard are limited to receiving the rents, and see- 



ng that the covenants of the leases are duly 

 ulfilled. In many parts of the Continent, and 

 particularly in Italy, where the landlord is a 

 mrtner'with his tenant, and shares the produce 

 with him, the duties of the land steward or fat- 

 ore, as he is there called, are much more one- 

 rous than in Britain. See BAILIFF. 



LAND TAX. In England, a branch of 

 he public revenue, which was first raised in 

 ts present form in 1692. The rate at which 

 this tax is charged is 4s. in the pound on the 

 annual value. The amount which it yielded 

 o the exchequer in 1837 was 1,192,6357. 

 (Penny Cydo. vol. xiii. p. 300.) 



LARCH TREE (Lat. larix; It. and Span. 

 Jarice). The larch is one of the most valuable 

 exotics which has been introduced into Britain, 

 [n the north of Scotland it has been grown to 

 a great extent, cultivated with particular at- 

 tention ; and found to be one of the most pro- 

 fitable of all trees to the planter, provided the 

 land be well drained, but it will not succeed in 

 swampy situations. It grows with great rapi- 

 dity, is subject to very few accidents, trans- 

 plants with but little risk, and produces timber 

 of great excellence and value, not only for do- 

 mestic but for naval purposes. 



In bridges, dock-gates, mill work, and espe- 

 cially in mill axles (where oak only used for- 

 merly to be employed), larch has been sub- 

 stituted with the best effect. The small larch 

 is useful for agricultural implements, gates, 

 upright palings, rails, and hurdles. Boats built 

 of larch have been found sound when the ribs 

 made of oak 40 years old were decayed. A fine 

 frigate of 36 guns, named the Atholl, was 

 launched at Woolwich in 1820, built entirely 

 of larch, the growth of the Atholl plantations. 

 It is also very useful for staves for casks. 



1. The common larch fir or white larch 

 (Abies larix). The leaves of all the species are 

 clustered, and deciduous. The cones vary : 

 in the common larch they are ovate, oblong, 

 blunt; and the flowers are pink. In moun- 

 tainous districts in Scotland the Duke of Atholl 

 planted this species in immense quantities, 

 having had nearly 9000 acres in cultivation 

 with the larch alone. We are told by Dr. An- 

 derson that his grace planted 200,000 every 

 year; and in the winter of 1819 and the fol- 

 lowing spring no less than 1,102,367 were 

 planted on 556 acres, at 2000 per Scotch acre. 

 The late Earl of Fife also planted 181,813 in. 

 Morayshire. Goodwood, the property of the 

 Duke of Richmond, was probably the first 

 place at which the larch was planted as a 

 forest tree, and even there it was only in small 

 numbers. A few years after, viz. in 1738, it 

 was introduced into Scotland by a Mr. Menzies. 

 About 1740, James, Duke of Atholl, commenced 

 planting larches around Dunkeld House and 

 Atholl House, the two residences of his grace; 

 and great attention having been paid to these 

 nurseries by his grace's successors, the plan- 

 tations have amazingly increased. A very 

 detailed account of the plantations on the Atholl 

 estates, and experiments on the wood, will be 

 found in the 3d vol. of the Prize Essays of the 

 Highland Society, p. 165, drawn up from pa- 

 pers and documents communicated by his 

 grace's trustees. In a communication to the 



