DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 24] 



The Larch is the great timber tree of Europe. Its wood 

 is remarkably heavy, strong, and durable, exceeding in all 

 those qualities the best English oak. To these, it is said tc 

 add the peculiarity of being almost uninflammable, and 

 resisting the influence of heat for a long time. Vitruvius 

 relates that when Caesar attacked the castle of Larignum, 

 near the Alps, whose gate was commanded by a tower built 

 of this wood, from the top of which the besieged annoyed 

 him with their stones and darts, he commanded his army to 

 surround it with fagots, and set fire to the whole. When, 

 however, all the former were consumed, he was astonished 

 to find the Larch tower uninjured.* 



The Larch is unquestionably the most enduring timber 

 that we have. It is remarkable, that whilst the red wood 

 or heart wood is not formed at all in the other resinous 

 trees, till they have lived for a good many years, the Larch, 

 on the contrary, begins to make it soon after it is planted ; 

 and while you may fell a Scotch fir of thirty years old, 

 and find no red wood in it, you can hardly cut down a 

 young Larch large enough to be a walking stick, without 

 finding just such a proportion of red wood compared to its 

 diameter as a 'ree, as you will find in the largest Larch tree 

 in the forest, compared to its diameter. To prove the 

 calue of the Larch as a timber tree, several experiments 

 were made in the river Thames. Posts of equal thickness 

 and strength, some of Larch and others of oak, were 

 driven down facing the river wall, where they were 

 alternately covered with water by the effect of the tide, 

 and then left dry by its fall. This species of alternation is 

 the most trying of all circumstances for the endurance of 

 timber ; and accordingly the oaken posts decayed, ana 

 were twice renewed in the course of a very few years, 



* Newton's Vitruvius, \>. 40. 



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