The Pine Family 145 



easily worked. It is used largely for poles, railway ties and 

 fuel, and but sparingly for other purposes. 



It is distributed across Canada from Labrador to the Rocky 

 Mountains and north to the mouth of the Mackenzie river. 

 In the southern part of its range it is only found in cold swamps, 

 but in the north it is found on higher ground. Usually it forms 

 extensive forest tracts almost unmixed with other species. 

 There are few sights of the northern forests more worthy of 

 notice than a tamarack swamp in the fall after the leaves have 

 turned yellow. Seen from a hilltop it spreads out like a lake 

 of gold, and is only surpassed for beauty and mass of color by 

 the gorgeous red and gold of the maples. Of late years, an 

 insect, the larch saw-fly, has been introduced from Europe, 

 which has defoliated almost all the full-grown trees throughout 

 the greater part of its range. This insect is now being brought 

 under control by the introduction of its natural enemies, but 

 not before it has destroyed immense tracts of forest, and threat- 

 ened the destruction of all the larch trees on the continent. 



2. WESTERN LARCH. Larix occidentalis. Nuttall. 



This western species is the largest and most valuable of all 

 the larches. It is a large tree, sometimes two hundred and 

 fifty feet high and six or eight feet in 

 diameter. Usually, however, it is much 

 smaller, particularly on high mountain 

 slopes. Its leaves are pale green, slender, 

 about one and a half inches long, and 

 triangular. The bark is reddish, rough 

 and scaly, and on old trees becomes very 

 thick, sometimes near the base reaching 

 a thickness of five or six inches. The 

 trunk is tall, straight and naked for the 

 greater part of its length, while at the FlG l8 Western 

 top the branches are slender and scat- Larch. 



