PRACTICAL FORESTRY. 



weakened, blight, fungus, and ulceration find a footing, and 

 thus the fell disease is generated about which so much ha& 

 been said and written of late years. In my own opinion, 

 strengthened by careful investigation and research, induced 

 tenderness in the constitution of the larch is the primary 

 cause of disease, cold winds and frost the destroying agents, 

 and ulceration the direct consequence. 



Were we to follow more closely nature's method of deal- 

 ing with the cones and seeds of this as well, indeed, as 

 many other conifers we should have less sickly and rapidly- 

 degenerating trees in our woods, and far less cause for the 

 constant wail regarding the decline of this noble and 

 valuable timber-producing tree. In its native country, the 

 Tyrol, the se'eds of the larch are never scattered from the 

 cones until March and April, after having been fully exposed, 

 and their contents thoroughly matured by a winter's frost. 

 A comparison of such seeds with those usually produced in 

 this country, and from which our stock of plants is mainly 

 raised from year to year, reveals marked differences, for not 

 only are our home supplies of cones collected in November, 

 before maturity is nearly attained, and when only partially, 

 if at all, wintered, but these are kiln-dried, so that the 

 immature cones may part with their seeds a most perni- 

 cious practice. With such treatment there can be little 

 wonder why our once healthy larch is fast becoming 

 unhealthy, and gradually, but surely, degenerating, as the 

 reports from almost every part of Great Britain too truly 

 confirm, To further add to the evil, the large demand for 

 larch seed by our nurserymen creates a rather keen com- 

 petition for them to be supplied in time for early spring 

 sowing, and so it is that, instead of the cones being allowed 

 to winter on the trees, they are collected in the greatest 

 quantity in the autumn or early winter, so as to be forward 

 in time to meet the demand. 



It is, likewise, well known that sickly trees, as if by a last 

 effort of nature, and so as to propagate their kind, bear an 

 unusually large quantity of seed ; and, as these are, in nine 

 cases out of ten, collected at so much per sack or bushel 

 can it be wondered at that the bulk of our home-saved larch 



58 



