WHERE TO PLANT. 37 



this account a barren, sandy, and practically 

 worthless soil for the ordinary purposes of til- 

 lage may be so reclaimed by the growth of 

 trees as to be fitted to produce other crops 

 when the trees are cut off, or, if retained as 

 woodland, to give a more rapid and vigorous 

 growth of trees than before. The effect of the 

 larch in enriching the ground is quite remark- 

 able. A writer in the Scotch Highland Soci- 

 ety's " Transactions " cites the case where the 

 pasturage under a plantation of larches thirty 

 years old, and which had been thinned to four 

 hundred trees to the acre, produced an annual 

 rental of eight or ten shillings the acre, while 

 the same land, previous to the introduction of 

 the larch, was let for one shilling the acre. 

 Grigor, an eminent English authority, says : 

 " No tree is so valuable as the larch in its fer- 

 tilizing effects, arising from the richness of the 

 foliage which it sheds annually. In a healthy 

 wood the yearly deposit is very great; the 

 leaves remain and are consumed on the spot 

 where they drop, and, where the influence of 

 the air is admitted, the space becomes clothed 

 in a vivid green with many of the finest kinds 



