AMONG THE PINES AND FIRS 229 



trees, hence the free enjoyment of light and air 

 are essential requisites for its continuous thriving 

 even when its main growth in height has been 

 completed. Although pure plantations appear 

 to thrive well, growing larch in this manner is 

 not the way of producing the largest and the 

 most valuable stems, while it certainly very much 

 increases the danger from insects and canker. 

 The best dimensions of larch and the finest 

 quality of timber are produced in admixture with 

 beech on limy soils. This, or planting here and 

 there as a standard in copsewoods, or growing 

 along with pines and spruces on the better classes 

 of land placed under conifer crops, must be treat- 

 ment better suited to the larch than growth in 

 pure woods. Certainly a safe and fairly remun- 

 erative crop of this sort would be a mixture of 

 larch (2^ to 3 feet high) and Corsican pine (about 

 2 feet high) at 3 feet apart or 3J to 4 feet 

 care being thus taken to secure some solid advan- 

 tage for the more rapid growth of the larch in 

 height, to avoid its being dominated by the pine. 

 Grown along with oak and ash as standards 

 over coppice larch should yield a very profitable 

 return, while a little expenditure in pruning off 



