2374? ARBORETUM AND FRUTJCETUM. PART 111. 



equal sidei5, and given contrast and variety to its boughs." (For. Seen.) 

 Wordsworth, in his Description of the Scenery of the Lakes, says : " It must 

 be acknowledged that the larch, till it has outgrown the size of a shrub, 

 shows, when looked at singly, some elegance in form and appearance ; espe- 

 cially in spring, decorated as it then is by the pink tassels of its blossoms : 

 but, as a tree, it is less than any other pleasing. Its branches (for boughs it 

 has none) have no variety in the youth of the tree, and little dignity even 

 when it attains its full growth. Leaves it cannot be said to have; and, conse- 

 quently, it affords neither shade nor shelter. In spring, the larch becomes 

 green long before the native trees ; and its green is so peculiar and vivid, that, 

 finding nothing to harmonise with it, wherever it comes forth a disagreeable 

 speck is produced. In summer, when all other trees are in their pride, it is 

 of a dingy lifeless hue ; in autumn, of a spiritless unvaried yellow ; and, in 

 winter, it is still more lamentably distinguished from every other deciduous 

 tree of the forest ; for they seem only to sleep, but the larch appears abso- 

 lutely dead." (Description, &c., p. 93.) There is great truth in Wordsworth's 

 description. The circumstance of the tree having no boughs, but only 

 branches, doubtless detracts from its contrast and variety of form as a pic- 

 turesque object ; but the smallness of these branches, by never absorbing the 

 wood of the trunk, renders it peculiarly valuable as a timber tree. Its chief 

 beauty, therefore, consists in its powerful unity of expression as a timber 

 tree. When its leading shoot is broken, and one or more of the side 

 branches take the character of boughs, (as in the Dal wick tree, fig. 2261. 

 p. 2356. ; a tree at Knowle, in Kent ; and some others that might be men- 

 tioned;) it then becomes as varied and picturesque as Gilpin or Wordsworth 

 could desire. Its death-like character during winter is very remarkable, and 

 almost peculiar to the tree. The Gymnocladus canadensis, or stump tree of 

 the French (see p. 656.), conveys the same death-like expression, but by a 

 totally different form. After all, the larch can only be seen in its charac- 

 teristic beauty on the steep sides of the mountains of Switzerland ; or, pro- 

 jecting from the rocky precipices of the Tyrol. (See fig. 2263. in p. 2357.) 

 It will, doubtless, have something of the same expression on the mountains 

 of the Highlands of Scotland; but there its picturesque effect must be 

 greatly diminished, from the uniformity with which the surface is covered, 

 and the trees being comparatively equidistant, and all of the same age and 

 size. At least, this was the case in the neighbourhood of Dunkeld, the last 

 time we were in that romantic country, in 1806. " To produce an ornamental 

 larch, it should be carefully nursed, removing the nurses gradually, to allow 

 air enough to encourage the lower branches, but affording shelter enough to 

 produce length of stem. I do not know a more beautiful object on a lawn in 

 the early summer months, though not picturesque, than a tree so treated, 

 forming a delicate pea-green cone, from the grass to the height of 50 ft. or 

 60 ft. If properly managed, the lowest branches will live as long as the tree." 

 We fully acknowledge the justice of this remark, and have felt it ourselves, 

 when seeing even the young larches in the Horticultural Society's Garden, 

 and some of the fine old specimens at Syon, Whitton, and Pain's Hill, the 

 lower branches of which sweep the ground. 



Soil and Situation. The larch will grow rapidly upon almost any soil, and 

 in any situation, for the first 20 or 30 years ; but it is only in a clear dry 

 atmosphere, on a cold-bottomed soil, somewhat moist on the surface, that its 

 timber is brought to perfection. In plains, and near the sea, it grows rapidly 

 for 30 or 35 years ; but, when felled in such situations, the wood is found 

 rotten at the heart, and unfit for any purpose except fuel. This decay of the 

 wood is much aggravated, when the larches are planted thick, so as to expose 

 but a small portion of their foliage to the sun, and to retain among their 

 lower branches an atmosphere surcharged with moisture. The larch will 

 grow, and become valuable timber, at a much greater elevation above the sea 

 than the Scotch pine, thriving at the height of 1800ft. in the Highlands, 

 where the Scotch pine does not attain a timber size at a greater elevation 



