60 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS UPON TREE-PLANTING. 



hill sides with this timber. He died in 177i, and his son, Duke John, 

 continuing the practice, had, in 1783, planted 270,000 trees. Between 

 17SG and 1791, he planted six hundred and eighty acres with 500,000 

 larches. He continued the practice till 182G ; when he and his prede- 

 cessors had planted more than 14,000,000, covering more than ten thou- 

 sand acres. It was estimated that the larch in seventy-two years gained 

 its fullest value ; and before reaching this age the tree's should be 

 thinned to 100 on an acre. Estimating the trees at fifty cubic feet, 

 worth a shilling a foot, the product would be £1,000 per acre on the 

 poorest land for agricultural purposes that could be found in the country. 

 The condition of the forests on this estate was described in 1873^ as 

 follows : 



The woodlands extend to over ten thousand acres, divided into five districts, each 

 nuder a separate forester. The woods were still maiuly larch, but it had in many 

 cases been planted in soil better suited for the Scotch fir. But oue man-of-war frigate, 

 the Athol, had ever been built from the larch, it having; fallen into disrepute for ship- 

 building on account of the disease which had appeared within the last thirty or forty 

 years, and the recent substitution of iron for wood, which had reduced the calculntioii 

 of £1,000 per acre to £150 or £200. The disease appeared universal, and no remedy 

 had been found short of cutting ofl' and replanting. It appeared to be atmospheric, 

 and appeared as a fungus-like growth on the stem of the tree, generally near the axils 

 of the branches, then developing itself as a blister, and finally a hole or wound, as if a 

 branch had been rudely broken ofl:'. There was still a fine larch wood of three thousand 

 acres, covering hills that rise sixteen hundred feet above the sea. The forester in 

 charge approved the practice of removing the lower dead limbs of the larch, which 

 could best be done in very dry, clear weather, whether warm or frosty, as the branches 

 were then brittle. Plantations of Scotch fir and other conifers were being introduced, 

 and the sycamore-maple was found to flourish extremely well. Larch trees planted by 

 the Duke of Athol in 1743 were in 1795 nine feet three inches around at four feet from 

 the ground, aud one hundred feet high. In 1 869 these trees measured more than sixteen 

 feet around, aud were one hundred and twenty feet high. 



RATE OF GEO^TH AND DURABILITY OF THE EUROPEAN LARCH. 



The experience of European observers is very generally united in as- 

 signing great durability to this timber, and these opinions have been 

 often quoted in essays intended to encourage its growth in this country. 

 Carriere, after describing eight species of the LarLv, remarks that this 

 tree was known to the ancients, and that it is cited by Pliny as most 

 valuable on account of the fineness and elasticity of its wood. He highly 

 commends it as well for ornamental planting as for its rapidity of 

 growth, the large size that it attains, and the superior quality of its 

 timber.^ Laslet says :^ " The wood is of a yellowish-white color, tough, 

 strong, and occasionally a little coarse, but it is generally straight and 

 even in the grain. It works up tolerably well and is considered to be 

 very durable, but has the serious drawback of excessive shrinkage, with 

 a tendency to warp in seasoning." Grigor says,* that when favorably 

 situated no tree becomes so valuable in so short a time, and that it is 

 particularly durable as posts and palings, and in all structures that 

 come in contact with the ground. It is constantly employed for rail- 

 way sleepers, for mill axles, and in ship building. These opinions 

 might, in fact, be extended almost indefinitely, and with but little to be 

 said against it. It also possesses qualities which we scarcely have seen 

 noticed in connectioil with its culture in this country, as the source of 

 tanning material in its bark and of Venice turpentine in its resinous 

 sap. 



'Keports on Forent Manaqement, by Capt. Campbell Walker, j). 115. 

 ■* Traile general dcs Comfcres, p. 2S0. 

 =* Timber and Timber Trees, p. 250. 

 * Arboriculture,^. 232. 



