116 APPENDIX. 



all means use a heavy roller after each ploughing. It would fill all the 

 cavities left by the plough, and by .pressing the soil more closely to the 

 weeds, at once hasten their decomposition and very much retard the 

 evaporation from the soil. 



But the land is not only very much enriched by this process. There 

 is, I conceive, no method by which it can be so effectually cleaned. 

 Three times during the season, a fresh surface is presented to the at- 

 mosphere, and each time, as the decaying vegetable matter increases in 

 the soil, so is the exciting cause augmented to make a more vigorous 

 effort. We have in this manner gone over nearly all our land which 

 is infested with charlock, and the diminution of the weeds is quite 

 sufficient to warrant the expectation, that in a few years it may be 

 comparatively eradicated. 



Very respectfully, 



JOHN KEELY. 

 Havkrhill, Sept. -^2, 1832. 



Cultivation of the Larch. 



The Larch referred to in the text and there called the German 

 Larch, is the common or White Larch, ( Larix Communis,) and re- 

 sembles our Hackmetack or Black Larch, (Larix Ptnchda,) in the 

 value of its timber and bark. "The American Larch or Hackmetack 

 is a magnificent vegetable with a straight slender trunk, eighty or a 

 hundred feet in height, and two or three feet in diameter. The wood 

 of the American Larch is superior to any species of pine or spruce ; it 

 is exceedingly strong and singularly durable. In Canada it is consid- 

 ered as the most valuable timber. In the State of Maine it is esteem- 

 ed more than other species of resinous wood for the knees of vessels." 

 Its rareness however prevents its frequent use. 



Some specimens of the common or White Larch, originally import- 

 ed from Scotland, are to be found on the farm of the late Col. Timo- 

 thy Pickering in Wenham in this county by the road side; to him they 

 were sent as a present. The cultivation of this tree in Scotland for 

 timber and fuel by a public spirited nobleman, the Duke of Athol, has 



