APPENDIX. 117 



been so extraordinary both for utility and profit, that I think I shall con- 

 fer a benefit on our farmers by giving a particular account of it. There 

 are parts of Essex in which plantations of this tree might be made to 

 great advantage. Fuel, fencing stuff, and building timber are matters 

 of great importance : and ship timber, in this commercial and fishing 

 county, will be always in quick demand. The Essex Agricultural So- 

 ciety, has oftered liberal premiums for encouraging the cultivation of 

 forest trees ; so likewise has the Massachusetts Agricultural Society. 

 These considerations will, I trust, justify my going so much at large 

 into this important subject. 



The timber of the White Larch has been as nmch extolled as that 

 of the cedar, and with much more reason. The red Larch trees ( Larix 

 viicrocarpa) on the Athol estate do not contain one third as many cu- 

 bic feet of timber as the White Larch of the same age. The rapidity 

 of the growth of the White Larch is not less remarkable than the du- 

 rability of its timber. Both have been experimentally tried in the 

 Highlands of Scotland. It is stated by the Duke of Athol, " that on 

 mountainous tracks there at the elevation of 1500 and IGOO feet, the 

 larch at eighty years of age has arrived at an age to produce six loads 

 (300 cubic feet) of timber, appearing in durability and every other 

 quality to be likely to answer every purpose both of civil and naval ar- 

 chitecture. It bears the ascendancy over the Scotch Pine in the fol- 

 lowing important circumstances. It will arrive at a useful timber size 

 in one half or a third part of the time in general, which the pine re- 

 quires; and the timber of the larch at thirty or forty years old, when it 

 has been planted in a soil and climate adapted to the production of 

 perfect timber, is in every respect, superior in quality to that of the 

 pine at 100 years old. The bark of the larch is more than half as 

 valuable as that of the oak in tanning." 



" The late Duke of Athol planted 1.5,573 acres, which contained 27,- 

 431,600 plants. Of these 8,604,542 plants were larch. The larch in 

 comparison with the Scotch Pine, is found to contain three and three 

 quarter times more timber, and that timber of seven times more value. 

 The larch also being a deciduous tree instead of injuring the pasture 

 under it, improves it. The late Duke John, the Second, planted in the 

 last years of his life, 6500 Scotch acres of mountain ground solely with 

 the larch, which, in the course of seventy-two years from the time of 

 plantinir, will be a forest of timber fit for building ships of the largest 

 class in the navy. It will have been thinned out to about 400 trees 



