78 



ties of its wood. This, therefore, should be preferred, as likely to 

 produce, in the same time, a larger quantity of timber from the 

 same surface, and at the same expense. 



On favorable soils, the European larch is fit for every useful 

 purpose in forty years growth. Its annual rate of increase, in 

 Scotland, has been found to be from one to one and a half inches in 

 circumference, at six feet from the ground, on trunks from ten to 

 fifty years of age. It has, moreover, the property of flourishing on 

 surfaces almost entirely without soil, thickly strown with fragments 

 of rocks, on the high and bleak sides and tops of hills, where veg- 

 etation scarcely exists The most desirable situation is 



where the roots will neither be drowned by stagnant water in win- 

 ter, nor parched by drought in summer.* 



The value of oak timber is already so great, and it is so con- 

 stantly and surely increasing, from the diminution of the home 

 supply, and the increased difficulty of getting it from abroad ; all 

 the kinds of oak are, moreover, of so slow growth, and the number 

 of years necessary to create a forest so very great, and dependence 

 on a foreign supply is so unsafe, that it is obviously important that 

 means should be immediately taken to convert into future forests 

 some of the many thousands of acres susceptible of this, which 



are now lying waste In consequence of the great cost 



of labor in this country, it would be desirable to sow the acorns 

 where the trees are to stand, if any way could be contrived to de- 

 fend them from mice and squirrels ; and this might probably be 

 done by sowing a sufficient quantity to allow for the destruction 

 which would be caused by these animals. 



As to the management of the acorn, the following extract from 

 Loudon will give the most approved mode. " The acorns need 

 not be gathered from the tree, but may be collected from the 

 ground immediately after they have dropped ; and, as in the case 

 of other tree seeds, they may either be sown then or kept till 

 spring. If they are to be kept, they should be made perfectly 

 dry in the sun, or in an airy shed, mixed with dry sand, in the 

 proportion of three bushels of sand to one bushel of acorns, or 



* A very valuable account of every thing relating to the whole cultiva- 

 tion, management and uses of the larch, is found in Loudon's Arboretum, 

 pp. 2353-2399. 



'it 



