LAKCH FIR PLANTATIONS. 199 



trees are of any considerable age, with their larger 

 roots spreading far and wide, I have often seen the 

 water running along the beds of such roots in con- 

 siderable quantities, showing that they acted as coa- 

 ductors for the water though the soil : it is to this, 

 that I attribute the superior health of such trees 

 found growing among hard-wood, as compared with 

 those among their own species upon the same quality 

 of ground. 



Upon the south lawn, at Arniston House, there 

 are about twenty larches yet growing, of very large 

 dimensions. They are generally above eighty feet 

 high, and a few of them contain upwards of a hun- 

 dred cubic feet of timber ; one in particular con- 

 tains one hundred and fifty cubic feet, and the tree 

 is apparently in good health. The soil upon which 

 these trees are growing, is a hght sandy loam 

 of about fifteen inches deep, and resting upon a 

 stratum of yellow sand; they are, as nearly as I 

 could calculate from the appearance of one which 

 was cut down lately, nearly one hundred years old. 

 and must have been among the first of the species 

 which were planted in the lowlands of Scotland. 



These fine specimens are growing among older 

 hard-wood trees, as tall as themselves, but pro- 

 bably at least twenty years older. My opinion 

 is, therefore, that the hard-wood trees had been 

 a considerable length before the larches were 

 planted among them ; and owing to this circum- 



