TEEES FOE WATEE CATCHMENT AEEAS 139 



is planted for shelter in wet bleak situations in Caithness, 

 Aberdeenshire, the Moorfoot Hills of Midlothian and the 

 Peeblesshire Hills. In Loudon's time it was planted in Con- 

 naught, where it throve in elevated positions much exposed 

 to the wind. It can be raised in the nursery quite cheaply 

 from seed, its treatment differing in no way from the common 

 spruce. It may be tried in difficult situations, as on exposed 

 ridges or in wet peaty soil at high elevations, when it is 

 desired to give shelter to adjoining plantations below. It will 

 ascend 200 feet higher than the limit of the common spruce. 



European Larch. — This species, when grown in suitable 

 conditions and kept free from disease by measures calculated 

 to sustain its vigorous development, is one of the most 

 profitable trees. It has the especial merit of yielding 

 earlier returns than any other species, as its thinnings are 

 saleable from the 15th to the 20th year onwards; and 

 plantations are ready for felling at the end of forty to sixty 

 years. Heartwood is formed very early ; and the timber is 

 remarkably durable and generally useful, as for gates and 

 fencing on estates, for pitwood, poles of all kinds, and in 

 building where strength is required. Grown properly, the 

 larch develops a clean cylindrical stem, the slender branches 

 being killed off before they form large knots. The larch 

 combines high quality of timber with rapid growth, but 

 nevertheless cannot be considered a very reliable species, 

 as most plantations contain a considerable percentage of 

 diseased and crooked stems. Being very light-demanding, 

 the trees, as they advance towards maturity, do not stand 

 dense upon the ground ; and the yield of timber per acre is 

 much less than that of spruce and silver fir, even when a 

 plantation is quite successful. As a main-crop tree larch is 

 unfortunately very liable to be attacked by canker, a disease 

 caused by the Peziza fungus, which often ruins whole 

 plantations. 



Larch rarely remains healthy if grown on unsuitable 

 soil or in low-lying situations liable to spring frost. On 

 dry shallow soils, as on chalk, it does not thrive, and early 



