552 Hints on the Disease 



of attending to his woods, and beholding them in a prosperous 

 and well-regulated condition. When he casts his eyes upon 

 a woodland coeval with himself, and now far upward sprung, 

 while he, apygmy, gazes from beneath, to wide-spread branches 

 " that embrown the day," there is a sublimity in the contem- 

 plation whicli every other pursuit fails to produce. " There 

 is a pleasure in the pathless woods," which every ardent ad- 

 mirer of sylvan progression cannot fail to appreciate : yet, 

 with all the allurements of which practical forestry is pos- 

 sessed, how very few there are who avail themselves of this 

 most rational species of enjoyment ! The greater proportion 

 of our woods, from neglect and mismanagement, appear as if 

 they belonged to nobody. It is no uncommon sight to see 

 nurse and nursling allowed to grow up together, locked in 

 each other's arms, as if it were intended they should never be 

 parted ; till the famished parent earth groans under the cum- 

 brous load, and the want of air and scanty nourishment 

 conspire to hurry on a precocious maturity. Whence the cause 

 of this neglect ? I should suppose it to lie in the want of a 

 properly constituted system of management. Were I asked 

 for a remedy, I would answer, let a national society be formed 

 without delay. Such an institution, with royalty for its 

 patron, would call to its aid such a host of scientific and 

 practical men as could not fail shortly to promulgate a system 

 of management upon which wood proprietors could depend, 

 and act with safety. That such a measure will soon force 

 itself upon the notice of the planting public, I have little 

 doubt; for, although it must be admitted that there are a few 

 who keep their woods in a tolerable state of order, yet, 

 generally speaking, the forester is found without a regular 

 system, and acting at random : the ill effects of which are 

 yearly becoming more apparent; and of which a stronger 

 proof need not be adduced than the actual condition which 

 our larch plantations are in at the present day. Here disease 

 is making alarming advances ; and, if something is not speedily 

 done, the probable consequence is, the extermination from our 

 soil of this seemingly degenerated species. 



In offering a few observations on the probable causes of 

 disease in the larch, I feel fully alive to my inability to handle 

 a subject of so grave importance as this is, and as it ought 

 to be considered : nay, my inexperience might justify the 

 charge of presumption, were it not that the only aim which 

 I have in view is, to endeavour to divert a portion of that 

 flood of talent which streams through the pages of this Ma- 

 gazine, from the already fertilised fields of horticulture, into 

 the rough channels of the too much-neglected science of 



