Hot in the Larch. 179 



very thriving state ; but, in October last, the extreme tops of 

 some of them were observed to be dead; and other signs of 

 decay were visible in those growing on the parts where there was 

 the worst subsoil. Fifteen of these were felled ; and not one of 

 them could be said to be really sound, though only one, smaller 

 than the rest, was hollow-hearted. 



A few of the healthiest were also cut down, which were 

 allowed to be perfectly sound in respect to timber. However, 

 the brown irregular dark-bordered spot was begun in them also. 

 I inspected the best and worst of the first lot after they were cut 

 into 2-inch planks. The rot in the one most affected could be 

 seen 16ft. up the planks; in the others, it did not exceed 2ft., 

 3 ft., and 6 ft., in narrow strips : in other respects, the timber is 

 of good quality. The soil in which the trees grew is of heath and 

 poor vegetable mould, from 6 in. to 9 in. deep : it had formerly 

 grown, and would naturally continue to grow, the three common 

 heaths, ferns, mosses, &c., with a subsoil of hard gravelly clay, 

 friable when dug up, and containing a considerable quantity oif 

 oxide of iron. 



On the transverse section of the ends of the trees, fifty-four 

 annual rings, or years' growth, can be distinctly numbered. The 

 first sixteen years' growth in all (but the hollow one mentioned) 

 is sound, as also the last fifteen years' growth on the outside, 

 whether alburnum or heart wood ; so that the rotting spots are 

 contained in the twenty-three years' middle-aged wood of the 

 tree : and there the spots vary much in situation, size, shape, 

 and colour, and frequently do not affect the same number of 

 annual layers even in the same tree. Besides the want of fertility 

 in the subsoil, it must contain matter deleterious to the pine and 

 fir tribe; for, of the many hundred Scotch pines, and not a few 

 larch and spruce firs, which I have seen blown down by the 

 wind, there was scarcely a perpendicular root, which had pene- 

 trated this and similar subsoils, found otherwise than completely 

 rotten. The former were either rosen-riin above the root, or 

 cankered (as it is here termed) farther up the tree ; the two latter 

 nearly always began to rot at the I'oot ends. May we not, there- 

 fore, infer that the rot in the larch originates in the root, and, in 

 time, extends up the tree?, and that the cause of all the evil is 

 the penetration of the root into a bad subsoil ? 



In accordance with this idea, I shall mention an instance 

 Avhere larch has been planted, " again and again," on hills (not 

 too high), in good heath mould, on a subsoil of reddish sand, 

 where trees have as often dwindled and died before they were 

 6 ft. high. 



The best larches in this part of the country grow by the bank 

 of a river, in a bed of alluvial soil, on a rock, which is the only 

 subsoil. The largest of these trees is 100 ft. high, and 9 J ft. in 



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