Causes of Disease in the Larch. 577 



course more accessible than a course in another direction. 

 On the other hand, the root of the unsound tree has not, pro- 

 bably, met with any obstruction to its progress downward, and 

 has, accordingly, penetrated into a cold and unproductive sub- 

 soil (which, as I have already said, may only be so from its 

 remote position from the maturing agents) : the consequence of 

 this is, that the growth of the tree is postponed to a late period 

 of the season, when the wood formed cannot, by the common 

 course of nature, be completed and perfected. 



To show still more clearly that the soil is but very remotely, 

 if at all, connected with the cause of the rot, I shall again direct 

 attention to the plantations at Dunkeld : see Qtiarterli/ Journal of 

 Agriculture for March, 1 832, p. 1 70. It is there stated, that Duke 

 James, between 1 740 and 1 750, planted 873 larches, in a sheltered 

 situation, among limestone gravel, which was worth from 205. to 

 305. an acre, at an elevation above the sea not exceeding 560 ft. In 

 1759, His Grace planted 700 larches over a space of 29 acres. 

 This plantation extended up the face of a hill, 200 ft. to 400 ft. 

 above the level of the sea ; the rocky ground of which it was 

 composed was not worth 605. a year altogether ; it was covered 

 with loose and crumbling masses of mica slate : but, notwith- 

 standing this, a larch was cut out of this plantation by the late 

 duke, in 1816, aged 57 years, which contained 74 cubic feet of 

 timber. Again, we learn, in p. 175., that the late duke planted 

 1600 acres, in soil situated from 900 ft. to 1200 ft. above the 

 level of the sea, and presenting the most barren aspect; inso- 

 much that it was strewed with fragments of rock, and scarcely 

 any kind of vegetation existed upon it. " To endeavour to grow 

 ship timber," remarks His Lordship, " among rocks and shivered 

 fragments of schist, such as I have^ described, would have ap- 

 peared, to a stranger, extreme folly, and money thrown away." 



Now, I would ask such as contend that the diseases of the 

 larch originate in the tree's imbibing matter of a deleterious 

 nature from the soil or subsoil, how they can reconcile such a 

 mass of contradictory evidence as has been already quoted ? An 

 alluvial gravelly soil at Dunkeld, it appears, is capable of pro- 

 ducing larch trees little short of a hundred years of age, still 

 growing in great vigour, and containing nearly 200 cubic feet of 

 timber. At Blair, at 500 ft. above the level of the sea, eleven 

 of the original larches measured, in 181 7, from 8 ft. to 1 2 ft. 

 in girth. In short, with regard to every plantation of larches 

 made previously to 1786, whether in rich lawns, gravelly soils, 

 rocky ground covered with crumbling masses of mica slate and 

 limestone gravel, or, as described in p. 173. of the Qiiarterlt^ 

 Journal of Agriculture, even on the rocky summit of Craig-y- 

 barns, among the crevices and hollows of the rocks, wherever 

 the least soil could be found, and at an elevation where none of 



