90 PINACEJE. 



but many as to quantity — good, bad, and indifferent, all cones were 

 indiscriminately received — the seeds taken out, and all sown ; every 

 means employed to stimulate and push the seedlings forward in highly- 

 manured land, and in sheltered corners, where the seed was so thickly 

 sown that after braiding one half the plants were generally smothered, 

 the other half so drawn up and imperfectly matured before the winter 

 set in, that their growth was generally prematurely stopped, and 

 thereby induced to start early a sickly growth, and get injured by cold 

 and frost in springy then much too thickly drilled out into nursery 

 lines, and generally left there for two years, or perhaps three or four ; 

 then sent afield into the country, planted anywhere and everywhere, 

 and again left to smother each other in the young plantations, thereby 

 causing this originally dehcate tree to be attacked by all and sundry of 

 the enemies, whether animal or vegetable, to which it is subject ? 

 Whatever we may say to the contrary, or whatever theories we may 

 promulgate as to the cause of the " Larch Disease," no other solution 

 than unnatural treatment will tell the truth ; for to no other cause can 

 it be ascribed but to injudicious nursing, and unnatural cultivation in 

 stimulating a naturally excitable tree ; over-feeding the plants and 

 stimulating and smothering the young trees, which before dying spent 

 their remaining vitaHtj'' to produce cones to leave behind them to per- 

 petuate the species. These diseased and dying trees were too eagerly 

 sought after by the seed-collectors, whose only object was so many 

 bushels of cones, no matter what the quality of the seeds they con- 

 tained. After, then, such treatment in the fi.rst instance, and after so 

 frequently repeating it from diseased seed, can we reasonably expect 

 that there should be any matured, aged, and perfectly healthy Larch 

 Pirs in this country at the present time 1 I do not deny that, so long 

 as this Fir deteriorates no further, it may be grown, and that very 

 profitably, for many ordinary purposes where coarse unwrought timber 

 is desired, but this is all that can be obtained from it; for in its best 

 estate it is, though a useful and profitable wood, yet, coarse and 

 inferior in quality ; and even for quick returns, cceteris paribus, 

 such a species of the S.D. Pinus as Corsica, is superior to it. There 

 is, too, but little prospect of improvement; for it will require a long 

 series of years before we can show a perfectly matured and sound 

 specimen of Larch timber of home-growth. Still, a supply of selected 

 not collected seed, from healthy, sound, and matured trees, and a 

 rational system of propagation and cultivation, and judicious manage- 

 ment in the plantations, might do much to mitigate, though it might 



