488 



CONIFERS. 



years planted, from sixty to seventy feet high ; among 

 them one whose girth, at two feet from the ground, is five 

 feet ten inches, and several others from four feet and a half 

 to upwards of five feet. 



In the climate of London, not, we believe, the most 

 favourable to the Larch, Loudon states its rate of growth 

 to be nearly as above, and also that the annual increase 

 of the girth of the trunk in Scotland, where favourably 

 situated, is at the rate of from one inch to one and a half 

 for the first forty or fifty years, taken at six feet from 

 the ground. After this age, it begins to decrease, and at 

 seventy and eighty years old, the average annual increase 

 does not exceed half an inch. 



The Larch was well known to the Romans, and held 

 in high esteem for the valuable properties of its timber ; 

 Pliny frequently mentions it, and speaks of its incor- 

 ruptible nature, different from that of the Pines, and also 

 of the difficulty with which it is set on fire, remarking 

 that it never flames, but burns more like a stone than 

 wood. Vitruvius, speaking of the Larch, attributes the 

 insufficiency and early decay of the buildings at Rome, 

 erected in his day, principally to the want of Larch wood, 

 which could no longer be procured within a reasonable 

 distance of that city, the forests which previously afforded 

 it having become exhausted ; like Pliny, he also speaks 

 of its incorruptible, as well as its incombustible nature, 

 epithets which must be taken in a limited sense, though 

 Caesar, in his Commentaries, designates this tree not only 

 as " robusta Larix" but also " igni impenetrabile lignum.'''' 

 In later times it has fully retained the reputation it ac- 

 quired in earlier ages, for we find, that, in all countries 

 where it is native, or where its timber can readily be 

 procured, it has always been preferred for the timbering 



