490 CONIFERS. 



It is from this fortunate incident, and the rapid progress 

 of the plants when thus transplanted into the open ground, 

 that we may date the commencement of that extensive 

 cultivation of the Larch which has prevailed for the last 

 sixty or seventy years, and which has given to the nation 

 a species of timber, scarcely, if at all, inferior to the oak, 

 even for naval architecture, and superior to any other wood 

 we possess, for all purposes where strength and durability, 

 under circumstances the most trying, are required. Upon 

 investigating the circumstances attending its first intro- 

 duction into Scotland, and referring to the account pub- 

 lished in the eleventh volume of the " Transactions of the 

 Highland Society," we find that, even during the life of 

 James Duke of Athol, the planter of the first trees at 

 Dunkeld, other Larches at different times to the number 

 of upwards of nineteen hundred, were distributed by him 

 in various situations at Blair and Dunkeld, as well for 

 ornament, as to test its value as a timber tree, of which 

 he became satisfied before his death by seeing the supe- 

 riority of the wood of Larch not more than eighteen or 

 twenty years old over that of the Common Pine of 

 a much greater age. Upon the succession of his son, 

 John Duke of Athol, the planting of the Larch was 

 steadily pursued, and as extensively as the scarcity and 

 dearness of Larch plants would then admit of, for as yet 

 only a few of the first-planted trees had commenced bear- 

 ing prolific seed, and plants in the nurseries were selling 

 as high as sixpence each. In consequence of this deficient 

 supply, the Larch, in the plantations then formed, were 

 mingled with other trees, chiefly the Scotch Pine, in the 

 small proportion of fifty to the acre, four thousand plants 

 being then the usual allowance to this quantity of ground. 

 This duke also first conceived the idea of planting the Larch 



