THE COMMON LARCH. 495 



in certain situations, the proportion is generally five plants 

 of Larch to one of Pine ; in other plantations, and in the 

 lower grounds, where a mixture of various species of deci- 

 duous trees with some of the coniferce, as nurses is usual, 

 the proportion of Larch is generally from a third to 

 a-half of the whole plants inserted ; thus, when three thou- 

 sand trees are planted to the acre, one thousand or fifteen 

 hundred may be of Larch, the remainder consisting of oak, 

 ash, &c, with Scotch and Spruce firs. In the forma- 

 tion of such plantations, we have already in our account of 

 the oak, given the proportionate numbers and the various 

 kinds deemed most suitable for soils of different descrip- 

 tions, considering the oak, where the soil is favourable to 

 its growth, as the ultimate object of the planter, or the 

 tree calculated to remain as the final crop upon the ground. 

 In these combinations the Larch will be found in the pro- 

 portions above mentioned, viz., one third or one half of the 

 whole, as it is considered, and has been proved to be, by 

 far the most profitable intermediate occupant that can be 

 selected, at the same time that it acts as a favourable 

 nurse or protector to the oak. In some situations, and 

 upon certain soils, we believe that all other trees might be 

 advantageously omitted, planting nothing but the Larch 

 and oak, the latter in such numbers only, and at such a 

 distance from each other, as would suffice to ensure a 

 regular crop of large timber, after the whole of the Larch 

 had been taken away ; thus upon an acre, five hundred 

 oak plants, properly looked after, would be an ample stock 

 to constitute a crop of timber, after the Larch, to the 

 amount of two thousand five hundred, had been removed 

 by repeated and judicious thinning. Some, indeed, object 

 to the Larch as a nurse plant to the oak and other trees, 

 under the idea that it does not, from its deciduous habit 



