512 



CONIFERS. 



presence, so long as they produce leaves to perform their 

 functional office, is essential to the health and proper 

 developement of the tree. To this latter opinion we yield 

 a willing assent, being convinced, not only from physio- 

 logical inference, but by practical experience, that the 

 Larch suffers as severely as any of the evergreen conifers 

 by the abscission of living branches, and that the preferable 

 plan is to allow these to die off naturally and by degrees, 

 which they always do when the Larch is planted in mass, 

 and not thinned out too severely when young. Once dead 

 those branches may easily be removed by a slight blow, 

 or, what is better, by an iron hook fixed to the end of 

 a long pole, and, as they break easily off close by the bole 

 of the tree, the small portion of dead, though not decayed, 

 wood of the branch left within the bark, soon becomes 

 covered with a new layer, and as the Larch does not renew 

 its lateral branches, it is evident that all the wood after- 

 wards deposited upon the trunk must be entirely free and 

 clear of knots. 



As connected with pruning, we may notice the bending 

 and kneeing of Larch timber for ship-building, a practice 

 strongly recommended by Matthew, who says, " that in 

 all Larch plantations on a proper soil, not too far advanced, 

 a proportion of trees intended to remain as standards should 

 be bent."" The operation he directs to commence when 

 the plants are young, or from three feet high and upwards, 

 by bending and fixing them to an angle of from 40° to 60° 

 with the horizon, and the next year bringing them down 

 some degrees lower, according to the size of the plants 

 or the curve required. The same practice, and for a 

 similar purpose, we also find recommended by Billington, 

 Monteith, and Pontey ; but the methods proposed to effect 

 it are different, the first-named writer recommending the 



