THE COMMON LARCH. 513 



tying- of young trees to one another, the other two, the 

 planting of Larch under the branches of spreading deci- 

 duous trees, which may force them to take a bent position 

 outwards, in order to reach the light and air, a treatment, 

 we feel convinced, under which no Larch can ever retain 

 a vigorous growth, or become fit for the purposes intended. 

 The undermining of trees, so as to throw them over on one 

 side, afterwards to recover their perpendicularity by their 

 annual shoots, has also been suggested by Mr. Mat- 

 thew and Mr. South as a mode of obtaining crooked 

 timber, but we greatly doubt whether such an operation 

 could be performed without severely affecting the health 

 and ultimate growth of the tree. We have already referred 

 to the fact, that the main root, with a portion of the butt- 

 end of the tree attached, forms an excellent knee for the 

 shipbuilder. 



Of the diseases to which the Larch is liable, the heart 

 rot is by far the most important, and one which, it appears, 

 we have little prospect of being able to eradicate or avert, 

 the actual cause from which it originates having hitherto 

 escaped the researches of the physiologist as well as of 

 the planter. Its attack is not confined to one description 

 of soil or situation, as Larch trees are subject to taint 

 in rich as well as in poor soils, at considerable elevations 

 as well as upon levels but little above the sea. Sang 

 mentions it as affecting the Larch on rich banks and in warm 

 situations in Fifeshire. In Dumfriesshire, where the red 

 sandstone appears, it attacks the Larch at an early age, 

 Sir W. Jardine stating to us, that it often shows symptoms 

 of the disease before it is fifteen years old ; upon cold wet 

 clays and moorish soil incumbent upon moorband, it fre- 

 quently begins to show rot before it is twenty years old. 

 This disease commences at the root, and proceeds upwards, 



2 L 



