Larix 361 



larch crop at forty to sixty years old, and though it is often exceeded, yet in many 

 more instances I believe that at present prices the return will be less, even when 

 disease has not seriously deteriorated the value of the trees by the scars and cankers 

 which disfigure the trunks. 



Diseases of the Larch 



Though it is not within the scope of this work to describe the diseases of trees, 

 yet an exception must be made in the case of the larch, because it is a subject of such 

 vast economic importance that it may truly be said, that the losses of all other trees, 

 from all kinds of diseases, whether induced by climatic causes, by insects, or by 

 fungi, do not collectively approach the loss caused to English landowners by larch 

 disease. In using this term without qualification I mean the disease caused by the 

 fungus usually known as Peziza Willkommii, but which is now named by mycologists 

 Dasyscypha calycina, and which is perhaps best described in English by the name 

 " Canker," or " Blister." This began to attract attention in this country about 1859, 

 when the Rev. M. T. Berkeley ^ made known its existence in England, and Charles 

 M'Intosh in i860 wrote a small book on larch disease, though what he described 

 more especially was heart-rot, a very different thing from canker. 



Hartig and de Bary were the first to describe the fungus. Prof. Marshall Ward 

 in his Timber and some of its Diseases, published in 1889, described it more fully ; 

 and since then Mr. Carruthers, Dr. Somerville, and other scientific writers have 

 written largely on the subject. In the Gardeners Chronicle, 1896, are many interest- 

 ing articles respecting the larch disease by J. S. W., Sir Charles Strickland, A. C. 

 Forbes, and C. Y. Michie ; and an excellent paper on It with coloured illustrations, 

 by Mr. Geo. Massee, appeared in the Journal of the Board of Agriculture for 

 September 1902. 



The most practical observations on the larch disease I know of, are in Mr. 

 A. C. Forbes's excellent work on English Estate Forestry, pp. 289-307 (1904). 

 These should be studied carefully by every one who is in any degree interested in 

 the subject. After giving a summary of the more important opinions and facts 

 noticed in connection with this disease, he says — and 1 entirely agree with him — that 

 the disease is as much the result as the cause of the bad health and unthrifty 

 condition of many plantations throughout the country ; and that the temporary 

 debility which is induced by the conditions under which planting is conducted is 

 largely responsible for a great deal of disease. He goes on to say that the practically 

 permanent nature of the blister, when once established, renders the result of this 

 temporary debility a much more serious matter than it otherwise would be. If the 

 return to normal health and growth were accompanied by the disappearance of the 

 disease, little harm would be done, but the existence of a blister, once established, 

 is perpetuated indefinitely, and in most cases only ceases with that of its host, so that 

 the occurrence of a blister on the stem of a young tree is much more serious than it 

 would be on a branch or older stem. Cases commonly occur of the disappearance of 



1 Gard. Chron. 1S59, p. 1015. 

 II Y 



