THE NEW FORESTRY. ' 193 



Yorkshire, in a plantation about the same age as the above, 

 and in a valley beside a stream, the disease had begun in good 

 time but had not made nearly so much progress as in the 

 Norfolk plantation. Such puzzling examples are common. 

 What struck one in the Norfolk case, moreover, was the enor- 

 mous number of bark wounds which the trees must have 

 received if, as experts say, the larch fungus can enter at a 

 wound only. Hartig says that slow-growing trees are soonest 

 overtaken; by the disease and soonest succumb ; but we venture 

 the opinion that the disease makes most progress on gross, 

 luxuriantly growing trees, and least progress on those that 

 are well ripened and hard in the texture of their wood. 

 Gumming, or canker, in peach trees, is caused by a fungus, and 

 is so like larch blister in its general appearance and effects that 

 the one might almost be mistaken for tne other but for the 

 smell of the resin in the larch and the bark, and all gardeners 

 know that gumming is never bad on well-ripened trees, but 

 only on trees with gross, ill-ripened growth. Gumming is 

 quite under control under glass, but is often destructive out of 

 doors. We believe that the larch disease is likely to be least 

 troublesome on high and dry slopes where the soil is, if 

 anything, rather thin and poor and the annual growth- is likely 

 to be well matured • . ' 



Beetles and insects named as attacking the Scotch and 

 other firs also attack the larch, but the worst plague is the 

 Chermes larcis, or larch bug. It is worst in dry summers and 

 on poor trees, which it soon covers, but one bad attack does 

 not indicate another attack the following season. The attacks 

 come and go, the trees being, as a rule, comparatively free 

 from attacks where the conditions are favourable to its growth. 



Deodar and Wellingtonia. — Neither of these species 

 suffer noticeably from diseases or insects, but the wellingtonia 

 does not stand cold, keen winds in open situations, where it 

 should be grown as a plantation tree. 



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