128 A MANUAL OF TBE CONIFEE.E. 



freely on steep hill sides inaccessible to the plough ; it may be planted 

 on poor exhausted soil, where other crops would fail or prove unpro- 

 fitable, with the double advantage of yielding excellent timber itself 

 and fertilising the land by the annual deposit of its leaves. No 

 tree is better adapted for covering used-up gravel pits, brick-yards, and 

 such like places than the Larch, and it should also be mixed with 

 Scotch and Austrian Pines and Spruce Firs when planted for screens 

 and nurses for more tender trees. The rate of growth, according to 

 Loudon, in the climate of London is from 20 to 25 feet in ten 

 years, and it is nearly as much on the declivities of the hills in the 

 Highlands. In the course of fifty years the tree will attain a height 

 of 80 feet ; in favourable soils it is said to be fit for every useful 

 purpose in forty years, while the Scotch and Spruce Firs require nearly 

 double that period to form timber fit for building.* The wood is 

 very durable, strong, compact, and easily worked. It is most used for 

 rural purposes generally, as rails, fencing, poles, structures exposed to 

 the weather, &c. ; it is also preferred for railway sleepers. 



Unfortunately, the Larch is subject to a disease called the Larch 

 rot, which we have already adverted to at page 31. It destroys the 

 heartwood and renders the tree attacked by it worthless. Thousands of 

 valuable trees have been lost through the disease, and whole planta- 

 tions swept off as by an epidemic. The nature of the Larch rot was 

 investigated some years ago (1859-63), by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, who 

 published, during that period, the results of his researches in the 

 Gardeners' Chronicle, and pointed out some of the causes of the disease, 

 showing that in some circumstances at least, it is quite possible to 

 prevent it. As these papers, or even the substance of them, are too 

 long to be reproduced here, we can only refer the reader, desirous of 

 further information, to them, 



Larix Griffithii grows to a height of 60 feet in the deep 

 valleys of the interior Himalayas, but much less on the rocky- 

 steeps higher up. It is a tree of very slender habit, sparse 

 foliage, and very long, lithe, cord-like, pendulous branchlets. The 

 erect cones are much larger than those of any other Larch, and 

 further differ from all others in their numerous scales, and in 

 their long reflexed persistent bracts.f 



Habitat.— The Himalayas of eastern Nepaul, Sikkim, and Bhotan, 

 at from 8,000 to 12,000 feet of elevation. 



Introduced in 1850. 



* Arb. et Frut.,p.. 2354. 

 t Sir J. D. Hooker, Illustrations of Himalayan Plants, xxi, 



