394 THE LABURNUM. 
The laburnum blossoms in May and June, with all the 
richness and profusion peculiar to its tribe. The seeds are 
poisonous, and are yielded in pods, which become ripe in the 
beginning of winter. 
In spring the seeds should be sown on light, friable ground, 
and placed two or three inches apart, and covered nearly an 
inch deep. One-year-old plants are generally about a foot high, 
when they should be transplanted into lines two feet asunder, 
and the plants one foot distant in the lines. During their 
second year’s growth in the lines, the plants often make an 
average advance of three feet. After having been two years 
in the lines, or at most three, they should be removed either 
into their permanent situations or into additional space in the 
nursery lines. By frequent removal plants may be grown to 
a large size and still kept in a suitable state for being safely 
transplanted into situations where their ornamental effect is 
immediately required. As the bark and young shoots of 
laburnum are preferred by hares and rabbits to those of any 
other tree, young plants, which can be raised in great numbers 
at a few shillings per 1000, are frequently interspersed through- 
out young plantations as food for these animals, and as a means 
of preventing their ravages on other plants. Notwithstanding 
the rapid growth of the young tree, it soon forms a beautiful 
heartwood, varying from a brown to a dark-green, and some- 
times a black colour, which contrasts remarkably with the pale 
yellow of the more recently formed layers of sapwood. It is 
valued and in request by cabinet-makers, and for articles of 
turnery, such as cups and ladles, and for flutes and other 
musical instruments. It is frequently used for pegs, wedges, 
pulleys and blocks, and also for those instruments in which 
strength and elasticity are required. A cubical foot of timber 
in a dry state weighs from fifty-two to fifty-three pounds. It 
is seldom produced beyond a foot in diameter, and its value 
has considerably decreased since the art of staining wood has 
become so perfect. The soil and climate of Scotland are very 
congenial to the growth of the tree. At Sauchie, in Stirling- 
shire, a tree stands forty feet high, with a trunk six feet in 
