PROFITABLE TIMBER TREES 93 



dry summers to meet the requirements of the tree, and which 

 are sufficiently clean and free from other growth to pre- 

 vent the surface roots being interfered with, are the best 

 that can be found for larch. On flat ground surface moisture 

 is apt to be stagnant, and hence does not so often furnish 

 desirable sites for larch. Hardwood plantations, in which 

 the surface of the soil is kept clean and moist by shade and 

 leaf-fall, often prove suitable for larch mixed with them, and 

 good specimens may often be found under such conditions. 

 In these cases the roots are often able to run between the 

 surface and the humus layer, and can obtain their moisture 

 from the latter. Clayey gravels, moist sands, and soils on 

 the edges of streams and brooks, usually produce the 

 healthiest and soundest larch, and most damp soils on slopes 

 and banks where water cannot accumulate are more favour- 

 able than flat ground, etc. 



It will readily be seen that the accurate description of 

 ground which will or will not grow healthy larch is by no 

 means easy, and the most likely predictions may not always 

 be verified. We have seen good sound larch on stiff clay 

 and on dry, deep sand. Some of the finest trees we ever 

 saw were growing in liquid peat on the edge of a Scotch 

 burn, and we could point out plantations doing well on soils 

 full of iron. Yet with these apparent contradictions, — and 

 many more might be mentioned, — we have not the slightest 

 doubt that the question of soil and situation is of the greatest 

 importance, and that careful attention on this point would 

 prevent many failures and a great deal of disease. Planted 

 on the right soil and treated in the right way, larch is, and 

 probably always will be, the most profitable tree the English 

 forester can have, and even on the wrong soil it may possibly 

 pay to grow it for certain purposes. 



On favourable soils the yield of larch woods in timber 

 is often heavy, and the financial returns are invariably good. 

 As much as 50 cubic feet per acre per annum will be found 

 an average growth on good larch soils for the first fifty years, 

 and, as this timber sells readily at Is. per foot, there can be 

 no question about a properly managed plantation paying. 

 In addition to the yield of the main crop, the thinnings from 

 the twentieth year onwards will be of considerable value, and 



