300 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



under a thick blanket of peat which is practically air- and 

 water-tight. In Chapter IV. we have noticed the peculiarity 

 of the larch in throwing out long surface roots for feeding 

 purposes at an early age, and, if anyone takes the trouble to 

 examine plants put in about a year or so previously, these 

 roots will be found pushing out from the collar just below 

 the surface. But it is obvious that, in dry peat, such roots 

 can find no food worth having, while the growth of roots 

 below the surface is almost as hopeless. The natural result 

 is that the plant is starved for one, two, three, or more years, 

 as the case may be, until its roots are able to reach more 

 favourable feeding ground, and become more or less independ- 

 ent of the surface stratum. Somewhat similar conditions 

 of growth prevail when the plants are put in on turf-covered 

 soil, or ground recently cleared of coniferous wood. In either 

 case, with a covering of peaty ddbris, the true food-holding 

 soil is covered in and buried under the impervious layer 

 above, and semi-starvation is the fate of the plant for two or 

 three years. In a wet summer a certain amount of aerated 

 moisture reaches the roots and enables a better growth to be 

 maintained, but the conditions even then are far from the 

 ideal, and the plants are thrown into a more or less weakened 

 condition for an indefinite period. 



In all such cases as those described above — and they 

 probably represent the majority of recently planted larch 

 plantations in England — we have larch plants more or less 

 exposed to fungoid attack on the one hand, and with reduced 

 powers of resisting it on the other. The general distribu- 

 tion of larch plantations, and the almost invariable presence 

 of disease in them, provide an abundant supply of spores 

 always on the look-out for resting-places, and a certain pro- 

 portion of these are sure to find their way to recently planted 

 ground. In this way disease gains a footing on a scale more 

 or less commensurate with the reduced vitality of the trees, 

 and undoubtedly the condition of the latter determines the 

 ultimate effect the blister will have upon them. When 

 situated on the main stem, a blister on a badly thriving tree 

 of four or five years of age will generally prove fatal, at 

 any rate to the part above it, owing to its gradually embracing 

 the stem. On a vigorous plant it will leave a permanent 



