CHAP. CXHI. CONi'FERiE. LA^RIX. 2,^77 



air of the hill refreshing and nourishing the plant during the summer heats, 

 and compensating for the dryness of the soil ; 5. the reverberating of the sun's 

 rays between the sides of the narrow valley, thus rendering the soil compara- 

 tively warmer than the incumbent air, which is cooled by the oblique currents 

 of the higher strata of air, occasioned by the unequal surface of the ground. 

 This comparatively greater warmth of the ground, when aided by moisture, 

 cither in the soil or atmosphere, is greatly conducive to the luxuriance of 

 vegetation. 



" 3. Firm dry Clays, and sound brown Loam. Soils well adapted for wheat 

 and red clover, not too rich, and which will bear cattle in winter, are 

 generally congenial to the larch. 



" 4. All very rough Ground, particularly ravines, where the soil is neither 

 soft sand nor too wet; also the sides of the channels of rapid rivulets. The 

 roots of most trees luxuriate in living or flowing water ; and, where it is of 

 salubrious quality, especially when containing a slight solution of lime, will 

 throw themselves out a considerable distance under the stream. The reason 

 why steep slopes and hills, whose strata are nearly perpendicular to the 

 horizon, are so much affected by larch and other trees, is, because the 

 moisture in such situations is in motion, and often continues dripping 

 through the fissures throughout the whole summer. The most desirable 

 situation for larch is where the roots will neither be drowned in stagnant 

 water in winter, nor parched by drought in summer; and where the soil is 

 free from any corrosive mineral or corrupting mouldiness. Larch, in suit- 

 able soil, 60 years planted, and seasonably thinned, will have produced double 

 the value of what almost any other timber would have done in the same time 

 and situation ; and, from its general adaptation both for sea and land pur- 

 poses, it will always command a ready sale." (On Naval Timber, p. 85.) 



Class II. Soils and Subsoils where Larch takes the Dry Rot. — The same ex- 

 perienced and scientific author has enumerated the situations, soils, and subsoils 

 in which the larch, if planted, though it will grow freely, is subject to the rot, or 

 to other diseases. 



1 . Situations (steep Slopes excepted) with cold Till Subsoil, nearly imper- 

 vious to Water. The larch succeeds worst when moorish dead sand, alone 

 or with an admixture of peat, occupies the surface of these retentive 

 bottoms. Where the whole soil and subsoil are one uniform, retentive, 

 firm clay, the larch will often reach considerable size before being attacked 

 by the rot. When this heavy clay occupies a steep slope, the larch will 

 sometimes succeed well, owing to the more equable supply of moisture, and 

 the water in the soil not stagnating, but gliding down the declivity. In 

 general, soils the surface of which assumes the appearance of honeycomb in 

 time of frost, owing to the great quantity of water imbibed by them, will not 

 produce large sound larch. 



" 2. Soft Sand Soil and Subsoil. Sand is still less adapted for growing larch 

 than clay, the plants being often destroyed by the summer's drought before 

 they attain sufficient size for any useful purpose : the rot also attacks them 

 earlier on sand than on the clay. It appears that light sand, sloping considerably 

 on moist back-lying alpine situations, covered towards the south by steep 

 hills, will sometimes produce sound larch ; whereas, did the same sand occupy 

 a dry front or lowland situation, the larch would not succeed in it. The 

 same moist back situation that conduces to produce sound larch in light dry 

 soils, may probably tend to promote rot in the wet. The moisture and the 

 less evaporation of altitude may also, in some degree, diminish the tendency 

 to rot in dry light sand, and increase it in wet clay. Larch will sometimes 

 succeed well in sharp, dry, alluvial sand left by rivulets. 



" 3. Soils incumbent on brittle dry Trap, or broken slaty Sandstone. Although 

 soil the debris of trap be generally much better adapted for the production 

 of herbaceous vegetables than that of sandstone or freestone, yet larch does 

 not seem to succeed much better on the former than on the latter. The 

 deeper superior soils generally incumbent on the recent dark red sandstone, 



