Book HI. 



RESINOUS OR CONIFEROUS TREES. 



985 



two in Chelsea-garden ; but there are more magnificent ones at Whitton Park, Zion 

 House, Pains-hill, Warwick Castle, and other places. 



7052. Use. The tree has been very generally planted for ornament, and from its branchy lioad, and its 

 aversion to pruning, it is not likely ever to become a valuable timber-tree in this country. When planted 

 for that purpose, it should, as Sang recommends, be sown in groves, and thus by proximity drawn up with 

 few branches. Much has been said of the timber which borders on the miraculous ; as far as cxjierience 

 has gone, it is greatly inferior to that of the common larch, or the wild pine. Its great use is as a single 

 tree in lawns, where it combines beauty and singularity in a degree not "to be found in any other tree. It. 

 has also an excellent effect in the margin of plantations, and one or two plants will give force and character 

 to the dullest front of round-headed trees, and effect a great deal even in the fronts and sky outlines of 

 plantations with spiry tops. {Jig. 560.) 



7053. The common larch is the P. Im^ix, L. {Lam. pin. 53. 35.) Lanv or Melcze, 

 Fr. ; Lerchenbauvi, Ger. ; and Laricio, Ital. It is the only species of the genus, the 

 leaves of which are deciduous ; it rises to eighty or a hundred feet high, forming a nar- 

 i-ow cone of small white-barked caducous, pendulous branches, with delicate drooping 

 spray. It is a native of the Alpine mountains, on the north sides of which, in hollows 

 and chasms, it attains to its greatest height and thickness, and most durable timber. In 

 returning from Italy, by the Simplon, the silver fir will be found in great perfection in 

 the hollows on the south side, the common Scotch pine on the summit, and the larch 

 in descending to the Vallais. It appears to have been cultivated by Parkinson in 1629; 

 and Evelyn, in 1664, speaks of a tree of good stature, " not long since to be seen at 

 Chelmsford, in Essex, (also mentioned by Haile,) which sufficiently reproaches our 

 not cultivating so useful a material for many purposes." Harte, in his excellent essays, 

 published in 1715, gives a figure of the larch, and strongly recommends its culture. 

 It was first introduced into Scotland by Lord Kames in 1734 (Lam. jnn. t. 35.), and 

 afterwards in 1741, planted by the Duke of Athol at Dunkeld, and these last trees have 

 prospered so astonishingly, and the timber produced from such as have been cut down, 

 has so fully answered all the eulogiums that have been bestowed on it, that the larch is 

 now considered on the whole, as decidedly the most valuable timber-tree, not even ex- 

 cepting the oak. Some of tlie first-planted larches in the low grounds, near Dunkeld, 

 have grown to the height of one hundred and twenty feet in fifty years, which gives an 

 average of two feet four and a quarter inches a-year. It is stated by the Duke of Athol, 

 in a communication to the Horticultural Society, made in June, 1820, that on moun- 

 tainous tracts, at an elevation of fifteen or sixteen hundred feet, the larch, at eighty 

 years of age, has arrived at a size to produce six. toads (300 cubic feet) of timber, ap- 

 pearing in durability and every other quality, to be likely to answer every purpose, both 

 by sea and land. (Hort. Trans, iv. 416.) Professor Martyn (Miller s Diet, in loco) 

 has brought together a mass of valuable information respecting the history of the larch 

 in this country, and its uses in others. That singularly accomplished agricultural 

 writer, Dr. Anderson, did much to promote its increase by his essays and other works 

 from 1750 to 1790; and subsequently the Bishop of LlandalF, Marshall, Nicx)l, Pontcy, 

 and Sang, have each, in practice, and by their popular publications, contributed to 

 spread the tree ; and now several millions are annually planted in the mountainous dis- 

 tricts of the empire. The larch, Sang observes, passes all other tiinber-trees, for the 

 first ten or tvventy years after planting, and will arrive at a timber size in almost any 

 situation or soil. It bears, he says, *' the ascendency over the Scots pine in the follow- 

 ing important circumstances : that it brings double the price, at least, per measurable 

 ' foot ; that it will arrive at a useful timber size in one half or a third part of the time, in 

 general, which the fir requires ; and, above all,, that the timber of the larch, at thirty or 

 forty years old, when placed in soil and climate adapted to the production of perfect 

 timber, is in every respect superior in quality to that of the fir at a hundred years old. 

 In short, it is probable that the larch will supersede the Scots pine in most situations in 

 this island, at no very distant period." The finest specimens of this tree are at Dun- 

 keld, Blair, and Monzie, in Perthshire. 



7054. Use. Much has been said of the durability of larch-timbev in Italy : its resistance to fire, accord- 

 ing to some (Matthiolus), and its great combustibility, according to others (Du Hamel) ; its durability 

 under water (.at Venice), and its not being liable to warp (Harte). We shall confine ourselves to its uses 

 as experimentally proved in Britain ; and perhaps we shall do this with most effect by stating tliat it rnay 

 be used for all the purposes for which the best foreign deal is applied ; for many of those of the oak ; and 

 that it is more durable than an.y other timber when placed in a situation between wet and dry, especially 

 if the bark be not removed, it being still more incorruptible than the wood. The bark is also of consider- 

 able value in tanning ; a circumstance of great im.portance, since it is found that disbarking a year or more 

 previously to felling is the bestmode of seasoning the timber (6955.), and preventing it from warping, or being 

 attacked by the dry or wet rot. (5927. and 6926.) One property almost peculiar to the larch is, that the timber 

 is exceedingly valuable at every period of its growth ; so that a dead hedge of larch-boughs, or a hurdle 

 wattled with larch-spray, will last longer than dead hedges or wattled Inirdles of any otiier si)ecies of tree. 

 Planted in rows in exposed gardens it forms a useful hedge plant in point of shelter ; but in this respect is 

 deficient as a fence, and gets soon naked below. Rods, stakes, pales, rails, posts, and especially gate-posts, 

 of this tree, are tlierefore more valuable than of any other ; the sjiruce fir ai)proaching the neai-est to it in 

 these respects. Turpentine is extracted from it in the Tyrol ; but that being always injurious to the 

 timber, can never be recommended for adoption in this country : it is also peculiarly valuable as a 

 nursing-tree. 



7055. Varieties or species. Of the V. larix, there is a variety with red and another with white floAver.s 

 one with cinereous bark, called the lUissian larch, and one with pendulous branches. There are also the 



