PART VIII. 



PICTURESQUE PLANTING. 



481 



in different ways, or even allowed to take its natural form. 

 The original expense of planting and inclosing five hundred 

 acres would not exceed a thousand* pounds, and the annual 

 expense afterwards would be but a trifle. The culture of 

 the oak ought not to be in the least degree neglected; but 

 when it is considered that this tree takes two or three hun- 

 dred years to come to perfection, and the larch not above half 

 a century, adverting at the same time to the approaching scar- 

 city of oak timber fit for the navy, these remarks surely merit 

 attention from the legislature. — Ste the Reports of the Com" 

 missioners, &c. page 21. — See also E me rich's Culture of 

 Forests. 



5. The laburnum. — It is a fact not sufficiently attended 

 to in practice, that nurserymen possess two species of this tree. 

 They are both in common use, but so much alike when young, 



The excellencies of the larch have been more fully noticed than that of othef 

 valuable trees ; not only from their superiority, but also because an insect, which 

 for some years past has infested this tree, has greatly limited the quantity annually 

 planted in Scotland and Wales. But those planted from thirty to fifty years ago 

 have in every situation grown to large timber trees, hundreds of which may be seen 

 in many parts of the country, from one to four feet diameter. This shews that the 

 soil and climate suit the tree, and that the insects have been produced from some 

 other cause (probably from the alternate wet and dry years, and prevailing east 

 winds which in 1300-1 and 2 at least greatly increased them). At any rate, no acci- 

 dental evil, for defect it cannot be called, ought to lessen the attention to, or pre- 

 vent the universal culture of, this tree. 



3 Q 



