498 ON USEFUL AND, BOOK I. 



six or eight years after planting. As they overtopped and 

 crowded the deciduous trees, they were gradually felled ; and, 

 as much had been said about the durability of larch wood, the 

 first trees that were cut down were sawn up, and applied to a 

 purpose, which was perhaps one of the best tests of their dura- 

 ble properties. This purpose was the footpaths of peach-houses 

 and vineries, where they are exposed to alternate drought and 

 moisture, heat and cold, and where common deal and other 

 kinds of wood had repeatedly failed. The larch deal of these 

 trees was applied in the same way as the others, and in less than 

 two years was completely rotten ! 



It may be alleged by some, that this could only hold true with 

 the sap or last formed wood : but the heart or red central wood 

 which was present, though it lasted longer, did not endure three 

 years ! ! The immense number of these trees annually taken 

 down, were after this chiefly used for fuel. Vitruvius and 

 other authors inform us, that the wood will not flame, but will 

 only consume by the assistance of other wood. Here it did not 

 flame violently ; but it burned by itself, without any care or 

 attention, and with no assistance from other timber, and pro- 

 duced sufficient fires for the ordinary purposes of near thirty 

 labourers' families, on Sir David's farms and in the woods. In 

 preparing these trees for the fires, the workmen found it so 

 brittle, that they often could break a tree of a foot diameter 



