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BRITISH FOREST TREES. 



SO recent introduction, and of such general culture, 

 (about 10,000,000 plants being sold annually from 

 theniuseries of the valley of the Tay alone), that any 

 accurate notice of its history, its habitudes, and uses, 

 must possess an interest sufficient to arrest the at- 

 tention of every one, from the statesman and econo- 

 mist down to the mere lord and the squire. We shall 

 therefore devote to it a little more of our attention 

 than we have bestowed on those already treated of 



Larch is scattered over a considerable part of the 

 northern hemisphere, inhabiting nearly the same re- 

 gions with the other Coniferae. White larch, the 

 kind common in Britain, is found growing exten- 

 sively on the alpine districts of the south of Europe, 

 in Italy, Switzerland, Sardinia ; this may be termed 

 the European temperate species. Another, native 

 to the country around Archangel, and extending from 



* Our common larch_, like almost every other kind of tree, 

 consists of numberless varieties^ which differ considerably in quick- 

 ness of growth, ultimate size^ and value of timber. This subject 

 has been much neglected. We are, however, on the eve of 

 great improvements in arboriculture ; the qualities and habits of 

 varieties are just beginning to be studied. It is also found that 

 the unifoi-mity in each kind of wild growing plants called species, 

 may be broken down by art or culture, and that when once a 

 breach is made, there is almost no limit to disorder ; the mele that 

 ensues being nearly incapable of reduction. 



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