LARCH. 



81 



We have cut off the top, where the diameter of 

 the section was about three inches, from sound young 

 larch trees, and found a similar rot proceed do^vn- 

 wards in a few months from the section, as rises from 

 the diseased roots in improper soil. There is some- 

 thing favourable to the quick progress of this rot in 

 the motion of the sap, or vitality of the tree ; as, 

 under no common circumstances, would the wood of 

 a cut larch tree become tainted in so short a time. 



The rot, though most general in trees which are 

 chilled in wet cold tills, or starved in dry sand, or 

 sickly from any other cause, is also often found to take 

 place in the most luxmiant growing plants in open 

 situations, branched to the ground, and growing in 

 deep soil free from stagnating water. There must, 

 therefore, be some constitutional tendency to corrup- 

 tion in the larch, which is excited by a combination 

 of circumstances ; and we must limit our knowledge 

 for the present to the fact, that certain soils, perhaps 

 slightly modified by other circumstances, produce 

 sound, and others unsound larch, without admitting 

 any general influence from altitude, excepting in so 

 far as its antiseptic influence may go. 



The fitness of soil for larch seems to depend more 

 especially upon the ability the soil possesses of afford- 

 ing an equable supply of moistiu-e ; that is, upon its 



