88 



BRITISH FOREST TREES. 



eiitly of receiving ultimate contamination from the 

 putrid juices or exhalations of this soil, the larch 

 does not seem, even while remaining sound, to make 

 so much comparative progress of growth, as some 

 of the hard wood trees, as elm, ash, plane. 



Black or grey moorish soils, with admixture of 

 peat-moss. 



Although the soils specified in this class will not 

 afford fine large larch for naval use, yet they may he 

 very profitahly employed in growing larch for farm- 

 ing purposes, or for coal-mines, where a slight taint 

 of rot is of minor importance. The lightness of 

 larch, especially when new cut (ahout one-third less 

 weight than the evergreen coniferge), gives a facility 

 to the loading and carriage, which enhances its value, 

 independent of its greater strength and durahility. 

 Those larches in which rot has commenced, are fully 

 as suitahle for paling as the sound : they have fewer 

 circles of sap-wood, and more of red or matured. 

 When the rot has commenced, the maturing or red- 

 dening of the circles does not proceed regularly, 

 reaching nearest the hark on the side where the rot 

 has advanced farthest. 



A great amelioration of our climate and of our 

 soil, and considerable addition to the beauty and 

 salubrity of the country, might be attained by land- 



