LARCH. 



103 



had only been eight years in grawing, standing a good 

 fence, sixteen years old, decked out by moss and 

 lichen in all the hoary garniture of time. 



In the construction of buildings, larch is valuable 

 only for the grosser parts, as beams, lintels, joists, 

 couples. For the finer boarded part, it is so much 

 disposed to warp, and so difficult to be worked, as 

 generally to preclude use. It is, however, asserted 

 that if larch be seasoned by standing two years -with 

 the bark stripped from the bole before being cut 

 down, that the timber becomes manageable for finer 

 house work. 



Although larch timber be extremely durable 

 in exposed situation, yet it yields to the depre- 

 dations of insects fully as soon as any pine timber 

 in close houses. We have proof of it in house- 

 fiimiture about 50 years old, but it is considerably 

 moth-eaten by apparently a smaller insect than com- 

 mon. Larch stools also disappear in forests sooner 

 than the stools of Scots fir, being eaten by a species 

 of beetle ; and the sea-worm devours larch in prefe- 

 rence to almost any other wood. 



We have looked over some experiments conducted 

 at Woolwich, in trial of the comparative strength 

 of larch and other fir timber, where the larch is 

 stated inferior to Riga and Dantzic fir, Pitch pine,. 



