THE LARCH. 



401 



ing the Oak. John, Duke of Athol, successor of 

 the duke mentioned above, planted between the 

 years 1764 and 1826, the enormous number of 

 14,096,719 Larches, occupymg a space of 8,604 

 Scotch acres, or 10,324 imperial acres. There 

 is no name that stands so high, and so deservedly 

 high, in the list of successful planters, as that of 

 the late John, Duke of Athol. His grace planted, 

 in the last years of his life, 6,500 Scotch acres of 

 mountain ground solely with Larch, which, in the 

 course of seventy-two years from the time of 

 planting, will be a forest of timber fit for the 

 building of the largest class of ships in his Ma- 

 jesty's navy. Before it is cut down for this pur- 

 pose, it will have been thinned out to about four 

 hundred trees per acre. Each tree will contain 

 at the least iifty cubic feet, or one load of 

 timber, which, at the low price of one shilling 

 per cubic foot (only half of its present value), 

 will give a thousand pounds per acre ; or, in 

 all, a sum of 6,500,000/. sterling. Besides this, 

 there will have been a return of seven pounds 

 per acre from the thinnings, after deducting all 

 expense of thinning, and the original outlay of 

 planting. Further still, the land on which the 

 Larch is planted is not worth above from nine- 

 pence to one shilling per acre. After the thin- 

 nings of the first thirty years, the Larch will make 

 it worth at least ten shillings an acre, by the im- 

 provement of the pasturage, upon which cattle 

 can be kept both summer and winter."* 



Mr. Gorrie, who admits that the above state- 

 ment of the probable value of the Larch timber is 

 over-estimated, remarks that Larch is by far the 

 * "Transactions of the Highland Society." 



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