24 



an experienced forester of Scotland, attributes the disease, 

 which has of late prevailed in many larch plantations in that 

 country, to planting it, both in the nursery and the field, in 

 uncongenial soil. 



No other tree has been planted so extensively in Scotland. 

 It attains maturity long before the oak, and serves well for 

 nearly all purposes for which oak is used. Larch trees thirty 

 years old are sometimes sold for fifteen dollars each, while 

 oaks of the same age are not worth three dollars each. 

 According to Newlands the strength of larch timber is to that 

 of British oak as 103 to 100 ; its stiffness as 79 to 100 ; while 

 its toughness is as 134 to 100. As the larch grows erect, with 

 short and slender laterals, it may be planted much thicker 

 than the oak. According to Loudon ten acres of larch will 

 furnish as much ship timber as seventy-five acres of oak. Its 

 large timber yield per acre is one source of its popularity in 

 Britain. It was first planted on the estate of the Duke of 

 Athole, in 1741. Some stately specimens over one hundred 

 and thirty years old may be seen near the cathedral at Dun- 

 keld. Mr. McGregor, the duke's forester, informed me that 

 on this one estate have been planted over twenty-seven millions 

 of larch trees, covering over sixteen thousand acres, some of 

 which was formerly worth only from one to two shillings per 

 acre. 



Dr. James Brown says he has seen matured crops of larch of 

 sixty-five years' standing sold for from $750 to $2,000 per acre, 

 when the land was originally worth only from $2 to $4 per 

 acre. Mr. Sargent, director of the Botanic Garden and 

 Arboretum of Harvard College, gives a detailed estimate of 

 the profits of a plantation of European larch of ten acres to 

 last fifty years, calculating the cost for land, fencing, plants, 

 labor, taxes, and interest, and makes the net gain to be 

 $52,282.75, or about thirteen per cent, per annum for the 

 entire fifty years, after retaining the original capital, and he 

 adds: "There are in Massachusetts fully 200,000 acres of 

 unimproved land which could, with advantage, be at once 

 covered with larch plantations, and if so planted their net 

 yield, according to my estimate, in fifty years would be 



