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XIX. — A few Notes on Scotch Fir and Larch, as to the Soil 
on which tliey fjroio best, and the preservation of the former, 
when used for Building pui'jmes. By Sir James Stuart 
Menteath, Bart. 
The Scotch fir (^Pimis sylvestris) thrives well but does not ^low 
fast on the soil over the sandstone rocks.* Its wood, however, is 
tough and very durable. But when the same tree is planted on 
the s;reywacke, or argillaceous schistous slaty rocks, though it 
grows more rapidly, and arrives sooner at maturity, yet being 
softer and fuller of while wood than that grown upon the sand- 
stone, the builder, to his cost, finds that it is soon attacked by the 
worm and decays. 
The reverse of this happens with the larch (Pinuslarix) when 
growing on the granitic formation, slaty or greywacke rocks. Its 
wood is sound and good ; and when cut down, is at heart generally 
perfect. But on the sandstones, chalky and limestone soils, it 
seems to be at maturity at an earlier age than that growing on the 
greywacke and granitic ; and in many instances, when cut down 
on these soils, the larch presents a tubed decayed heart. Under 
twenty vears old such mstances of internal decay appear : and it 
is remarkable, that externally to the eye the larch seems healthy 
and vigorous. 
I may here state that the larch grows naturally only on the 
rimitive mountains, as the granite, gneiss, and the like rocks of 
that class of the Alps in Switzerland : and it is most curious to 
observe, that on the whole range of the Jura Mountains, sepa- 
rating that country from France, being a limestone formation 
risinir to an elevation of several thousand feet, not a sinele self- 
sown larch can be discovered. 
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* Some remarkable facts, respecting tlie durability that may be given 
to timber by artificial means, have been observed at Closeburn. The pro- 
prietor of that estate, the late Sir Charles G. Stuart Menteath, was in the 
constant practice of soaking all fir limber, after it is sawed into plank, in a 
pond of water strongly impregnated with lime. In consequence of this 
soaking, the saccharine matter in the wood on which the worm is believed 
to live, is either altogelher changed or completely destroyed. Scotch fir 
wood employed in roofljig of houses, and other in-door work, treated in 
this manner, has stood in such situations forty years, sound, and without 
the vestige of a worm. In a very few years fir timber so employed, with- 
out such preparation, would be eaten through and through by that insect. 
It might perhaps be advisable in all timber used for ship-building to soak 
it for some days in lime watei'. 
