The GanJcer of the Larch. 
643 
- ings are not determined by the death of a landlord who is tenant for 
" life of the property, nor until this application for a charge has been 
" made and disposed of. The result is that, this being a proceeding 
under the Act, the executors, as parties to that proceeding, are 
• within the designation of ' landlord ' until the conclusion of the 
"proceedings, and are entitled to this charge." 
S. B. L. Drcce. 
THE CANKER OF THE LARCH. 
The conclusion arrived at by Mr. Carruthers in the last number of 
the Journal (page 299) will. I think, be received with consternation 
by landowners and others interested in planting operations. When 
we are told that " it may deserve consideration whether it would 
not be better to replace the larch by other trees suitable to our 
climate and fitted for the purposes for which the larch has been so 
long employed," it is pertinent to ask if any known tree will answer 
this description. 
For general utility it must be admitted the larch has no equal. 
Even the early thinnings possess a value which, though smaU, is far 
."•eater than that of the young poles of any other description of tree ; 
i-d, coming to maturity at a very early age, the timber is scarcely 
irpassed, even by that of the oak, for toughness and durability. 
r.iese qualities are of special advantage to landed proprietors, and 
without doubt more larch is used for fencing, gates, and other estate 
purposes than any other timber. It is, moreover, the best material 
for railway-sleepers, for cleading railway waggons, for boat building, 
and for telegraph and scaffold poles, being far tougher and more 
enduring than Baltic redwood. 
TTnder these circumstances it behoves us to consider whether the 
larch cannot be ctdtivated here in such a way that the losses arising 
from this scourge may be minimised. 
ilr. Carruthers gives excellent advice as to the means of detect- 
ing the canker in the young plant, and the importance of rejecting 
and destroying every specimen that is already attacked ; and I think 
if this is done thoroughly, and the plantation is properly attended to 
in its early years, we may keep the disease at bay. 
It is a matter of common observation that the plantations in 
which canker is most prevalent are those in which the soil is 
wet and undrained, in which grass and undergrowth have not been 
kept down in the early life of the plant, and which have not been 
thinned sufficiently soon. These conditions favour the damp atmo- 
sphere that, as ilr. Carruthers points out, is necessary for the germina- 
tion of the spores. Plantations consisting of larch and pine, or of 
larch alone, are also more subject to attack than those of larch and 
hardwoods, for the same reason, while it is unusual to find diseased 
specimens in larch trees scattered about in beech or oak woods. 
