WESTERN LARCH TREE. 
145 
vine props. For the latter purpose it is found the most 
durable of all kinds of wood ; the vine props made of it are 
never taken up, they remain fixed for an indefinite succes- 
sion of years, and see crop after crop of the vines spring 
up, bear their fruit and perish at their feet, without show- 
ing any symptoms of decay. In most cases, the proprie- 
tors of the vinyards are perfectly ignorant of the epoch 
when these props were first placed there ; they received 
them in their present state from their fathers, and in the same 
state they will transmit them to their sons. Props made 
of the Silver Fir, and used for the same purpose, would 
not last more than 10 years. The wood of the Larch, 
according to Hartig, weighs 681b. 13oz. per cubic foot, 
when green, and 361b. 6oz. when dry, and it is said to last 
four times longer than that of any other tree of the Abie- 
tinse. 
Venice Turpentine is one of its products, for which the 
trunk is tapped ; and a full grown larch will yield annually 
7 or 8 pounds for 40 or 50 years in succession. 
The bark is also used for tanning, and considered equal 
to that of the birch, which is used for that purpose in Russia 
and Sweden. 
The fine grain of the larch wood, as well as its durability 
and stability have long recommended it to painters for 
their palettes, and for painting panels ; and according to 
Pliny it was employed for this purpose by the ancients; and 
Evelyn remarks, that several of the paintings of Raphael 
are on larch wood. 
Plate CXX. 
Branch of the natural size with the cone. a. The leaf. b. The bracte 
of the cone. 
