EXTRACT. 
233 
the trees are of a size sufficient, they may be split down for cart 
shafts; and in mining countries, they might he employed as posts 
for supporting the roofs of the mines. The small tops cut off in ma¬ 
king these various works, would furnish a neat, elegant, cheap, and 
durable kind of railing, to be put upon the top of low walls, espe ¬ 
cially for preventing sheep from over-leaping them. One end might 
be let into the coping, whether of sod, clay, or lime, and the other 
end received into a slip of sawn larch-wood, with holes bored through 
to receive their points. From the straightness of the wood, this kind 
of rail would be very neat without much expense. In the same 
manner hen-coops, crates for packing glass, &c. might be made of 
this material. 
But one of the most extensive and beneficial uses of this kind of 
small wood, is for the purpose of inclosing. These spars, when the 
root is thick enough, may be slit up the middle by a saw, and cut 
into lengths of five or six feet; or, if smaller, they may be employed 
whole. As they are always straight, and nearly of an uniform thick¬ 
ness, if driven into the ground in rows, at the distance of a few 
inches from each other, with the split sides all one way, they would 
make one of the neatest and most complete fences that can be seen. 
The tops of these uprights might be received into a piece of sawed 
plank, with holes bored in it for that purpose; and supported at due 
distances by sloping pieces reaching from the ground to the top. 
These are a few of the uses to which the small spars from the first 
thinnings of the plantations might be applied. As they advance to 
a larger size, for windows, joists, flooring, panneling, couples, rafters, 
and every other purpose in building, they would be superior to any 
other kind of wood hitherto employed. There is not a branch or a 
twig of the larch, that might not be put to some useful purpose. 
The larger branches might be employed in fencing, and the smaller 
brush for filling drains, and for fuel. In drains, it is more durable 
than any other wood; and though the timber will not burn readily, 
yet the brush is found to make a fire almost equal to the billets of 
many other trees. 
Dr. Anderson has adduced a variety of satisfactory instances and 
experiments, from which the durability of this wood is established 
beyond a doubt, even in the early periods of its growth. Nor is this 
its only good quality, for, when made into planks, there are incon- 
testible proofs of its neither shrinking nor warping, and its having 
been found unattacked bv the worm, during the course of several 
ages ; it is not yet known whether larch wood is capable of resisting 
the sea worm. Dr. Anderson proposes to ascertain this, by sinking 
