with the spruce or higher than it. In Moldavia he reports it on the Ceahlat, where it rises on a southern slope to 5550 feet. The larch in Moldavia and Roumania has been considered to be Larix sibirica; but Huffel doubts this.
Herr F. Mack, forest administrator at Azuga in Roumania, states! that larch is common at Bucecii above the beech region, at from 1300 to 1600 metres, mixed with spruce. It attains 60 to 65 centimetres, or about 2 feet in diameter, and is often clear of branches to a considerable height. The wood is hard, red, and durable, and was used in the construction of the Royal Palace of Sinaia.
Introduction
There is little doubt that the larch was introduced into England about the beginning of the seventeenth century, as Parkinson, who published his Paradisus in 1629, speaks of the tree as rare. Evelyn,’ writing in 1664, mentions “a tree of good stature not long since to be seen about Chelmsford in Essex,” and urged its cultivation as a useful timber tree. The earliest trees in Scotland are supposed to be those at Dunkeld, the history of which is given below; but we have no reliable evidence as to the exact date and locality where it was first planted. Loudon’s account is very full and should be consulted. The very useful little book by C.Y. Michie on the larch, published in 1885 by Blackwood, must not be overlooked, as it gives a very good résumé by a practical forester whose experience in Scotland was considerable. A.H.
Propagation
Ever since it was realised by landowners that the larch was the tree which before all others could be looked on as profitable to plant, its propagation has been one of the most important branches of the nurseryman’'s business, especially in Scotland, where by far the larger part of the trees grown in England are raised ; and until the disease spread all over the country, and it became evident that precautions must be taken, which in the palmy days of larch-growing were not considered necessary, the majority of raisers were not very careful as to the source from which their supplies of seed were obtained. It was generally supposed that Scottish seed was best, though in years when it could not be obtained in sufficient quantity foreign seed was used.
So far as I have been able to ascertain from very numerous inquiries, the reason for this idea was, that foreign seed usually germinated more quickly, and that the seedlings were therefore more liable to be killed by severe spring frost just as they were germinating. But as all the old larches in England and Scotland must necessarily have been raised from foreign seed, it seems obvious that though Scottish seedlings may have been most profitable to the nurseryman, yet that unless the seed was gathered from carefully selected trees, they were liable in after-life to show weakness of constitution, and succumb, as they often did, to the attacks of Peziza Willkommii.
Zeit. für Forst. und Jagdwesen, Oct. 1904, p. 644.
Silva, Hunter's ed., 1776, p. 297.
