early autumn and late spring with great readiness. It has, therefore, every good quality a forest tree can have, except the as yet unproved one of cleaning its trunk from branches without pruning.
And as this has not yet been properly tested by thick planting, I venture to say that there is no conifer better worthy of an extensive trial as a timber tree for such purposes as the larch is now used, and especially for fencing posts, for which its remarkable durability in the ground seems to make it most valuable.[1]
I should therefore recommend that this tree should be planted at distances of 6 to 8 feet apart in situations where larch will not thrive, and not thinned as long as the trees keep healthy.
In the New England states it is not hardy enough to live in many places, but Professor Sargent tells me that a variety raised from seed from the Coeur d'Alène mountains in northern Idaho is hardy at Boston, where the form from the Pacific coast is tender, just as in the case of the Douglas fir.
No reliable tests, so far as I know, have yet been made in England or America as to the breaking strain and strength of this wood, but Sheldon states that it is used for telegraph posts in Oregon, and though its branches die off so slowly that the home-grown timber may probably be knotty, it is certainly not worse in this respect than spruce, to which I should consider it in every respect a superior forest tree.
The seed usually ripens about the end of October, and is very freely produced in most seasons. It soon sheds when ripe, and should be sown in boxes or in the open ground in early spring. I have tried both plans with great success, and find it best to plant the seedlings at two years old in nursery lines, and plant out the trees finally either in the early autumn or spring, when the deaths will be very small if the roots are not allowed to dry before planting.
There is very little variation among the seedlings, which grow rapidly in moist soil, and are less liable to suffer from spring frost than most trees, though if planted in mid-winter the tops are liable to die back.
There is no reason why this tree should not be sold in nurseries at the price of spruce except the absence of a regular demand, as it can be got up to a proper size for planting in two years less time.
The tree seeds itself very rapidly on sandy soil in many parts of the west and south of England, though liable to be thrown out of the ground by frost during the first year, and often destroyed by rabbits. On the lower greensand at Blackmoor, Hants, self-sown seedlings were quite numerous, both of this tree and of many other conifers, but rabbits are not allowed here, and both Lord and Lady Selborne take great interest in self-sown seedlings.
Remarkable Trees
The giant Thuya has not been long enough in cultivation to show whether it
- ↑ I have recently been shown by Mr. Molyneux a plantation of Thuya gigantea and larch called Mays hill, made by him in 1888 on poor, heavy wheat land overlying chalk at Swanmore Park, Hants, the seat of W.H. Myers, Esq., M.P. Here the Thuyas have completely outgrown the larch, and in many cases suppressed them, and are 15 to 20 feet high, and quite healthy; whereas where the larch were planted alone in the same place they are diseased and sickly.
