‘2358

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

2264

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allusion to this, that CeEsar, in his Commentaries, speaks of the larch as“ robusta larix, igni impenetrabile lignum.” Several other wonders relatingto the larch, and taken from ancient writers, are mentioned by Evelyn;one of which is, that the wood is so transparent, “ that, in the dark night,when cabins made of the thin boards have lighted candles in them, peoplewho are at a distance out of doors would imagine the whole room to be onfire!” {Hunt. Enel., i. p. 310.) Evelyn also quotes from Witser (a Dutch writer on naval architecture) an account of a ship made of larch wood andcypress, which was found in the Numadian sea, 12 fathoms under water; andwhich, though it had lain 1400 years submerged, was yet quite hard andsound. In latter times, the wood of the larch appears to have been muchused in Venice, both for piles and houses; and, in some very old mansionsin that city, beams of larch have been found of enormous size, and showingno symptoms of decay.

The larch is mentioned, and very well described, both by Tusser and Gerard;but the first account we have of larch trees growing in Britain is in Parkinson’sParadisus, in 1629, where he speaks of the tree as “rare, and nursed up butwith a few, and those only lovers of variety.” Evelyn, in 1664, mentions a larchtree of “ goodly stature, growing at Chelmsford, in Essex ;” but the tree appearsto have been still rare in his time. Miller, in the first edition of his Dictio-nary, published in 1731, says, “This tree is now pretty common in English gardensadding that there were then some large trees at Wimbledon , whichproduced annually a great quantity of cones. In the edition of 1759, hesays that “ the larch was then very plenty in most of the nurseries in Eng-land ; ” and, “ of late years,” there had been “ great numbers of the treesplantedadding that those which had been planted in “ the worse soil andsituations” had “ thriven best.” In confirmation of this, Mr. Gorrie informsus that, “ on the rich and fertile soils on the braes of the Carse of Gowrie,Perthshire, which consist of strong black loams, yielding, with ordinary cul-ture, five quarters of wheat per acre, the larch does not thrive nearly so well asfarther north, on both sides of the Tay, where the soil is gravelly, or poor,inert, and somewhat moist sand ; and hence there are no fine larch trees inthat fertile district.” Harte, in 1764, and again in 1770, in his Essays on Hus-bandry, speaks very highly of the larch, and strongly recommends its cul-ture as a timber tree; a proof that then plantations were, at least, not common.In the Account of the Larch Plantations on the Estates of Athol and Dunkeld ,published in the Transactions of the Highland Society, &c. (vol. xi. p. 169.), it ,sstated that Goodwood, the seat of the Duke of Richmond, near Chichester ,was probably the first place where the larch was planted as a forest tree, andeven there it was only in small numbers. In 1782, a very extensive planta-tion of larch was formed at Hafod. In 1786, we find the Society of Arts