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ARBORETUM AND FR L'TICETUM.

PART JU.

which, towards the end of May, and during the months of June and July,exudes, according to some, during the night, from the bark of the youngshoots; but which, according to others, transpires from the buds and leaves,on which it coagulates in the form of little white glutinous grains, which areeasily scraped off. In the morning, young larch trees, before they are struckwith the rays of the sun, will be found covered with it; but the grains, if notgathered, will soon disappear. Very cold winds prevent the formation ofthis substance, which is called maune de Brianfon, because it is found in mostabundance in that country. It resembles the manna of the flowering ash(O'rnus rotundifolia, see p. 1242.), but is less purgative. It is not muchused, as but very little is produced, except in Brianeon; and, even there, itis very difficult to collect before it melts.

The Leaves of the larch, Kasthoffer considers as less injurious to pasturethan those of any other pine or fir; and, for the same reason, he says thatthey are better worth collecting as a manure. They are eaten in Switzerland by cattle and sheep, but less eagerly than those of the evergreen pines andfirs; because they, being deciduous, are only to be found in an eatable, thatis green, state, when the more palatable food of grass is abundant.

Uses of the Larch in Britain . Public attention was first drawn to the usesof this tree, as we have already observed, by Dr. Anderson, in 1777, whenthe oldest larch trees in Scotland could not have been above 50 years old,and, doubtless, none of them had been cut down; as the earliest notice ofone of the Athol larches having been felled is in that year. ( See App. to Gen.Hep. of Scot., vol. iv. p. 493.) Dr. Anderson’s sources of information, there-fore, must have been foreign authors, the more important of whom havebeen already quoted. The first British author who treats of the value ofthe wood of the larch at length, and from his own experience, is Pontey;who, in his Forest Primer, the first edition of which was published in 1805,states that the larch excels foreign fir in all the following respects: —

“ J. It is much clearer of knots, provided a very small degree of attentionbe paid to it, during the first twenty years of its growth.

“ 2. It is more durable ; for though it produces dead knots, when neglected,still it produces no rotten ones, or what carpenters call cork-knots. Thefact is, that not only the heart and sap of the wood, but even the bark, areso durable a nature, that we know no means of estimating when any one otthem will decay, except under some species of mismanagement. There is aparticular criterion by which larch is distinguishable from any other wood,which is, at the same time, a decisive proof of its durability; viz. the deadknots, or branches, wood and bark, being always found fast wedged, as it were,in the timber; so that every knot of that description has a sort of ring roundit nearly black. Any person who has larches growing, of some tolerable age,may convince himself of their durability, by examining their dead branches;which, whether great or small, are never found rotten.

“ 3. Larch is much less liable to shrink than foreign deal. It is wellknown that the latter is exceedingly liable to that defect, in the first instance;and the joiners tell us that, when a board of it has been twenty years in use,if planed over again, it will again shrink: but not so with larch ; for, if welldried at first, it never shrinks at all.

“ A piece of larch wood, split from the root end of a slab, was weighed atdifferent periods. The tree having been cut down in August preceding,and sawn up a few days previous to the first weighing, gave the followingresults : —

Date when weighed.** 1799, 1st October19th October25th October13th November, -

lb. oz.12 1110 4

9 0

7 33

Date when weighed. lb. oz.

1799, 9th December, - - 7 31

30th December, -.79

1800, 31st January, - - 7 9

“ The weighing has often been repeated since, but no variation was foundwhile it was in the same place; namely, a dry room over one where a goodfire was kept. The piece is nearly all sap wood. From which we gather