best. In the northern parts of England, coppices of ash are fallen every fourteen years, and made into excellent charcoal, or fire wood, for the billet of the ash emits but little smoke. On all accounts, this very valuable tree is deserving of an extended cultivation.

THE LARCH.

"On the wild Alps, where native forests grow-
"See the tall Larch wave over realms of snow."

THE

HE very high estimation this tree is rapidly obtaining, induces me to mention it thus early. I have arranged the plants, according to what I conceive, their utility and profit, and no tree, the oak hardly excepted, will excel the larch in either. This tree, a native of the Alps, on whose height it towers to a prodigious size, has not been introduced into this country more than seventy years, except merely as an ornamental shrub. The more extended culture of it has, however, doubly answered any expectation that had been formed of it. Its growth is quick, upon lands fit for no species of cultivation, and the wood it produces of the first quality for durability. A celebrated French writer has published an essay upon the virtues of this tree, in which he affirms, that in his own garden, he has rails which were put up in

C

the year 1743, partly of oak, and partly of larch; the former, he says, in 1787, have yielded to time, but the latter are still sound:-and further, that in his own house (the castle of Tour d'Aigues) he has larch beams, twenty inches square, still sound, after a lapse of two hundred years. But the larch in this country, never equals in size those upon the continent; its quality is, however, little inferior; it will flourish upon almost any situation; a loose stony earth it much approves of, not too damp or low, for fear of the Coccus larixea, an insect uncommonly prejudicial, should it obtain an ascendancy in a larch plantation. A method much approved of by some, is, to plant a wood with oak and larch only, an oak every fifth; by so doing, the larch protect by their shelter, the young kings of the forest, and in due time, being fallen, an oak wood remains, arrived to a sufficient age and strength to proceed without more care. I, myself, am rather fearful of the luxuriant shoots of the larch too much incommoding and keeping from the sun their tardy partners; but should even this be the case, the value of bark makes oak underwood a matter of consequence. The sides of barren hills cannot be

better clothed than with larch. Scotland owes much of her romantic beauty to this and other trees of the pine kind, but no pine equals this. The substance, called Venice-turpentine, is extracted from the larch; and its very name occurs from a circumstance which proved its resistance to fire. When Casar besieged Larignum, during his passage over the Alps, the citadel obstinately held out. Perceiving it was built of wood, he ordered faggots to be heaped against it, and fired, when, to the astonishment of his victorious legions, the citadel remained entire, and the battering-ram was resorted to, to destroy what fire had so little effect upon. It is needless to add, that the building was composed of larch, hence, taking the name of larix from Larignum. As this tree has been found useful in naval architecture, its value is likely to be enhanced. Oak timber in the royal forests, is, of late years, become alarmingly scarce; nor, when we contemplate the consumption of the navy, and the improvident decline of its supplies, need we be surprized. A seventy-four gun ship swallows up one hundred and sixty thousand feet of timber, which will be two thousand well grown. trees of eighty feet each, and growing upon (con

sidering the distance usually the case in woods, where there is underwood, to be thirty feet) nearly fifty acres. This fact, if generally known, no doubt would be an additional incitement to planting, for should Great Britain become dependent on other powers for the means of supporting her navies, her consequence, as a nation, will be greatly endangered.