Larch in Other Countries
In Norway, so far as I have seen, the larch does not grow well on the coast, though there are fine trees 70 to 80 feet high at a farm called Kjostad near Trondheim, and in the interior and farther south. Schübeler tells us that it has been successfully grown as a forest tree, especially at Brandvold, in the Glommen valley, where trees planted in 1803 had attained in 1878, according to Forstmeister Mejdele, from 70 to 95 feet high, the largest having a diameter of 14 inches at 58 feet from the ground. A very large tree said to be 150 years old existed in 1866 near Gothenburg in Sweden.
The larch is one of the few European trees which appears to grow really well in New England. The following instances of its success are recorded in Garden and Forest:—vol. ii. p. 9, an acre of larch planted in 1877 by Mr. T.H. Lawrence of Falmouth, Mass., on gravelly soil, in an exposed situation, a mile from the coast, was awarded a prize in 1888, when the trees formed a regular and complete cover on the ground, and many of them were over 25 feet high; vol. iv. p. 538, records the success of a plantation made by Mr. J. Russell at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, with 100 small seedlings costing one dollar, which were planted in 1879, and in 1891 were 20 to 27 feet high. Here the larch has been planted alternately with the native Pinus Strobus, to which they form an excellent nurse. In 1896 Sargent (vol. ix. p. 491) speaks of it as a tree likely to produce valuable timber in the northern states; but in Virginia, on the lower Chesapeake river, the climate is too wet and hot for it, and the trees did not thrive (vol. i. p. 500).
European larch has been tried in various places in the Himalaya, but not with much success, those at Manáli, in Kulu, being apparently the most successful; in 1881 young trees four years old were 6 feet high.
Timber
The value of larch timber for all purposes where durability and strength are required has been so well known for so many years past and is so fully dealt with by Loudon, Michie, "Acorn," and many other writers that I need not say very much about it. There is no home-grown timber so generally used on estates for building and fencing, and though its price has fallen considerably of late years on account of the increasing competition of foreign timber, it is likely to remain in demand, and is easier to market at all ages than almost any timber except ash.
The only country from which larch timber is at present imported or from which any possible supplies can come in future is the north of Russia, and this at present is not used to any great extent; but shipbuilders, collieries, and railway companies are not buying home-grown larch so freely as they used to do except in districts where it can be procured close at hand.
For long telephone poles, for bridge-building and other purposes where lengths of 50 feet and upwards are required, heavy larch poles exceeding 50 cubic feet fetch prices of from 1s. 2d. to 1s. 4d. a foot standing, and cannot always be procured when
