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to time, but the larch is still sound. They employ this wood at present in Provence, for making cafks, The chesnut of the Cevennes had supplied the place. of the oak, and the larch now successfully supplies that of the chesnút. The finenefs of the grain retains perfectly the spirit of the liquor, and does not alter its quality. It has been employed for that use for time immemorial in the higher Dauphiné, from Sisteron even to Briançon. I have in my castle of Tour d'Aigues, beams of twenty inches square, which are sound, though upwards of two hundred years old; but trees of this size are now only to be found in places whence they cannot be transported. There are in some parts of Dauphinè, and in, the forest of Baye in Provence, larch trees which two men could not grasp, and more than twelve toises, (about seventy-five feet) in height." Mem. R. Soc. Agri. Paris, 1787:

It is not in France alone that this peculiarity has been observed. Dr Pallas, in the extensive travels he made throughout the Russian dominions, took notice of a kind of tumuli which were frequent in Kamtchatka, which were said to be the burying places of their ancestors, of immemorial antiquity. He caused some of them to be opened, to observe their contents, and found in the centre of each, the remains of one or more human bodies, which had been deposited under something that had the appearance of a roof, consisting of beams of larch wood, placed so as to join together at top, and spread wide below. These had been afterwards covered to a great height with a large mound of earth, which

9 had remained in that position till all tradition of their first erection had been lost. He found the larch wood there entire and uncorrupted, though every thing else of vegetable or animal origin was utterly decayed.

After this example it may by some be deemed unnecefsary to mention others. But in a case of so much importance it is impofsible to have proofs too full; especially if they are of such a nature as can easily can be verified by private individuals, who can have no opportunity of examining the foundation of the houses of Venice, or exploring the tombs of Kamtchatka. Such are those that follow:

In the garden of Mr Dempster, so long distinguished for his respectable conduct in the British parliament, a spire of young larix wood, not thicker at the root end than a man's wrist, was found to have remained fixed in the ground as a hop pole summer and winter for five, six, or seven years, (the precise number could not be ascertained,) without the smallest symptom of rotting being discoverable in it. Any other kind of wood I have seen, similarly circumstanced, would have been more decayed in six months than it was. See Bee vol. P.

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Alternate stakes of larch and oak wood having been tried to support the nets of a decoy in Lincolnshire, two sets of the oak had been worn out, as my informent assured me, before any marks of decay appeared on the larch stakes: the experiment is still going forward. Ib. vol.

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Two gates were erected with wooden gate posts, one of the posts of each gate being made of the best VOL. XVii.

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foreign fir log, and the other of larch wood. One set of the fir posts is worn out, and another put into their place at each gate; but the larch continues still firm. This experiment also is still in its progrefs. Ib. vol. p.

A trough for feeding hogs made of deal of larch wood had been placed beneath a large tree in the fields, where it had stood soaked in water and dirt for five or six years on being scraped clean it was found to be perfectly sound; and having been converted into another use, stood in a stable for several years longer without any mark of decay; when the stable being taken down, the experiment was discontinued. Ib. vol.

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"It resists, says Mr Ritchie, the British chargé des affairs at Venice, speaking of larch wood, the intemperature of the air, more than any other wood known in this country, and therefore it is much used for making outer gates, pales &c. which are constantly exposed to the open air. It is no lefs durable within doors; and in some of the old palaces here, there are beams of larix as sound as when first placed there. In a word, wherever strength and durability are required, this is reckoned here the most choice and valuable wood; and it may be appli ed to a great number of uses

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It would be unnecefsary to enumerate more proofs of the incorruptible nature and singularly valuable qualities of this wood, and therefore the remaining part of this essay fhall be appropriated to an enu

*Memoirs of the society of arts, London, vol. xi.`

meration of the principal uses to which some of it has either been already applied, or for which it may be employed in arts and domestic economy.

Garden walls, rails, and other fences.

We can form an idea of a thousand uses to which this wood could be applied with economy in rural affairs, could it be obtained in abundance. Garden walls are reared in this country at a great expence ; and even when reared, are liable to many accidents: but were larch wood to be had in abundance, a wall capable of enduring for a great length of time might be erected, by placing some upright posts of a proper size at due distances, and nailing upon these boards of larch wood, till it fhould attain the height required. These walls, for fruit trees, would be infinitely preferable to any other sort yet employed, as the nails could always be driven precisely in the place wanted and nails of a much smaller size than are at present employed, indeed tacks of no large size would hold perfectly firm, so as to give room for a prodigious saving in the article of nails ;-and if these tacks were made of cast iron, which they might easily be, the saving here would be immense.

It is hardly necefsary to take notice that espaliers of this wood would be proportionally beneficial.

With regard to other fences, it is sufficiently obvious that all kinds of railing would be, of this wood, so much more durable than of any other kind known in this country, as to render fences of that sort eligible on many occasions where they cannot be had at present. Were we indeed to enter

on a computation of the national saving that would accrue from the use of dead, fences, in place of living, by obtaining the ground that is lost on embankments: by the additional produce that would be obtained even on the flat fields near to a dead fence, and that which can be got from the ground exhausted by the roots of bushes and hedge plants; and should we add tò these, the being freed from the ravages of sparrows, wherever hedges are employed as fences for corn fields; and the benefit the farmer would derive from being freed of the trouble of annually rooting out noxious weeds, the seeds of which are blown from plants that spring up in his hedges, which cannot be there extirpated; the amount of it would be so great as to exceed any calculation that a man would at the present time venture to put down in figures. There can however be no doubt but several millions of people might be well supported upon the ground that in this island at present is lost and deteriorated by these means

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* To give some slight idea of the loss that is thus sustained in Bri tain, I beg leave to refer to the recollection of every person who has travelled in England, if he has not remarked that in a great many places, particularly in the richest counties the fences in general consist of a great mound of earth, frequently ten or twelve feet in breadth at the base, stuck full of thorns, briars, brambles, ha. zle, and a variety of other brush wood, beyond which is usually a ditch of about six feet more. Nor can the plough approach within less than three feet of all this waste ground on either side, which is besides rendered almost barren and useless by the roots of the trees spreading in it. This would make a border of twenty-two feet around every field thus inclosed, that may be said to be totally annihilated for the purposes of husbandry. From a field of five acres so inclosed, if you suppose two sides of it bounded by a road, there would be

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