The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and very durable. It is used for the knees of vessels and ship timbers, for posts, telegraph poles, and railway ties. The generic name, _Larix_, comes from the Celtic word _lar_, meaning fat, and was given to this genus on account of the resin produced by the tree. The larch is found throughout the Northeastern States. [Sidenote: European Larch _Larix europæa_] _A large tree, 80 to 100 feet high. The branches are more pendulous, and the cones are twice as large as those of our native species._ The cones of both the American and European larches hang on the branches through the winter, and as those of the European are an inch or more long and about as broad, while those of the American are half that size, the trees are easily distinguished from each other. Even in the accompanying photographs this difference is discernible. [Illustration: EUROPEAN LARCH _Larix europæa_ Page 188 ] At one time in England the plan of introducing the larch into the forests bordering the English lakes was under consideration, and this greatly disturbed the poet Wordsworth, who was keenly alive to the distressing effects of inharmonious and inappropriate tree planting. In “A Description of the Scenery of the Lakes,” he points out the fact that it is impossible for trees which terminate in a spike, like that of the larch, to blend together and form masses of wood; that if thousands to tens of thousands are added, the appearance is still the same, a collection of separate individual trees, obstinately presenting themselves as such, and which, from whatever point they are looked at, if but seen may be counted upon the fingers. He goes on to express his dislike of the larch in the following words “As a tree it is less than any other pleasing; its branches (for boughs it has none) have no variety in the youth of this tree, and little dignity even when it attains its full growth; leaves it cannot be said to have, consequently it affords neither shade nor shelter. In spring the larch becomes green long before the native trees, and its green is so peculiar and vivid that, finding nothing to harmonize with it, wherever it comes forth a disagreeable speck is produced. In summer, when all other trees are in their pride, it is of a dingy, lifeless hue; in autumn of a spiritless, unvaried yellow, and in winter it is still more lamentably distinguished from every other deciduous tree of the forest, for they seem only to sleep, but the larch appears absolutely dead.”