Much of the natural ranges of larch and lodgepole pine lie in the national forests owned by the government, and careful studies have been made in recent years to determine the requirements, and the actual and comparative values of the two species. It has been shown that larch is one of the most intolerant of the western forest trees. It cannot endure shade. Its own thin foliage, where it occurs in pure stands, is sufficient to shade off the lower limbs of boles, and produce tall, clean trunks; but if a larch happens to stand in the open, where light is abundant, it retains its branches almost to the ground. It is more intolerant, even, than western yellow pine, which so often grows in open, parklike stands.
ALPINE LARCH (_Larix lyallii_) never grows naturally below an altitude of 4,000 feet, and near the southern border of its range it climbs to 8,000, where it stands on the brink of precipices, faces of cliffs, and on windswept summits. It is too much exposed to storms, and has its roots in soil too sterile to develop symmetrical forms. It is found in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The finest trees are sometimes seventy-five feet high and three or four in diameter, but the average height ranges from forty to fifty, with diameters of twenty inches or less. Its leaves are one and a half inches or less in length; cones one and a half inches long, and bristling with hair; seeds one-eighth of an inch long with wings one-fourth inch; wood heavy, hard, and of a light, reddish brown color. It is seldom used except about mountain camps where it is sometimes burned for fuel or is employed in constructing corrals for sheep and cattle. It is impossible for lumbermen ever to make much use of it, because it is scarce and hard to get at.
This widely distributed tree is called red cedar in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario; cedar in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, South Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio; savin in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota; juniper in New York and Pennsylvania; juniper bush in Minnesota; cedre in Louisiana.