WOODS AND THEIR DESTRUCTIVE FUNGI. 607 



necks and holds them with firmness ; it is a sight once seen never 

 to be forgotten, for their presence shows the decay that has taken 

 place, and conveys an impressive lesson. The bark, like the coat 

 of paint on unseasoned wood, has retained the moisture, the mycelia 

 have grown, and the tree will soon be destroyed and fall to the 

 ground. A study of the decay of trees in the forests teaches many 

 lessons of great importance, and in practice to avoid as much as pos- 

 sible the conditions which there conduce to decay. That the decor- 

 ticated tree does not quickly decay furnishes a fact of general applica- 

 tion in the care and preservation of timber, teaching that wood will 

 be protected by paint only when it is thoroughly seasoned or dry, 

 otherwise the paint will furnish the artificial bark and hasten instead 

 of retarding decay. Readers who are conversant with the decay of 

 freight-cars will understand what must be expected from the use of 



Fig. 13. Fig. 14. 



so much unseasoned lumber in their construction, and will comprehend 

 the conditions furnished for the growth of fungi by the moisture in- 

 side of the cars retained by the outside paint. These facts must be 

 more generally understood before the car-builder will be supplied with 

 seasoned lumber. There lies before me as I write this a piece of tim- 

 ber from a building erected about eight years ago ; to prevent the 

 sills from decay, they were covered on three sides with asphalt, and 

 tarred paper underneath the preparation ; the wood was so badly 

 decayed that they were replaced two years since. The wood was 

 cracked longitudinally and transversely, the cracks being filled with 

 the mycelia of the fungi which had destroyed it ; upon drying, the 

 wood crumbled to dust the so-called " dry rot." Planks only two 

 inches thick and eight inches wide were tarred on three sides at the 

 same time, and were rotted under the tar over an inch in depth, 

 while the unprotected side was sound. I did not see these timbers 

 before they were treated, but they reveal their history as plainly as 

 though the words were written upon them ; the builder coated un- 

 seasoned wood, and produced the result he wished to avoid. 



Fig. 14 is partly in vertical section, to show the pores in which the 

 basidia grow bearing the spores. 



On the under side of the various Polyporei here illustrated are the 



