WOODS AND THEIR DESTRUCTIVE FUNGI. 613 



One important aid in the preservation of timber will be, for those 

 whose duty it is to care for it, to acquire more practical knowledge of 

 the fungi which grow on it, and this is not a difficult task. What is 

 needed is to call the attention of the men to the conditions and to the 

 prevention of the growth of fungi. The literature about it is meager, 

 only foreign text-books having been published which describe the gen- 

 eral species. Professor Charles H. Peck, in the reports of the New 

 York State Museum of Natural History, from the twenty-third to the 

 thirty-eighth, inclusive, has described a great many species of fungi, 

 and has made the most important American publications to date. For 

 practical use he has done a valuable work in the collection and mount- 

 ing, in the State Herbarium, at Albany, of over twenty six hundred 

 species, where one can in a short time learn to identify the ordi- 

 nary species found upon ties and timber. In the Columbia College 

 Herbarium there is a collection of nearly three thousand species of the 

 general fungi of this vicinity, which is also open for study. The facili- 

 ties for taking up the practical work are abundant. Every railway 

 company has men of sufficient aptitude to learn to identify species and 

 study their conditions of growth, and form from, the materials which 

 can be found upon every mile of their lines, collections of decayed 

 wood, from which the employes can gain knowledge to be put into 

 daily practice to check much of the unnecessary decay of all their 

 wood-work of ties, bridges, cars, and buildings. 



The cheapest operation to protect our woods, and quite sufficient 

 for many purposes, is to season or thoroughly dry the timber, reduc- 

 ing the contained moisture from eight to twelve per cent of the weight 

 of the wood ; and when in this condition, with a circulation of air 

 around it, to prevent the collection and absorption of moisture, the 

 wood will last indefinitely, as the fungi can not grow in such sur- 

 roundings. Every one is more or less familiar w r ith the soundness of 

 timber in the upper parts of buildings, while in lower parts near the 

 foundations it is often decayed on account of moisture. 



In many situations, however, where timber must be used, the con- 

 ditions of growth of the fungi are present, and it will decay ; some 

 species can be used which resist the attacks of the fungi for a long 

 period, but the final result is decay unless the wood is treated by some 

 process preventing the growth of the fungi, which must be capable 

 of doing either one of two things : 1. It must keep the fibers dry, pre- 

 venting the absorption of moisture. 2. If the wood must be in a damp 

 place and kept moist, some antiseptic must be present, sufficient to pre- 

 vent the growth of any of the various kinds of destructive fungi. 

 Timber entirely submerged does not come under these considerations. 

 To use the first process successfully means more than a thin coat of 

 paint or tar on seasoned wood when exposed to continued moisture. 

 It must be some substance which penetrates the tissues of the wood 

 sufficiently far, in case the exterior surface is broken, to prevent any 



