290 abstracts: plant pathology 



ment regulations, similar in 1910 to the regulations of previous years, 

 restricted the killing further to bachelors having pelts weighing at least 

 5 pounds and not more than 8^ pounds, except such as might be required 

 to complete the natives' supply of food. Before any killing was done 

 1,271 bachelors, 915 of them three-year-olds, were marked and exempted 

 as a breeding reserve. The take of skins was 13,584. 



Mr. Lembkey's estimate of the number of seals in the herd in 1910 at 

 the end of the killing season is 132,279. This is approximately the same 

 as Dr. Heath's estimate of 149,195, the latter figure including the 13,584 

 that were killed. 



Mr. Lembkey urges the continued killing of surplus male seals, not 

 only to permit the government an income from the seal resources but 

 to preserve the herd from the injurious presence of the haremless and 

 fighting bulls. He urges also a readjustment of the scheme of compen- 

 sation for the natives, abolishing the government contribution as such 

 and paying higher wages. E. M. Smith. 



PLANT PATHOLOGY. — The timber rot caused by Leniztes sepiaria. 



Perley Spaulding, Bureau of Plant Industry, Bulletin 214, Pp. 



46. July 21, 1911. 

 Lenzites sepiaria is one of the most important of the fungi which 

 destroy coniferous timber while in use. It does not ordinarily attack 

 living trees. With several other species it destroys a large proportion of 

 the coniferous railway ties and telegraph and telephone poles which are 

 in service in this country. The fungus is very widely distributed and 

 attacks the wood of spruce, larch, fir, pine, hemlock, Douglas fir, and 

 juniper, and occasionally attacks the wood of willow and aspen. It 

 usually enters timbers through season cracks. The fruiting bodies 

 revive after long periods of desiccation, the writer having obtained spores 

 from specimens after two years' time. Mature sporophores may be 

 produced within six or ten days after the first mycelium becomes visible 

 on the exterior of an affected timber. Inoculations in green timber 

 have produced sporophores within five months'time in Texas. Pure 

 cultures have been made and the same type of rot has been secured 

 upon sertilized wood blocks in large tubes as that which commonly 

 accompanies the fruiting bodies in the open air. The decay caused 

 by this fungus may be prevented or greatly retarded by seasoning 

 of timber, which decreases the water content to such a point that the 

 fungus cannot readily grow; by floating, which largely excludes the air; 

 and by chemical treatment with substances which are poisonous to 

 the fungus. P. S. 



