5/0 The yoiirnal of Forestry. 



tflges of this system. It could be carried out at any season of the year ; 

 indeed, in the event of a snowstorm shutting them out from other em- 

 phjyment this could be carried on as briskly as in the middle of summer. 

 Although he could not submit statistics as to the cost, he knew that it 

 would be considerably less than under the old system. 



Various members expressed their indebtedness to Mr. Baxter for his 

 interesting'paper, and the remark was made that nothing troubled a forester 

 more than burning charcoal in an ordinary turf kiln. 



Cryptogamic Plants. 



Mr. Malcolm Dunn, Dalkeith, read a paper on "Cryptogamic Plants 

 Injurious to Forest Trees, and their Eemedies." The class Cryptogamia, he 

 said, formed a very numerous section of the vegetable kingdom, and in- 

 cluded all those genera the flowers of which were either absent or formed on 

 a plan different from that of ordinary flowering or phaBUOgamic plants, 

 and the reproductive organs of which were not true seeds containing an 

 embryo, but mere cells enclosing a granular matter, which by germination 

 produced a thread, or mass of threads, a cellular body, a membrane, &c., 

 as the case might be, which either at once gave rise to the fruit or to a 

 plant producing fruit. Many of the genera of cryi:)togams were more or 

 less injurious to plant hfe, and one very important class of diseases 

 amongst trees and timber arose from the attacks of parasitic fungi. A 

 notable instance of a serious attack of fungus upon some fine young trees 

 of WeUingtonia giganfea had come under his notice. In the summer of 

 1805 a row of about twenty Wellingtonias, which were growing in a light 

 loamy soil, on an open, dry, gravelly subsoil, in a moderately well-sheltered 

 situation, began to show unmistakable signs of failing health, and upon 

 examining the roots he found them to be completely swathed in the 

 mycelium or spawni of a fungus, which bad w'orked its way under the bark 

 of the roots and stem in several of the trees, so as to completely choke up 

 the alburnum or sapwood, rupturing the vessels, and entirely preventing 

 the circulation of sap, and thereby causing the death of the tree. "When 

 examining the roots of the AYellingtonias he found the ground in which 

 they were growing full of old tree roots in all stages of decay, forming a 

 perfect nursery of fungus spawn. Having stated what steps were taken to 

 remove the roots and fungi, viz., by trenching and carefully removing every 

 particle of decayed wood, he said that a number of the "Wellingtonias 

 which had suffered by the fuugus were then replanted, and had since quite 

 recovered. Neither had there been any signs of the reappearance of the 

 fungi, although several seasons since 1865 had been quite as favourable as 

 that season was for its production. Another instance occurred in a small 

 mixed plantation of ash, Spanish chestnut, hornbeam, poplar, willow, and 

 hazel, which was planted in 1857-8 upon ground that had been cleared 

 two years previously of a crop of large oak, ash, elm, and beech, and in 

 which all the old stumps and roots were allowed to remain, The ash, 



