In the course ol" tlic present and the early part of next mouth prompt 

 attention should be given to effect a thorough clearance of all dead and 

 decaying wood and fallen dahrls from woods and plantations. The 

 season s fallings and thinnings will have been comj)leted, and tree- 

 planting finished, so that an opportunity can now be had • for the 

 performance of this most important, but too often sadly neglected 

 operation. No plantations can be considered to be well managed 

 where prunings, thinnings, fallen branches, or other debris of trees are 

 allowed to lie and accumulate year after year, till they become so 

 infested with vermin, insects, and fungoid organisms, as to threaten 

 the very existence of the growing trees. Such matter is the origin of 

 haif of the diseases from which our forest trees suffer ; and those who 

 neglect its timely removal will certainly reap the reward of their 

 neglect in vastly diminished profits from the deteriorated condition of 

 the produce. Sickly, fallen, or decaying trees — in fact, all vegetable 

 matter in a decaying state — are prolific sources of the fungoid diseases 

 of trees, and also of many of the numerous tribes of insects Avhich commit 

 such deadly ravages upon healthy living plants. It is a connnon 

 practice in thinning plantations to leave all the smaller branches and 

 other refuse to rot on the ground, or, what is even worse, to roughly 

 collect and pile it up into heaps for sheltering game. Scarcely any- 

 thing could be worse, either for the plantations or the game, than 

 these rotting heaps, swarming with all manner of insects and fungoid 

 life. Living plants of gorse, privet, bramble, rhododendron, laurel, 

 and other evergreens, produce far superior and healthier cover for 

 game, so that there is the less excuse for the indolent plan and bad 

 practice referred to. From this cause scarcely a season passes but we 

 hear of serious damage to Scots fir plantations by the ravages of the 

 Pine Beetle [Hi/lHrgua iniujjcrda), the eggs of the beetle being laid 

 VOL, I. OF 



