336 V. The Forestry Problem 



a cottage garden which contains Ribes. Practically all pines in the 

 outer row close to the garden are infected, but directly you get into the 

 wood even for 10 yards the disease is visibly less frequent, while 1 00 yards 

 away there is no infection at all. The occurrence of the disease on the 

 Pines is here evidently dependent not only on proximity, but on very 

 close proximity to the teleuto host, and yet teleutospores or their 

 sporidia, one would think, must be easily carried by wind, insects, or 

 birds over the 100 yards of intervening space, much more easily in fact 

 than would be the transference of aecidiospores across miles of country 

 in East Anglia. As a matter of fact Brefeld gives 1-2 days as the usual 

 duration of vitality in the case of aecidiospores, whereas teleutospores, 

 as a rule, pass the whole winter as such and germinate in the following 

 spring. It is the teleutospores, therefore, rather than the aecidiospores, 

 that one would expect to be capable of withstanding the vicissitudes of 

 a long passage through the air, and yet this conclusion does not seem 

 to be supported by experience. 



The integration of research, mycological and other, with the practice 

 of forestry may be regarded from several points of view. There is, first 

 of all, the question as to the relationship of research to practice. It is 

 only when such relationship is aggressively obvious that some people 

 take an interest in research at all. If only research is to be undertaken 

 whose practical bearings are at once self-evident, then we may say good- 

 bye to all progress of the type which persists and endures. It is a mere 

 platitude to say that some of the biggest advances in industrial methods 

 have emerged as side-issues in purely theoretical investigations. Do not 

 therefore let us discourage research, for instance, into the constitution 

 of the cell- wall ; it may perhaps unexpectedly throw light on methods of 

 impregnation with preservative materials, a subject of great and growing 

 importance in view of the diminishing supplies of timber. Or, again, the 

 forester does not take much interest in the initial stages of a research 

 which may be concerned with the technical details of the hybridisation of 

 two species of poplar, but he is not slow to appreciate the results when 

 he is presented with a new variety which gives him a volufne-yield per 

 acre 50 per cent, greater than he has ever known before. 



Another aspect of the subject is concerned with diffusion of knowledge 

 — the bringing lionic to the practitioner of the results of scientific teaching 

 and researcli. This is a (lilHculty in all industries, but particularly in 

 forestry. In a Uirgc iiidiistiial concern then» are always men associated 

 with the luaiiagctiK'nt who aic ((iiick to appreciate suggestions, and who 

 have the opportunity to test 1 iiem in practice. Even in agriculture the 



