224 Plantations and Home Nurseries Convpetition, 1912. 



radiciperda, which lives as a saprophyte on the okl roots 

 and stools, and is apt to spread on to living plants as a 

 parasite. _ That most destructive root parasite, Agaricics 

 melleus, was not much in evidence, partly, no doubt, because 

 it is not till autumn that it produces its characteristic 

 fructifications. The nursery seed beds at Jervaulx Abbey 

 had suffered during previous years from " damping off " 

 due to the fungus Phytophthora omnivora, and so much 

 was this the case that the seed beds had to be removed to 

 fresh ground, a proceeding that seems to have had the desired 

 result, as the trouble appears to have been overcome.' 



While it is not to be denied that we saw rabbits in con- 

 siderable quantity at certain places, there is no doubt that this 

 pest is not so much in evidence now as was the case ten or 

 twenty years ago, and on some estates, notably Byram, a 

 rabbit is quite a rare object. Planters have recognised that 

 rabbit shooting is one of the most costly forms of sport that can 

 be indulged in, and if keepers were made to realise that they 

 hold their positions only so long as rabbits are practically non- 

 existent, the desirable condition of things noted at Byram would 

 be still more prevalent throughout the country generally. 



At Byram an unusual form of injury was brought to our 

 notice in the case of an avenue of lime trees. Some years ago 

 the trees were deprived, by pruning, of all their lower branches, 

 with the result that the sun's rays, falling uninterruptedly on 

 the stems, killed the cells of the bark and cortex as far in as the 

 wood. It is well known that when the cortical covering of a 

 thin-barked tree, notably the beech, has been shaded for some 

 years, it becomes very tender, and appears to be unable to 

 withstand the scorching influence of the sun when the rays of 

 the latter are allowed freely to impinge upon it. Beech trees 

 which have hitherto stood in a crowded wood often lose their 

 bark on the south side of the stem in consequence of heavy 

 thinning. The case at Byram, however, is especially interesting 

 in so far as it is probably the first recorded instance of limes 

 suffering in this way ; and it is also unique in so far as the 

 removal of the shading had been effected not by thinning but 

 by pruning. At present the trees are disfigured by scars some 

 feet in length on the side facing the sun, and these scars are 

 now in process of healing, but, of course, the stems are much 

 disfigured and reduced in value in consequence of the damage. 



^Writing under date August 10, 1912, Mr. Maughan, Agent on the Jervaulx 

 Abbey Estate, states that ''damping off" had again set in, but, acting on 

 advice, the beds were pricked over with a pocket knife, and all dead plants 

 removed. The admission of air to the soil as a consequence of breaking the 

 " brat " on the surface, and the removal of dead and badly infected plants, 

 has done more good than anything previously tried. 



