Conifers 



themselves. The older, lower branches continue at first 

 to form a few green leaves at their tips ; but there comes 

 a time when such leaves get no light. In that case they 

 die and drop off early in the season. Such a branch, 

 having no water-transpiring leaves at its end, begins to 

 die at first gradually, but it soon dries up altogether and 

 becomes absolutely dead and useless ; generally it is 

 powdered all over by the green dust of the Alga Pleuro- 

 coccus. Whilst on the tree such dead branches are not 

 usually attacked by fungi at all. 



If, on the other hand, a branch with living leaves is 

 cut or lopped off, the fungi attack it promptly and may 

 make their way down it and infest the trunk itself. 



But as the tree grows and its trunk expands, the dead 

 branches drop off and fall into the mass of dead needles 

 and leaf mould. There they are soon investigated by 

 burrowing beetles and miscellaneous insects. The 

 threads of the rich fungus flora in old woods find them 

 out, and they are broken up and absorbed by Hydnums, 

 Russulas, Agarics, bacteria, and the like. 



They are soon turned into humus and may again 

 become food for their parent trees. 



One of the most alarming trade-prospects in the world 

 to-day is the rapid exhaustion of conifer forests. Year 

 by year shows an increasing area of farmland and arable 

 cultivation. The forest is rapidly disappearing every- 

 where, being used up to form pulp for the world's 

 newspapers, for railway sleepers, and the numberless 

 trades which depend upon deal and other wood products. 



We in Britain are infinitely worse off even than most 

 continental countries, for the amount of English soil 

 under trees is only 5.3 per cent., of Scotch 4.6 per cent, 

 (Wales 3.9, Ireland 1.5) of the total area. 



The forests of Germany cover 25.9 per cent, of the 

 country (Austria 32.6, Belgium 17.3 per cent.). 



245 



