NOTES AND QUERIES. 185 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Protective and Preventive Measures in Forestry. 



A considerable amount of preventable loss occurs annually 

 in many industries, and a not inconsiderable amount of this 

 loss or damage might be prevented provided more care and 

 attention were given to devising protective and preventive 

 measures. In forestry encouraging progress has been made in 

 this direction, but a lot still remains to be done. Many foresters 

 have been studying problems of plant protection, correlating 

 cause and effect and devising practical methods of obviating, 

 or at least mitigating, the effect of all injurious agencies which 

 come within their notice. Considerable assistance in this 

 work has been rendered by scientists who have made special 

 studies of plant protection, but the linking up process has been 

 and is still defective, as regards the general dissemination of 

 knowledge and the practical application of protective measures. 

 In this section of the Transactions, under " Notes and Queries," 

 there is scope for the interchange of experiences in the whole 

 field of forestry, and at the present time, when the care of 

 plants in the nursery and in young plantations is perhaps the 

 most important and vital phase of forestry in Britain, it is more 

 than ever necessary that the results of previous experiences 

 in plant protection should be made known as widely as possible, 

 in the general interests of the country. 



Members would be doing good service to forestry if they 

 would send in to the Society a short note of any cases 

 which have come within their experience or observation where 

 successful methods have been discovered or adopted in 

 preventing losses through natural or artificial agencies, such 

 as successful methods of preventing frost damage, fungus 

 or insect attack, on nursery stocks ; the best methods of 

 packing and transport of plants to the planting areas ; treat- 

 ment of areas in preparation for planting ; extermination of 

 rabbits, squirrels, and other forest pests ; protection against 

 wind and fire. Methods of protection vary according to the 

 conditions of the locality — such as soil, surface vegetation, 

 altitude, and exposure — and therefore the wider the area over 

 which information is collected the greater will be its value. 



