THE OAK MILDEW, 



97 



Oidium might prove a serious matter. As is well known, the 

 mildew attacks the later opening foliage of the oak — the 

 Lammas or midsummer foliage. When defoliation of the oak 

 takes place as a result of Tortrix attack, the renewed foliage is a 

 midsummer growth, and, as I have repeatedly observed, is very 

 frequently attacked by the mildew. This combined attack of 

 Tortrix and mildew has a marked effect on young trees, and it 

 is probable that a series of such combined attacks over two 

 or three years may prove fatal to young oak plantations. 



"The importance of these combined attacks of mildew and 

 caterpillar is evidently well worth stressing," 



II. The Geddes Committee Report. , 



The report by the Geddes Committee was received with 

 consternation throughout the silvicultural world, and the protest 

 from the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, passed by 

 special resolution, against the recommendations was to be 

 expected, because the Society has consistently made the creation 

 of a Central Forest Authority and the establishment of State 

 woods the premier item of its persistent demand for the proper 

 recognition of forestry. The Society suppon ed the recommenda- 

 tions of the Reconstruction Sub-Committee upon forestry, and 

 when the Government passed the Forestry Act in 1919, which 

 outlined a clear and definite programme for the period of ten 

 years, everyone believed that a material advance had been 

 accomplished, and that the work of afforestation and reafforesta- 

 tion would at all events proceed undisturbed for that period. 

 The Geddes Committee must have arrived at their conclusions 

 in a somewhat haphazard manner, and they certainly could not 

 have referred to the numerous official publications which have 

 been issued within the last twenty years, all of them containing 

 incontrovertible arguments for the action taken by Parliament 

 when the Forestry Act was passed. In the Committee's short 

 purview of the subject, they were apparently unconvinced that 

 State afforestation could be an economic proposition. They 

 evidently did not study the established proofs to the contrary 

 which were available to them, but they explained, what most 

 people know, "that circumstances differ in various countries," 

 and that "all civilised nations were now proceeding to afforest," 



VOL. XXXVL PART I. G 



