46 Annual Report of the State Botanist. 



replanting has been done as of old, that is, in the best manner to 

 promote the growth of a new crop of fungi to destroy the planks 

 in a year or two. The season has been so favorable to the growth 

 of mycelium that unseasoned timbers, used for the construction 

 of freight cars, though dressed and framed, but closely piled in the 

 shop one or two weeks, awaiting erection, would show traces of a 

 developing mycelium. The strength of "the pieces would not be 

 impaired in so short a time, and little notice would be taken of the 

 j)resence of the mycelium. If the timber finally seasons the mycelium 

 becomes inert and will not revive till moisture reaches it. This would 

 again start decay. If the unseasoned wood is painted and the 

 moisture retained, the mycelium will continue to grow, causing 

 partial or complete decay in the wood. This was clearly shown in 

 the examination of several hundred freight cars undergoing repairs. 

 Internal growth of fungi had taken place in heavy timbers which 

 were thereby weakened and so quickly failed in service. A general 

 impression prevails that timbers only need protection from external 

 decay. Careful microscoincal study reveals the fact that nearly every 

 stick of timber contains in the crevices or on the surface a sufficient 

 number of spores or traces of mycelium to induce decay when 

 painted, unless the wood is well seasoned or properly treated. In 

 New York city, timbers have been put in houses and other buildings 

 and covered with tar or tarred paper, which caused their decay in 

 three to four years. Notably, an apartment house was so badly 

 injured by the development of fungi in the large timbers covered by 

 tarred paper, that it had to be taken down in the fourth year of its 

 use. Buildings eight to eleven stories high, in which every floor 

 will be heated to seventy degrees or more in the winter, furnish a 

 temperature sufficient for the growth of the most destructive fungi 

 for the entire year. Unless the timbers are seasoned or properly 

 treated, the fungi will grow and cause the decay of the wood. These 

 fungi have so long been considered the accompaniment (jf the decay 

 of the wood, instead of the cause thereof, that by the majority of the 

 users of wood the true functions of the fungi are not understood. 



In view of the fact that the State finds it necessary to take active 

 measures to preserve our rapidly decreasing forests, it seems to me it 

 might with propriety take active measures to call attention to the 

 destruction caused by fungi in timber and so check what is now a 

 great and unnecessary waste. Many of the means of doing this are 

 simple and inexpensive, as stated in my letter of December 5, 1887. 



As an illustration of simple and effective measures, I will give an 

 example: When I was chief engineer of the Valley Railway of Ohio, 



