466 PROTECTION AGAINST FUNGI. 



pine needles, in crowded seed-beds. This saprophytic form 

 of the disease was always present in the Scots pine nursery 

 at Coopers Hill College, but never injured the pine seed- 

 lings or transplants. The latter were kept two years in seed- 

 beds and two years in nursery-lines, and about 50,000 healthy 

 four years old plants were removed from the nursery every 

 year from 1891 to 1900. 



b. Subjects of Attack, and Distribution. 



Needle-cast attacks Scots pine wherever it is grown ; also 

 black and maritime pines are attacked. 



As a rule, the fungus attacks only 1 to 5 years old plants, but 

 it has been observed on poles up to twenty years old. Damp 

 cloudy localities are favourable to its spread, and plains 

 and lowlands suffer more than mountains and hills. Large 

 regeneration-areas and dense stocking also favour its spread. 

 Under certain unfavourable conditions of soil and climate, the 

 cultivation of Scots pine must be abandoned, owing to this 

 disease, and the area stocked with Wey mouth pine,* or some 

 other resisting species. 



c. Protective Measures. 



i. Spray 2 to 3 years old plants, in July, with Bordeaux 

 mixture, 50 gallons water, 6 Ibs. CaS0 4 , 4 Ibs. unslaked lime, 

 6 Ibs. soft soap. A French nurseryman thus treated Scots 

 pine seedlings ; in the following February, not a single plant 

 sprayed showed a sign of disease, while 80 to 100 per cent, of 

 those unsprayed were dead. 



ii. Mix spruce or Weymouth pine with Scots pine, in 

 lines or belts running from north to south, so as to interfere 

 with the dissemination of the spores by damp westerly winds. 



iii. In nurseries, the seed should not be sown thickly in 

 drills, and the yearlings should be transplanted into nursery- 

 lines, or at once into the forest. New Scots pine nurseries 

 should be made in localities free from the disease, best among 

 broadleaved trees, in any case not near pine-woods, which are 



* According to Hartig, the Weymouth pine in Germany and Denmark suffers 

 from a similar fungus, Hypoderma Ir achy spor urn, llostr., and the larch from 

 Lophodermium laricinum, Dub'y, which however may be only a saprophyte. 

 Rostrup states that black piue is attacked by L. gilvum, which kills its needles. 



