April 9, 1896] 



NATURE 



539 



dense luxuriant foliage, smother them. Several species 

 of epiphytic ficus enclose the stem of teak or other useful 

 trees by a network of aerial roots. The extirpation of 

 climbers and epiphytes forms an important part of a 

 forester's duty in India. Our North Europe climbers, the 

 honeysuckle and Clematis Vita/ba, are innocent repre- 

 sentatives of those gigantic enemies of the forester in 

 warmer countries. 



Green parasites, such as Viscwn and Loranthus, pro- 

 bably in a manner contribute their share towards the 

 nourishment of the tree upon which they have established 

 themselves, and some botanists have even gone so far in 

 their appreciation of this symbiotic arrangement, as to 

 claim for the mistletoe the gratitude of the apple-tree, 

 upon which it lives. Be that as it may, in the Southern 

 Schwarzwald, chiefly at lower elevations, Viscuvi album 

 to such an extent infests the Silver Fir that many trees 

 are killed, and that much of the timber is rendered useless 

 by the haustoria of the parasite. And on the Nilgiris of 

 South India several species of Loraniliiis have attacked 

 the plantations made on those hills of the Australian Acacia 

 mclanoxyloiu killing a large number of trees. 



The damage done to trees by fungi has of late years 

 justly attracted much attention. Fhytophthora omnivora, 

 de Bary, closely allied to the potato pest ((/''. infestans) 

 attacks the seedlings of the beech and other broad-leaved 

 trees, and destroys them wholesale in May and June, 

 especially if protracted wet weather sets in. 



.iLcidium clatinum^ Link, is the fungus which infests 

 the Silver Fir, manifesting itself in two different ways— by 

 an abnormal hypertrophy of the branches, known as 

 witches' brooms, and by canker or diseased swellings of 

 the stem. The trees attacked with canker are worthless 

 for timber, and the damage is very considerable. 

 Nothing, however, can be done in the matter, save to 

 destroy the branches bearing witches' brooms, and to 

 cut out all trees attacked by canker. Fortunately, the 

 system of management which suits the Silver Fir best, 

 selection fellings, or gradual cuttings under shelter 

 woods, permits the removal of canker trees. 



The dreaded Larch disease is chiefly caused by a 

 fungus {Pcsisa lVillko?>imii, R. Hartig). Wounds made 

 by the Larch Miner Moth, Tinea {Coleop/iora) Laricella, 

 facilitate the entry of the spores into the tissue. 



Broadly speaking, the most effective protection against 

 the ravages of insects and fungi is a correct system of 

 management. One important result, arrived at by long 

 experience, in this respect, is that all other circumstances 

 being the same, mixed woods are less exposed to such 

 ravages than pure woods, consisting of one species only. 

 Short-lived plants, such as our field crops, are exposed 

 likewise to damage by insects or fungi ; iDut, in the case 

 of trees and shrubs, the damage is intensified, because 

 they furnish food and other circumstances favourable for 

 the multiplication of the pest, not during one season 

 only, but continuously. This has been our experience 

 hitherto, in the case of forests, as well as in the case of 

 plantations of coffee, tea, cinchona, or other woody 

 plants. The vineyards of Europe are a case in point. 

 Oidiiwi Tuckeri, Berk., commenced its ravages in South 

 Europe in 185 1, nearly destroyed the vineyards of 

 Madeira, and probably was the fungus which, in 1856, 

 put an end to the cultivation of the grape in the valley 

 of Kunawar in the North West Himalaya. During 

 the last ten years, two pests, a fungus and an insect, 

 both introduced from North America, have done enor- 

 mous damage — Peronospora viticola, de Bary, and the 

 dreaded Phylloxera vastatrix. Planch. The coffee 

 plantations of Ceylon have been annihilated between 

 1869 and 1880 by that terrible ixmgus He7nileiaTastatrix, 

 Berk. In Java, where this fungus has also made its 

 appearance, without, however, doing much damage, 

 other trees are invariably planted with the coffee, and 

 this to a certain extent is also done in the coffee planta- 



NO. 1380, VOL. 53] 



tions of Coorg and the Wynad. In the extensive and 

 magnificent tea plantations, which now cover the Assam 

 valley, it fonnerly was the custom to preserve belts of 

 the original forest on broken ground and along ravines, 

 and the experience of foresters in Europe points to this 

 plan as an important safeguard against the spread of 

 fungus and insect pests. Among foresters in Germany 

 and in other countries on the continent of Europe, the 

 conviction has now generally gained ground, that ever>' 

 effort must be made to maintain mixed woods, consisting 

 of several species, where they exist, and in pure forests to 

 introduce a mixture of other species, wherever such is 

 practicable. The object is to make the conditions for 

 the multiplication and spread of insects and fungi less 

 favourable than they are in pure forests, consisting of one 

 species only. 



The forester, unfortunately, has to contend with other 

 enemies besides man, animals, climbing plants and fungi. 

 The heat of the sun, drought, frost, snow and ice, storms 

 and fires, smoke and acid fumes of factories and furnaces 

 are destructive to an extraordinary degree, and often 

 entirely upset his plans of operations. And in addition 

 to all this, some species are subject to endemic widely- 

 spread disease, such as the needle-shedding of young 

 Scotch Pine plants, the cause of which has not yet been 

 ascertained. All these matters are dealt with in the con- 

 cluding parts of Mr. Fisher's book. 



The recollection of the storms which blew down 

 enormous masses of timber in Scotland in 1893 and 1894, 

 ought to invest this portion of the book with special 

 interest. Here again a correct system of management 

 affords the best protection. Cutting series of moderate 

 extent, adapted to the configuration of the ground and to 

 the locally prevailing wind direction, severance cuttings 

 timely made — these are the principal measures by which 

 the extensive pure spruce forests of Saxony and Thuringia 

 have, it is true, not been absolutely protected against 

 storms, but protected so far, as such is possible in pure 

 forests consisting of a shallow-rooted species that is 

 easily blown down. 



Protection against fire is not a matter of great practical 

 importance in the moist climate of Great Britain. Mr. 

 Fisher has, nevertheless, very properly treated it 

 somewhat fully, and has also alluded to the work 

 of fire protection in India. The peculiar feature of 

 the climate in most provinces of India is the long 

 dry season, at the end of which grass, leaves, herbs, 

 are as dry as tinder. The natural results are the 

 annual jungle fires of the hot season, an institution as 

 old as the civilisation of the countrj'. To the annual 

 fires it is due that fully stocked and healthy forests were 

 the exception, when the first attempts at regular manage- 

 ment were ma'de, and that the main portion of the so- 

 called forests were groups of trees, separated by vast areas 

 of scrub and grass land. Moreover, the majority of the 

 older trees were unsound, hollow and crippled, the soil 

 was hard and impoverished, and it was clear that protec- 

 tion against fire was the most important task to be accom- 

 plished, if real improvement of the forests was to be 

 effected. The attempt, however, to put an end to this 

 time-hallowed institution met with powerful opposition 

 on all sides. Colonel Pearson, the Conservator of 

 Forests in the Central Provinces, was the first to succeed 

 in keeping out fires from the Bori forest in the Satpura 

 hills. This was in 1865, and a fe\y years later the effect 

 of continued protection in that district was marvellous. 

 This and other forests which have thus been really pro- 

 tected, are now dense compact masses of healthy trees 

 and bamboos, which can with advantage be subjected to 

 regular management. The total area of fire-prctected 

 forests in the British Indian Empire in 1893 amounted to 

 27,438 square miles, which is nearly three times the area 

 of State forests in the kingdom of Prussia. 



Proprietors of forest lands in Great Britain and in the 



