SILVICULTURAL EFFECTS OF SLASH 219 



Slash in Relation to Insects. — Insects, particularly bark 

 beetles, find in the slash a place where they may breed and 

 develop and then migrate to adjacent Hving timber. Newly 

 cut slash offers favorable opportunities for strong swarms of 

 insects to develop until they are able to attack successfully 

 Hving timber. The destructive insects breed almost exclu- 

 sively in the tops, logs and larger limbs included among the 

 slash and not in the very small limbs. ^ Portions of the tree 

 from which the bark has been removed do not furnish favor- 

 able breeding grounds for the insects destructive to live 

 timber. There are various insects which work in dry wood 

 and in rotting logs, but the insects developing in slash, which 

 are to be feared as a menace to standing timber, will breed in 

 the freshly cut logs and Hmbs having the bark on. It should 

 be recognized that not all the destructive insects found on 

 cutover land have necessarily developed in the slash. Some 

 may have been bred in stumps or in standing dead and dying 

 trees. 



Slash in Relation to Fungi?' ^ — The slash acts as host for 

 a variety of fungi all of which are beneficial in hastening decay 

 of the slash. Sporophores may be produced on the slash and 

 from them spores scattered which in the case of many dan- 

 gerous species of fungi cause infection of standing trees. ^ 

 Those fungi which are most virulent and destructive to Hving 

 trees develop principally in the larger pieces of the slash. 

 Their spores may be carried many miles to affect Hving trees 

 distant from the cutover area. 



In warm and humid regions favorable to the development 

 of fungi, the danger to trees on the area, and in the adjoining 

 forest, of infection by destructive diseases developing first in 

 the slash is very great. 



Slash in Relation to Forest Esthetics. — From the stand- 

 point of forest aesthetics the presence of slash is a nuisance. 



