128 FOREST PLANTIJiTG. 



Adirondack forests,* but also in other Statcs,f serious 

 comp'aiuts are being made that valuable tracts of timber 

 sire dying off. We must watcli closely the working of 

 these little nnimals, and neglect nothing that can con- 

 tribute to their suppression. This duty eliould be c^m- 

 sidered by us the more urgent as in regard to the 

 eztensivity of our forests close observers have already 

 pointed out the next future as the time where complaints 

 of wood scarcity J might be more justified than boasts of 

 superabundance ; and then, of course, the great diversity 

 of trees will have gone also, 



II.— INJURIOUS INFLUENCE OF THE ELEMENTS UPON 

 FOREST-GROWTH. 



A. — Frost. 



Frost causes injury to forest- trees in various ways : 

 sometimes the cold during the winter is so excessive that 

 entire groves of our hardiest trees are killed. This oc- 

 curs principally in valleys ^hevQ there are great stretches 

 of marshy or swampy land, and also in adjacent higher 

 land locking towards the south. ITot unfrequently the 



*Cfr. Ann. Beport St. Porest Commission for 1885, pp. 52, 59; 

 Keport for 1886, p. 14 ; Report for 1888, p. 27. 



+ A West Virginia paper lately had the following item : 

 MoRaANTOWN, West Va., Sept. 14. — During the present Summer 

 large tracts of valuable black spruce timber along the valley of the 

 Cheat Kivcr have died, entailing a loss of tens of thousands of dollars 

 upon the owners of the land. Botanist C. F. Millspaugh and Entomolo- 

 gist A. D. Hopkins of the State University have undertaken to investi- 

 gate the matter, in the hope of being able to point out a remedy. It i'; 

 suspected that some insect is at the bottom of the disease which is at- 

 tacking the trees. 



X The Leaiston (Me.) Journal of April 4, 1890, contained as follows : 

 "It's rather queer— the fact that the Boston and Maine had to 

 suspend operations on its Kittery-Portsmouth bridge for a whole season 

 because the company could not find suitabla timber for its completion. 

 The depiction of our forest treasures is no myth. 



