THE NEW FORESTRY. 1 89 



oaks, probably affected the trees left. Hartig draws attention 

 to the fact that the bark and tissues of a tree that has grown 

 up in a dense wood will not stand vicissitudes of weather like 

 a hedge-row tree that has long grown accustomed to exposure. 

 Hartig's ring-shake, p. igi, caused in spruce trees by Trametes 

 pint, is not the ring-shake of hard-woods in this country. At 

 p. 285 he just alludes to radial and peripheral cracks that 

 he had " sometimes noticed " in old oaks, but gives no 

 satisfactory explanation as to their cause. 



The Ash. — This species is not troubled seriously with very 

 destructive pests. The bark-boring beetle, Hylesinus fraxinus, 

 is often found on old decaying trees on which it makes fan- 

 tastic tracings under the bark ; and the blister beetle, or one 

 of the wasps, causes large blisters to form on the trunk and 

 branches, which finally kill the tree. These blisters are 

 common upon single trees here and there in a wood, some trees 

 being a mass of blister from top to bottom. A puncture is 

 apparently made through the bark in the first instance, and 

 never heals over like other wounds. A ring of new bark is 

 formed round the puncture, and other rings inside of that, 

 until a large, rugged, round blister, perhaps nine inches in 

 diameter and depressed in the centre, where the original 

 wound will be found still open, is formed, such blisters often 

 being many years of age. A kind of scale also attacks young 

 trees, especially weak saplings, and does some damage. The 

 ash is not subject to any other serious complaints. 



THE Elm. — This tree, at any age above thirty years, often 

 dies off at the top by slow degrees. We have had to cut many 

 Scotch elms down in mixed woods that were dead or dying 

 from this complaint. The symptoms seem to indicate the 

 presence of the scolytus destructor mentioned by Schlich 

 and others as doing much harm to the elm. Otherwise the 

 tree is generally a good grower either in the forest or open 

 country. 



The BEECH. — Old trees of the beech are often attacked 

 by the beech blight, Chermesfagi, which attacks the bark of the 

 trunks, generally near the bottom, and travels upwards, either 

 following decay in the bark or causing it. The bark becomes 

 broken and ruptured and easily detached. " Damping off," 

 caused by a fungi (Phytophthora omnivora) , is very destructive 

 among young seedlings, and where it is troublesome there is 

 no sure preventive of its attacks but a complete change of 

 ground. 



