The Black Spruce. 



295 



sonal knowledge of the circumstances or conditions attend- 

 ing the destruction of these trees, the attacks of fungi, the 

 attacks of insects and the effects of drought were suggested 

 as possible causes, chiefly for the purpose of directing the 

 attention of those who might have the opportunity of an 

 investigation, in such directions as seemed most likely to 

 afford a satisfactory explanation of the mystery. It was 

 then my impression that the trouble was of comparatively 

 recent date, and that it was possibly due to the modifica- 

 tion of our climate by reason of the extensive and rapid 

 denudation of our forest lands. But I find that it is no new 

 thing, that years ago lumbermen were fully aware of the 

 pecuniary loss they were sustaining from this timber 

 malady. Mr. Henry Hough, in answer to my inquiries, 

 writes from Lewis county thus : " The dying of the spruce 

 in this section has mostly if not entirely ceased. The 

 greatest destruction in our territory was from ten to fifteen 

 years ago." In Eensselaer county the same trouble was 

 experienced about thirty years ago. A lumber firm found 

 that their spruce timber was rapidly dying and to make 

 their loss as light as possible they made haste to open 

 roads in the forest that they might draw out and work up 

 as many dead spruces as practicable before decay should 

 render them entirely worthless. But with all their prompt- 

 ness they suffered no inconsiderable loss, for these dead 

 trees soon become too much decayed to make marketable 

 lumber. 



I have asked lumbermen and others who have been 

 aware of the destruction of the spruces, what theory they 

 held in respect to the cause of it. Their theories are 

 various but the most prevalent attribute it to excessive dry 

 weather or to the agitation of the trees by high winds. 

 The few observations that I have been able to make lead 

 me to adopt a theory quite different from these, and though 

 the discussion of it belongs rather to the province of the 

 entomologists than of the botanists, such is the importance 



