CULTIVATION. 



15 



Fungi are a phenomenon which was, is, and shall be coeval with matter ; 

 being, in my opinion, inseparable from, and connected with the 

 decay or transition from one state to another, of each and all the com- 

 ponent parts of matter, whether organic or inorganic, whether animal 

 or vegetable, which in their elementary nature are subject to change, 

 transition, decay, or death ; and what matter is free from change '? 



" Life ends in death, death ended life renews : 

 Death lives by life, yet life from death ensues : 

 For all must change ; transition has no end ; 

 Thus life, thus death each help to other lend." — Nelson. 



Life is a little word, but none more comprehensive ; and these 

 Fungoids are but a phase of this phenomenon, so common are they as 

 to be found in earth, air, and water ; in town or country, in house or 

 field, in gilded-halls or mud-hovels, in cellar or larder, in kitchen or 

 scullery, in sick-room or nursery, in the cradle, in the grave ; anyicliere^ 

 provided that anywhere is ivhere matter is present in a transition stage, 

 or decaying state. My present enterprise, however, is only to treat of 

 such of them as are found ensconced in mother earth, and which are 

 enemies to the firs and pines. In doing so I shall indicate preventa- 

 tives rather than dictate cures. 



The ground may be in an apparently sweet and perfectly healthy 

 condition, the soil and substrata may be particularly well adapted, and 

 the tree provided with sufiicient heat, light, and pure air ; when some 

 fine young specimen of a fir or pine, which may have recently been 

 planted, will begin to show symptoms of sickness, slowly but surely 

 increasing to disease, which may be terminated by premature death, 

 generally bewildering us, and as generally leading to very erroneous 

 conclusions as to its true cause ; for I incline to the beUef that many 

 of the charges now entered in the counts of indictment against many 

 of the hardy new firs and pines, such as : — " weakly constitutions," 

 "healthy one season sickly the next," ^'sickly foliage," "decaying 

 branches," " disease," and degeneracy," will, in not a few cases, be 

 found to have been caused by their fungoid enemies, some of whicli, 

 and especially when in quantity, act as deadly poison, when mixed in 

 the food of the firs and pines. I know of no more fertile source of 

 predisposing the soil to the production of these to the firs and pines 

 noxious fungoids, than old roots of trees or shrubs. 



Whenever it is intended to plant the pine tribe upon land which has 

 just been cleared of a crop of timber, it will be found the best policy 

 and in the end most economic method, for the planter patiently to wait 



