THE QUALITY OF CONIFEROUS TIMBER. 



105 



on the quality of timber, the first question that seems naturally 

 to arise is : Has the source or origin of the seed anything to do 

 with the character of the trees ? This question has often been 

 discussed by British foresters at the meetings of the two great 

 arboricultural societies, but the scope of this paper prohibits our 

 doing more than briefly glancing at some of the points raised 

 by such a question, important though they are when viewed in 

 the light of the whole subject of forestry. For instance, scarcely 

 any belief has gained such universal acceptance amongst our 

 foresters as that the Larch-disease is fostered and intensified by 

 the propagation of young trees from seed gathered from diseased 

 parents. I believe, however, that this view is held only by 

 those who ignore the fungoid character of the Larch-blister. To 

 prove that there are any good grounds for holding such an 

 opinion it would be necessary to demonstrate the existence of 

 mycelia or spores in or on the seeds, and this, so far as I am 

 aware, has never been done. Whether, however. Larches raised 

 from the seed of parents enfeebled by the ravages of Peziza 

 Willhommii inherit the debilitated constitution of their parents, 

 and so become predisposed to infection, must for the present 

 remain a debated question ; but in view of the fact that it must 

 take many generations to give rise to any considerable modifica- 

 tions of structure favourable to the attack of the parasite, it is 

 hardly to be expected that this has anything to do with the 

 rapid spread of the disease in our woods during recent years. 



Leaving out of account the influence of origin on the trans- 

 mission of fungoid disease, there appears to be no room for 

 reasonable doubt that the success of forestry may be considerably 

 modified by the care that is bestowed on the selection of the 

 seeds. Those that are gathered in an early district are certainly 

 not suitable for culture in a late one, largely because the resulting 

 trees are predisposed to unfold their leaves and shoots before the 

 danger from late frosts is past, and suffer accordingly. 



Very bad results have always attended the raising of trees in 

 a dry climate from seeds that have been harvested from trees 

 grown in a region where the atmosphere is never very far from the 

 point of saturation. Where the atmosphere is moist, interchange 

 between the gases that permeate the intercellular spaces of the 

 spongy parenchyma and the outside air is encouraged by the 

 stomata being large and the cuticle sparingly developed. The 



