178 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Special enemy in Coleophora laricella. Silver Fir is liable to 

 injury from wood- wasps, but does not exclusively support any 

 important species. This liability of the Pine is no doubt due to 

 its being the only forest Conifer indigenous to Britain, where the 

 Spruce is as yet free from the serious enemies which attack it 

 over the greater part of Europe. 



The preventive measures to be adopted against insect-attacks 

 can be gathered from what has been said, but it is necessary to 

 again point out, at the risk of being tedious, that no Conifer- 

 wood can be kept free from the risk of insect -injury, unless it is 

 freed from newly dead and dying wood, cut branches, and fresh 

 stumps. There is no need for the systematic removal of the 

 covering of needles, the natural protection to the ground, nor, as 

 a rule, of small twigs and branches much under an inch in 

 diameter. 



It is not rarely objected by those anxious to free a wood from 

 insects that this thorough cleaning is too costly to be put into 

 practice. Without it the insects cannot be kept down, and it is 

 for them to look at the cost of labour and the opportunity for 

 disposal of such timber, and decide whether it is cheaper to let 

 the insects flourish or not. 



The first cleaning-up of a neglected forest is no doubt costly, 

 but after that has taken place there is plenty of evidence to show 

 that systematic and orderly removal of dead wood is profitable 

 in the long run, unless exceptional destruction of timber over 

 scattered areas by storms or snowfall should unduly strain the 

 forest resources. 



No one who is familiar with the pitiable appearance of a 

 Pine-wood thinned out badly by Myelophilus piniperda can 

 doubt that in this matter penny-wisdom sometimes leads to 

 pound-foolishness, and that in the end the practice of keeping 

 the forest thoroughly clean — a practice advocated for many 

 generations by scientific foresters — is the best and safest. 



