236 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Strobus, P. vesinosa, P. austriaca, P. sylvesiris, P. Cembra, and other pines in 
the east. Aside from being largely the cause of " spike-top " in mature timber, 
it kills outright innumerable trees of the so-called " second growth." The 
timber of at least one area, thus far discovered, has been brought into such 
ill-repute that carpenters and builders refuse to use it for anything in which 
" never-ending shrinkage " is objectionable. 
The length of the moth is about one half-inch. The general colour varies 
from light grey to reddish grey, and the body of specimens having the latter 
hue on head and thorax is usually dark grey. The underside is uniform grey 
colour. 
The moth attacks mature trees from between 10 to 30 feet from the top down, 
and second growth from about breast-high up to 35 to 40 feet, Infestation 
nearer the top or base occurs only to a very limited extent. 
In dealing with the pest it is necessary to remove : 
(t) Those trees which, below the spike, show branches with yellow needles 
(a certain indication of present infestation). 
(2^ Those which are struck by lightning and remain green, as the moth 
usually breeds in great numbers along the lightning scars ; and, 
(3) Those which display knobby growths on branches, they being in many 
localities the most prolific source of replenishment of the moth. — A. D. W. 
Pinus ponderosa, Western Red-Rot In. By W. H. Long (U.S.A. Dep. Agr., 
Bur. PL Ind., Bull. 490, Jan. 191 7, pp. 1-8). — The author finds a varying 
percentage of western yellow pines (Pinus ponderosa) affected by a serious heart- 
rot in Arizona and New Mexico. This disease has three stages — (1) An initial 
stage, where the heart -wood is firm but shows reddish discolorations ; (2) an 
intermediate stage, where the diseased heart-wood is white and delignified ; 
(3) a final stage, where the heart -wood has disappeared. 
The fungus, however, attacks both sap and heart-wood of dead branches, 
from which it travels down into the heart-wood of the living tree. Although it 
resembles the red-heart disease (Trametes Pint), the author considers it to be 
a different fungus, with fruiting bodies resembling Polyporus Ellisianus. — A. B % 
Plantations at Corrour, Sir John Stirling-Maxwell's. By H. J. Elwes (Quart. 
Jour, of Forestry, x. pp. 123 -128 ; April tqt6). — The Loch Ossian plantations, 
which extend to 600- 700 acres, were intended to improve the landscape and to 
afford shelter for deer, and were begun twenty-two years ago. They all lie 
above 1,250 feet, and extend to 1,670 feet around the shores of Loch Ossian, a 
lonely loch east of the Corrour siding on the West Highland Railway, which 
skirts the west side of the great Moor of Rannoch. They are fully exposed to the 
severe gales from the west, but are better sheltered on the north and south by 
mountains. 
The soil is in most places a gravelly glacial drift overlaid by deep peat, with 
some loamy soil in patches, but little, if any, of it would be considered fit for 
pasture ; and the growth of the trees first planted on the peat was very slow 
until drains were cut, and the trees planted on the reversed turves taken out of 
them. Since this has been done a great improvement has taken place, and the 
younger plantations seem generally more promising than the older ones. 
Sir John Maxwell says that Pinus Cembra, always rather a slow grower, 
grows as fast in a poor gravel at 1,400 feet as it does in a lowland garden. 
Another pine which has been largely planted at Corrour is the erect Pyrenean 
variety of Pinus montana, of which the seed was specially collected at Mont 
Louis, and which was expected to produce much better timber than the ordinary 
Swiss form. 
The locality seems too high for the Japanese larch, which seldom ripens its 
leading shoot : but a few specimens of Larix occidentalism were growing very well 
considering the conditions, better than in Sir Herbert Maxwell's lowland planta- 
tions in Wigtownshire. 
Several species of spruce have been tried, of which, as far as I could judge^the 
white American spruce, Picea alba, was the most promising. The plants showed 
a more regular growth with fewer failures than any other tree at Corrour and 
were quite unhurt by spring frosts in places where the Common and Sitka spruce 
had suffered severely. Though a tree of the latter has attained 34 feet in height 
in twenty years, it does not look as though it would become a real timber tree, 
except in situations where the soil is deep, moist, and good enough to^enablejt 
to be closely crowded. The plantation at Durris, which is perhaps the best 
example in Great Britain of this species, is in close order. Picea ajanensis, P. 
orientalis, and P. nigra, planted twenty years, have attained 14 to 16 feet in 
height, but do not look very happy ; P. Omorika seems so far to grow well, 
