24 BULLETIN 299, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Black ash growing in swamps seems to be quickly affected by 
drainage, and there are large quantities in gradually draining swamps 
in New York and the Lake States either dead or dying. Excessive 
transpiration kills these trees down from the top. 
In the culture of ash on sites subject to drought, plants from seeds 
of drought-resisting trees should be used, and the area cultivated for 
several seasons till good extensive root systems are developed, 
ANIMALS. 
The tender young shoots and leaves of small ash seedlings and 
sprouts form unusually attractive browsing for wild animals, espe- 
cially deer and cattle, which greatly reduces natural reproduction of 
the genus and causes double leaders on many trees. Trees whose 
crowns are above browsing distance are practically free from damage 
by animals. 
DISEASES. 
Ash is not subject to extensive damage by diseases, which is an 
important point in its favor. Only one (white rot) has done much 
serious harm, though a number have been found on the different 
species. Diseases on ash are confined for the most part to trees 
whose vitality has been weakened by old age, fire, or generally 
adverse conditions. Ash stands grown under proper methods of 
forest management should be practically immune from serious attacks. 
White rot occurs in the heartwood of the trunk and main branches, 
and is caused by the fungus Polyporus Jraxinophilus, which turns the 
wood into a mass of yellow pulp. This disease is common in over- 
mature green ash in the lower Ohio and Mississippi River bottoms, 
near their confluence; also on white ash near the western limit of its 
range in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, on dry limestone 
hills, where 90 per cent of the trees are infected. 1 The ash-leaf rust, 
JEciduim Jraxini, is probably the most common fungous parasite, 
occurring on almost all species of ash, but doing little or no serious 
damage. Other fungi appear on ash leaves and twigs, but rarely in 
sufficient numbers to do serious injury to the trees affected. Among 
them are several species of Glceosporiwn and Sphseropsis, as well as 
Septoria jraxini, Phyllosticta fraxini, and SpJiseronema spina. 
INSECTS. 
During the last several years the oyster-shell scale (Lipidosaphes 
ulmi) has increased so much on ash trees in northern Ohio as to kill 
off entire stands, and is still on the increase in that locality. There 
are a number of other insects which attack standing ash, but none 
1 Full discussion of this disease in Bulletin No. 32 of the Bureau of Plant Industry, " A Disease of the 
White Ash caused by Polyporus fraxinophilus. " 
