FUNGI OF IMPORTANCE IN THE DECAY OF TIMBERS. 6 
placements during the four years prior to 1914 required about 240,000 
feet of lumber at a cost of more than $6,100. In another Massa- 
chusetts cotton mill, one weave shed, built in 1910, by 1916 was 
affected with decay throughout, and in another shed in the same mill 
parts of the roof were replaced in 1914, 1915, 1916, and 1917, neces- 
sitating the use of 1,000,000 feet of lumber in 1916 and 30,000 feet the 
next year. A Canadian mill, built in 1908 with beams of supposedly 
"first-class Georgia longleaf " pine, was thoroughly rotted by 1911, 
and the beams were replaced by steel. 
Blair (2) gives some similar data with regard to the decay of paper- 
mill roofs. He found that of 80 mills visited, 12 had made renewals 
just prior to 1920, 17 were to make renewals in 1920, and 24 others 
would be compelled to make renewals within a short time after that 
date. Of the roofs which were being replaced in 1920 the service had 
been 5 to 19 years, with an average of 8 to 10 years. 
The foregoing data show that considerable pecuniary losses were 
occasioned by the action of decay-producing fungi in mills, even when 
the prices of lumber and labor were comparatively moderate. With 
the recent high cost of both these factors, the figures become much 
more impressive. In one Massachusetts cotton mill replacements 
made during the summer of 1920 in the roof of a weave shed approxi- 
mately 1,000 by 300 feet cost the owners between $100,000 and $125,000. 
In Europe the problem of decay in buildings is of long standing and 
has received considerable attention. Much has been written from sev- 
eral points of view upon the decay caused by Merulius lacrymans, in- 
cluding the engineering and legal as well as the mycological and 
biological factors. Also, the decays caused by Ooniophora cerebellar 
Porta vaporaria, and species of Lenzites have been particularly 
studied. In this country the study of timber decay in buildings on 
a comprehensive scale is only beginning, and thus far the work has 
largely been confined to Merulius lacrymans and its relatives and to 
Coniophora cerebella. In mills and other structures in which condi- 
tions favorable for fungus growth prevail, other organisms probably 
do more damage than these, but have as yet received little attention as 
structural-timber destroying organisms. 
Because of the practical importance of the decays caused by these 
other fungi in textile mills, etc., the writer has undertaken to make 
some preliminary studies upon certain of them (Lenzites sepiaria, 
L. trabea, Trametes serialis, Fomes roseus, and Lentinus lepideus), 
especially with regard to certain physiological relations of the my- 
celium, basidiospores, and secondary spores where they occur. Within 
the time and facilities at his disposal, as much attention as possible 
has been paid to those factors influencing the intramural dissemina- 
tion of these forms. 
