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the plants frequently die. There is an illustrated article on this fungus in the Journal of the Board of Agriculture for June 1903.

I am informed by Capt. the Hon. R. Coke that in January 1907 there was a bad attack of this fungus, on two-year-old plants in the nurseries at Weasenham, Norfolk, and on some trees of the same age which were planted out in the previous autumn. He was advised at Kew to burn all the affected plants, and spray the remainder with “Violet Mixture.”! About 25 per cent of the infected plants died or were removed as worthless; the remainder outgrew the disease, and are now (June 1908) looking well, though the fungus has not entirely disappeared. Capt. Coke adds that, after trying the so-called Colorado variety, he will plant no more of them; and that as seedlings of the Oregon variety vary a good deal, he prefers those which show a tendency to stop growing in time to ripen their leader.

The seeds are liable to be destroyed by the larva of an insect,’ Megastigmus spermotrophus, which has been introduced into Europe from Oregon. The eggs are laid by the insect in the young cones, and one larva develops in each seed and destroys it. This pest has been observed at Mariabrunn, and has done great damage in Denmark ; and during 1905 and 1906 was so serious at Durris in Aber- deenshire, that no seed was worth collecting there.

The largest tree that we have heard of in Europe, is at Eggesford, in Devon- shire (Plate 229). This tree must be as old as any existing, for it was reported® in 1865 to be then about forty years old and 100 feet high. This, however, was an exaggeration, as three years later it was recorded‘ by Mr. A. Spreadbury, as being 93 feet by 12 feet at three feet from the ground. I measured it carefully in com- pany with Mr. Asprey, agent to the Earl of Portsmouth, in April 1908, and found it, by the mean of two measurements from opposite sides, to be 128 feet by 18} feet. About four feet from the ground two very large spreading branches come off, which at two feet from the trunk are 6 feet 9 inches and 5 feet in girth. At 30 feet from the ground, the stem is still 13 feet 5 inches round, and at 1oo feet it girths 3 feet 3 inches; so that it must contain about 700 feet of timber. It grows on a lawn facing east, a little above the river Exe, on a soil which is evidently deep and fertile; and if the top is not broken may become a much larger tree, though it has only increased 35 feet in height in forty years.

The largest tree in the grounds at Endsleigh was reported by Mr. R.G. Forbes to be, in 1906, 100 feet high, with a quarter-girth of 26 inches in the middle; but in remeasuring it by climbing in 1908, he informs me that it is only measurable to a height of 87 feet. The quarter-girth over bark at 43½ feet is 26½ inches. Allowing

1 This is composed of sulphate of copper, 2 lbs. ; carbonate of copper, 3 lbs. ; permanganate of potash, 3 oz. ; soft soap, ½ lb.; rain water, 18 gallons.

2 Cf. Gard. Chron. xxxix. 57 (1906), Trans. R. Scot. Arb. Soc. xix. §2 (1906), and Journ. Board Agriculture, xii. 615 (1906), where an article on the insect with figures is given by Dr. R. Stewart MacDougall.

3 Trans. Scot. Arb. Soc. iii, 80.

4 Gard. Chron. 1868, p. 1189.