“ DRY ROT, a fungoid disease in timber which occasions the destruction of its fibres, and reduces it eventually to a mass of dry dust. It is produced most readily in a warm, moist, stagnant atmosphere, while common or wet rot is the result of the exposure of wood to repeated changes of climatic conditions. The most formidable of the dry rot fungi is the species Merulius lacrymans, which is particularly destructive of coniferous wood ”

“ The supposed superior quality of wood cut in winter, and the early practice in England of felling oak timber at that season, may be inferred from a statute of James I., which enacted “that no person or persons shall fell, or cause to be felled, any oaken trees meet to be barked, when bark is worth 2s. ”