South Yorkshire Times, March 2nd, 1934
Timber Pest
Conisborough Scientist’s Valuable Discovery
A Simple Remedy
An article which appeared in a recent issue of the “Manchester Guardian,” should prove of interest to Conisboro’ readers, for it gives a lucid account of the researches of a scientist who was born and bred in Conisboro.’ Dr. S.E. Wilson obtained his primary education at the Morley Place School, from which he passed to the Mexboro,’ Secondary School. After a few years there he returned to Morley Place as a student teacher, and then passed on to Sheffield, where he obtained the Master of Science degree. Since then, he has become a Doctor of Philosophy, and is now Professor of Biology at the Royal Veterinary College, London.
To newcomers to Conisboro’ the name of Wilson in connection with the timber business, will wake no memories, but older residents will recall the activities of Wm. Wilson (Dr. Wilson’s father) at the timber works on Station Road, and Mr. Albert Wilson (Dr. Wilson’s uncle) at the Low Road works, and the writer well remembers Dr. Wilson’s grandfather, who preceded Mr. Albert Wilson as proprietor of the Low Road works. The subject selected for investigation was the reserve food content of timber cells. The arboriculturist already knows a good deal about the reserve food substances contained in the cells of living trees, but this question as it affected felled trees presented a virgin field for research. For ultimately for Dr. Wilson, the imperial College of Science and Technology afforded him every opportunity to pursue his researches under the best conditions.
Starch
In the course of his investigations, Dr. Wilson chanced to pick up a length of plank from among a number of timber specimens and he noticed that it had been attacked by the wood-tunnelling powder-post beetle, but the attack was confined to one small area of the plank. The scientist’s mind, of course, at once raised the question why the grub had confined its attentions to a comparatively small portion of the piece of timber. Sections of the damaged and undamaged portions were prepared for the microscope, and it was discovered that the cells in the tunnelled portions contained starch. The inference was that the larvae of this most destructive beetle fed on the starch in the cells and not on the wood itself.
Attention was now directed to these larvae, and sections of grubs gathered from various sources were subjected to microscopic examination, with the result that starch in varied stages of assimilation was discovered, thus confirming the opinion he had formed that these larvae depended for their sustenance on the starch of the cells in the timber.
An Experiment
Dr. Wilson now turned his attention to the elucidation of the mystery that the cells in one portion of timber contained starch, and were therefore susceptible to attack while the cells of the remaining portion were starch-free, and therefore immune. A close inspection of the small plank, which had originally directed Dr. Wilson’s attention to the activities of the tunnelling beetle revealed the fact that the infested part had been denuded of its bark some considerable time before the rest of the log was peeled, probably owing to some injury when felling. This would result in the speedier death of the local cells. Did this mean that these cells retained their starch, and was the longer retention of the bark on the uninjured portion of the leg responsible for their starch-less condition?
To clear up this point Dr. Wilson conducted a lengthy experimental inquiry in field and laboratory, the result of which can only be very briefly stated here. It was clearly established that if rapidly dried, the cells of the timber of a felled tree, and their starch content, remains intact, so that a felled tree sawn into planks and these submitted to a drying process produced a timber which is liable to be attacked by the tunnelling beetle, because in the drying process, cells are quickly killed and their starch is retained, but if the bark is retained and the timber allowed to lie in log form, the cells remain alive, feed on the contained starch until this is exhausted, when, of course, they die, and timber is immune, since the cells contain no food for the larvae of the pest. The time needed for starch depletion varies, being dependent on various factors, such as the species of the tree, its size, the season of cutting down, and subsequent weather conditions.
Lastly, to test the truth of his conclusions, Dr. Wilson selected various kinds of timber, some starch-containing and some starch-free. These were exposed in an insect cage to attack by the timber-pest beetle, with the result that the former were invariably attacked, extensively, while the latter were invariably immune.
Thus, as a result of Dr. Wilson’s patient and acute research, a simple but efficient method of rendering timber-proof against this hitherto all-pervading pest is provided, and though to keep felled timber in log form for a few months may somewhat increase the cost, the resulting benefit far outweighs this, and the net gain must be very great.