Chapter XII: Section X: Amendments to By-Laws (5)

MR. CORSAN: I base my conclusion on the experiment station that put out the Redhaven peaches. Dr. George Slate here has made a very big point, and it went to pot. Those words there are what we have got to be careful about, that our institution doesn't go to pot. I have started affairs that went with a fury, and when I let go of them, they just went to pot.

Take Michigan State College's Bird Sanctuary, the W. K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary. What is it now? A colorless affair. It's gone to pot, and we want to see that the nut growers don't allow ~their~ institutions to go to pot.

DR. CRANE: That's right: You hit the nail on the head, there, but it's up to the nut growers to see that they don't. And how many experiment stations or their actions have been influenced by the Northern Nut Growers Association?

MR. CORSAN: I have built upon the experience of J. F. Jones and Neilson and Professor Slate and all of them. Now, here is what I did. I picked out a section of land that floods every spring, about four times the width of this room and has sometimes eight feet of water. Now, nobody is going to build houses on that and tear my nut trees down. They are there forever, and it will always be a nut haven, and nobody will be able to destroy it. Now I have got to be careful to see that it doesn't go to pot, as Professor Slate said, by selecting some brains to succeed me, to carry on. Is that right, Professor Slate?

PROFESSOR SLATE: (Nods.)

MR. SILVIS: We can't spend too much time thinking about the atomic bomb. We can't think too much about getting an organization to start this, it just takes somebody to go ahead and do it. We don't need experiment stations to develop the nut, either. The nut was here a long time before the experiment station was ever developed.

I wrote in a letter here two or three or maybe four years ago--I think it was after the Norris meeting, to every vice-president in NNGA that commercial possibilities of a nut must first be apparent before any experiment station is interested, because then money is involved, capital has been invested. Before capital can be invested must come coordination. Coordination is labor. That's grafting or flowering, or whatever you want to call it--back-breaking exercise.

I still think we have the organization here. We don't need to argue about any more organization. We have organization right here in our own State Vice-presidents. I tried to bring that out, the suggestion as to the fact that I thought maybe the State Vice-president would serve on a perpetual committee, if he lived into perpetuity, to get these zones within his state. If Illinois is 400 miles long and he has 16 zones of climate, let him get 16 plantings of the same kind of a nut in those 16 zones. The same way with Texas, the same way with Montana or Ohio.

MR. SHERMAN: I think both Mr. Stoke and Mr. Davidson thought that it might be a good idea to give somebody a job instead of an honorary position by naming a State vice-president for that sort of a job. Now, we have got to start somewhere, and that would be a good place to start: give somebody something to do, like some of these other dead people that will feed these nuts that Corsan was telling us about this afternoon.

But the commercial possibilities are always apparent. You can subsidize them, you know. If you can get enough money behind it, you can subsidize it. I think our problem still is the same as it was before: We are still trying to find out what the other guy has that's better than our own. And if we have got five nuts that are any good, I'd like to know about them myself.

DR. CRANK: That's right.

MR. SILVIS: I will make this statement in favor of the Homeland black walnut--if we are on black walnuts. I came in a little late on account of the mud here. The Homeland is growing in Massillon, and Mr. Stoke sent me the scions. All it did was produce staminate bloom. I gave some of the wood to John Gerstenmaier in Massillon. It is doing very well.

I also favor the Thomas black walnut, and I think the hickories and everything else have commercial possibilities. Just let somebody go ahead and correlate these factors. Life is very short. I have copies of these letters, four letters out of 50 or 60 that I prepared.

DR. CRANE: Mr. Jay Smith. We are going to have to limit this to not over three minutes' time.

MR. JAY SMITH: My experience is somewhat limited. I have a few seedling trees that are good, and I have a few named varieties that seem to be good. I just want to point out one reason why we should have a number of varieties. One of my choice varieties in my back yard has five nuts on it this year, and it has produced a good crop other years. And the answer seems to be that the pollen came out during a period of very rainy weather and the tree did not fertilize. Now, other trees apparently blossomed before or after, mostly after, but this one was a rather early blooming tree, and I have more nuts on other types of trees.

One of my good seedling trees has very few nuts on this year. Possibly that might be for a similar reason. So regardless of how good these varieties may be, we must have several varieties. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I have some good filberts that came from Geneva, and they have had trouble with wood damage due to the beetles laying eggs in the wood, and the beetles may possibly have come from nearby willows. And I have had some of the willow growing, too, because I thought it looked nice. Now I have cut down all of the willow, and there is some birch in the neighborhood, and I understand the birch harbors this same thing, some variety of Agrilus beetle,[7] and we have a lot of angles to work on in order to get rid of our drawbacks. And we have the matters of season and soil and elevation. It's quite a big problem.

[7] Agrilus anxius Gory, the bronze birch borer.

DR. CRANE: It ~is~ a big problem, but we will never settle it the way we are going. We have got to do better.

MR. STOKE: I don't know whether I have anything that is really pertinent to say. The thought I had in mind should have come sooner. That is: Why are we growing nuts? There are two angles from which we can approach that, two natural angles. Here is the angle of the amateur that wants to grow nuts to eat. After all, that's what I suppose they are for. There is the commercial grower who wants to grow them to make a profit, and I think we should approach our subject, evaluation of nuts, from either one of those two angles, or work along two different channels. I think that's very necessary.

You take the Elberta peach. If you want a peach in your back yard, you are not going to plant Elberta peaches to eat. If you want to make a commercial success, you are going to plant the Elberta, if you know anything about it. Are we commercial nut growers, or do we grow them for home consumption? Go downstairs and look at the nuts we judged last year and the eye appeal of some that didn't rate at all would sell those nuts ahead of the prize winner. But if you want to grow them to eat, those three prize winners are the best nuts down there.

And if we thrash over this field, I think we have got a definite idea of what we are after, and I think we should have had that to start with.

DR. CRANE: That's right, and there is one other point of view, too. There is a third reason for growing nut trees. That is simply for the ornamental value. That hasn't been dealt with.

MR. WELLMAN: I'd just like to ask a question. There has been some reference to apples here. I don't know very much about it, but I understand that the American Pomological Society got out a list of apples nearly a century ago, which they have kept changing and adding to and subtracting from over all of that time. Is there any analogy there that would help us in anything we can do? They made mistakes and put apples on there that they are sorry they put on and they have had to take off. People don't use those varieties in one part or another part of the country for some reason. Is there any reason why we shouldn't follow some suggestion such as that, stick our necks out and go ahead?

DR. CRANE: That is right, no reason in the world why you can't.

MR. SHERMAN: I'd like to do some commenting. You are doing here tonight what you have done at the last meeting. You have talked varieties. I thought the purpose of that was to get a committee appointed some way, some organization that will say, "Here are certain varieties that should be tested. Make arrangements to propagate those varieties and have them tested."

I made a demonstration right downstairs here; some of you witnessed it. You have got some black walnuts that you are cracking. I went out to the car and got some that would crack in four nice quarters that laid out. I tried it again. Sure, they cracked and cracked good. Where can I get some trees? There are a lot of you right here who would take them just that quick (snapping fingers), take them home and test them.

This meeting was to get an organization or discuss a means of getting an organization that will get those trees propagated and spread out for testing. Now, I think it's just as simple as A, B, C. It's a prolonged job. You have got to have an organization that's going to perpetuate itself for the next century, because if you start that organization right it will be here a hundred years from now, and you will be just as busy a hundred years from now as you are right now.

What that committee has got to be, whether it is a statewide or a nationwide, Northern Nut Growers or Pennsylvania Nut Growers or Ohio Nut Growers, is a committee of five--I will say five, you can make it 10 or 15--that will say, "Now, for Ohio here are ten varieties that we think should be tested. Get 50 trees of each of those ten propagated and spread out over Ohio and find out where they will grow." That will apply for some of Western Pennsylvania, too. It isn't just state lines, understand, but the main thing is to get that variety tested before your nurseryman is spreading it all over everywhere.

And how can you get it tested? You have got to have some trees propagated, and you have got to have some nurseryman who knows about the propagation. And I will say a lot of you nurserymen, and there are a lot of you here, take it or leave it, don't know how to propagate a decent black walnut tree. I have had them sent to me with a 6-inch sprout growing in the top of a club. I have had others two years old with a nice whip five feet high, one-year-old growth. You have got to have good trees. You have got to have a nurseryman who knows how to propagate those ten and send them out.

Now, the next meeting was to find out what sort of an organization you have got to have to get that done, not talk about a Stabler, whether this is good or that is good. That's what you have been doing for 40 years.

MR. SLATE: It takes more than a committee, it takes land, labor, tools, supervisory people.

MR. SHERMAN: I can point to 25 members that will take ten varieties that they will test--and pay for them.

MR. O'ROURKE: I would like to say, are we going to wait until we test all of those varieties? We have no information to answer all those letters that are coming in. We want something, not tomorrow, we want something today, that we can give them, information which, at least to the best of our knowledge of today is accurate. And the only way we can get that accurate information is to get a committee together in each region.

MR. SHERMAN: That won't take care of the future. That will answer our present questions to the best of our knowledge, but we want an organization that will take care of the future.

DR. CRANE: There is one other thing that I should mention. We in the Department of Agriculture have released a number of new varieties. We have got others coming on, not only your chestnuts, but filberts and others, pecans, and so on. But we haven't got any organization in any way, shape or form. We can put these out with the growers who test them, but gee whiz, we have put them out and put them out; and look what kind of information we get. We haven't got facilities or the money or anything else to follow up. We have got to have some organization some way, somehow, that could take this material and test it, at least give some idea as to how it performed.

Now, then, the question is what kind of an organization? If the Northern Nut Growers is not the one that should do it, what kind of an organization can be effective to do it?

MR. CORSAN: Now I'd just like to say one more thing tonight. That chestnut blight, I honestly believe, was a godsend to this country. I can remember way back when I'd go into a store and buy a lot of these Paragon chestnuts in New York City in the finest grocery store, and they were crammed full of weevils. Now, the chestnut blight came, and it has about annihilated the weevil, because there was no chestnut to weevil in. And I would like to have some report about the weevil.

MR. WILSON: They are in Georgia.

MR. McDANIEL: They are in Virginia and Indiana.

DR. MacDANIELS: Mr. Chairman, I suppose I should have the chair. This is a committee of the whole.

DR. CRANE: That's right.

DR. MacDANIELS: I have a right to speak,

DR. CRANE: That's right.

DR. MacDANIELS: I say we have always come down to the point, here we are, where do we go from here and what do we do next? There, in a word, "Here we are." Lots of discussion, much of it irrelevant. I will just propose, along the lines I spoke before, that what comes out of this is that We recommend to the incoming president to organize a survey and testing campaign along the lines that seem to meet with some agreement; namely, getting the state vice-presidents busy in finding out the regional evaluation of different varieties.

Supposing we try black walnuts; just one species for this year, and that he organize his state according to zones and come up with that information with regard to that state.

And the other thing would be that these findings be sent to the committee. We have a committee on surveys and one on judging and standards, and let that be compiled by them jointly or set up in some way that would seem to be effective and come up next year with this overall evaluation along those lines.

I'd make that motion.

DR. COLBY: Second the motion.

DR. MacDANIELS: Any discussions?

DR. ANTHONY: In Pennsylvania two of us have worked full time for a year, and I am not sure we'd be able to evaluate the black walnut yet.

DR. CRANE: We are not evaluating the black walnut, though.

DR. ANTHONY: You are asking one man to do that, your vice-president.

DR. CRANE: He is to appoint a committee.

DR. MacDANIELS: Any way he chooses to mark them out.

DR. ANTHONY: He is organizing a nut tester association.

DR. MacDANIELS: No, an evaluation association. As I would say, you have the Ohio Association already formed; that would be their problem to come up with an answer for their state. We have the Pennsylvania organization already organized. They will come up with some sort of evaluation: No. 1, Thomas, No. 2, whatever it is, No. 3, whatever it is. Now, in your other states we don't have an organization; do it some other way. I don't care how they do it.

DR. CRANE: There are some others in these other states, too, that are already formed.

Any other discussion?

(Whereupon, a vote on the motion was called for, and it was carried unanimously.)

MR. SILVIS: Just one thing. It was made with the express purpose that we start maybe just the black walnut. At the same time in certain areas you may as well raise a hickory or a Persian right along with the black walnut, or the filbert.

MR. McDANIEL: No objection, but this year we are surveying the black walnut named varieties only.

MR. SALZER: I am just a buck private in the rear rank, but we have been having little local meetings in New York, and they appointed me vice-president for the State of New York, the Empire State, and here Ohio has their organization, Pennsylvania has their organization. What am I going to do? I can work Western New York, but I have got to have someone to help me in Eastern New York.

DR. MacDANIELS: Take the membership list and take the men who can do it.

DR. CRANE: There are a lot of good men in Eastern New York.

Now, if there isn't anything else, I will turn the meeting back to Dr. MacDaniels.

DR. MacDANIELS: Thank you, Dr. Crane. I think these talks are good for the soul. We can let our hair down and know what we all think. And I do think it's important that we do make some progress on this particular problem. I think this is one way to do it. There may be a half dozen ways and other ways better, but at least you have to agree on something and go on from there.

Now, the meeting in the morning begins at nine o'clock, the full program.

If there is no further business, then, this session is adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 10 o'clock, p.m., the meeting was adjourned, to reconvene at 9 o'clock, a. m. the following day, August 29, 1950.)

TUESDAY MORNING SESSION

August 29, 1950

DR. MacDANIELS: I want to make the remark that this isn't church, you can sit up front if you want to.

The first paper this morning has to do with a nut tree disease that is bothering a good many of us, I think, particularly in Michigan, as you recall from Mr. Becker's paper, the Bunch Disease of Walnuts, by Dr. H. L. Crane and Dr. J. W. McKay. I don't know which one is going to give it. Dr. McKay?

The Bunch Disease of Walnuts

Discussion

(Manuscript too late for publication.)

(Drs. Crane and McKay reported that there had been little further development in knowledge regarding the walnut bunch disease since 1948, when G. F. Gravatt and Donald C. Stout of the U.S.D.A. Division of Forest Pathology reported on it with illustrations at the N.N.G.A. meeting (see our report for 1948 pp. 63-66.) Since then the state of California has prohibited the entry of all walnut nursery trees and scions from the Rocky Mountain states or farther east.--Ed.)

DR. CRANE: I'd like to make one additional remark. You see, we call this trouble "bunch disease" rather than "brooming," to distinguish it from other diseases that are caused by known parasites. We have a disease very similar to this one affecting walnuts and pecan and hickory, and that one has been studied more carefully than has the bunch disease. It is unquestionably caused by virus, and in our pecan orchards we have a situation that exists that is a parallel to what it is in the black walnut. The variety Stuart practically never has shown any symptom of the bunch disease. Yet it performs very much like a lot of our black walnuts do. They just don't bear; they don't have the proper foliage; they don't make the proper kind of growth. So we are not sure whether they are symptomless carriers, that is, in terms of the lack of expression of virus growth and this bunchy condition on them.

Really, we feel that all people that are interested in the walnuts and that are trying to grow them should make careful observations on these trees to study just what the situation is, how it develops, and note the performance of these trees that become diseased; because we feel that it's a much more serious thing than people appreciate at the present time.

In much of Eastern Shore Maryland and of the area around Washington and Beltsville and over in Virginia, a great majority of the trees are affected by it, particularly Japanese walnuts of all types and the butternuts. I feel it is so bad on Japanese walnuts and butternuts that they shouldn't be propagated in the area.

MR. McDANIEL: I had the bunch growth developed on a new species this year in my planting in north Alabama, a 12-year-old tree of ~Juglans rupestris~. It is a growth that looks practically the same as the bunch disease on the Japanese walnut. I believe that's the first time it's been observed on that species. There are no butternuts or Japanese walnuts on the farm. There are dozens of black walnuts (seedlings and several varieties) none of which show the bunch symptoms. However, it is typically developed on some Japanese trees a few miles away.

At Whiteville, Tenn., Dr. Aubrey Richards has a suspicious looking tree among some two year old seedlings of ~Juglans major~ from Arizona seeds.

MR. CHASE: I'd like to add to that, too, Mac. In our walnut arboretum we had some ~rupestris~, and I had been suspicious of its being diseased for a number of years. I finally have decided that it had the bunch disease, and those trees down at Norris have all passed out.

MR. McDANIEL: My tree came from Norris, 10 years ago.

DR. MacDANIELS: ~Juglans rupestris~ killed by the disease.

MR. STOKE: Just because this is a little contradictory to what you have heard, I want to say that my experience has been this: I have an old nursery--well, there is a butternut in the row and also heartnut--Japs. One of those Japs has had the bunch disease for six or eight years. None of the others has been affected. It was a variety I wanted to perpetuate. I took an apparently healthy scion from that and put it on another tree, and that grafted tree also had the disease. But there has been no evidence of contagion from this Jap to the other Japanese, butternuts and black walnut in the same planting in the immediate neighborhood--in fact, they crowd each other. That's a statement of fact.

I spoke a little while ago of an old black walnut tree that had that disease for a number of years and none other in that planting had it.

MR. O'ROURKE: Is there any correlation between the age of the tree and the expression of the disease?

DR. McKAY: It's been our observation that we haven't had it in our nursery to any extent. We have seen it in the nursery of J. Russell Smith on Persian walnut. It, to my knowledge, is the only place where we have seen it on nursery trees. It may be that our nursery happened to be free of the inoculum, because it's been about a mile from the orchards.

MR. O'ROURKE: Would you by any chance think it might be seed borne?

DR. McKAY: We have no information on that virus.

MR. GILBERT SMITH: I have one statement to put in at this time. Dr. Crane questioned whether the Japanese walnut should be grown. I wonder if the Japanese walnut might not be a safeguard in the area where they don't have the disease, in that you will detect the disease the quickest on the Japanese walnut, and in that way anyone would become wise to it, rather than if it was in the black walnut. It might be so insidious that it could be well spread before persons knew they had it at all. I wonder if the Japanese walnut, through its quickness in showing the disease, might not be a safeguard to the other walnuts?

DR. MacDANIELS: That's a technique that's used with some other plants.

MR. CORSAN: I go on the principle that a tree that's well fed might not resist every disease, but it will resist a great many diseases and most of the diseases, if it's well fed. Now, the feeding of trees is very important. I noticed that in going back and forth between Florida and Toronto. I examine the pecan situation every fall and spring, and just to think of Stuarts--you know the size of Stuart pecan--coming in good, big crop of nuts that size (indicating with fingers). Can you see that? And you know that is less than half the size the Stuart should be. It's a great nut for cracking by machinery. In fact, a lot of people grow nothing but Stuart. And last year they had such a crop. Last year I pointed to a farm right near the highway. "Do you see that? For years I have been trying to get you to put that sawdust, which is nearly 40 feet high in a pile, around your pecans and see the vast difference in your pecans." You know there was no rain down there all last summer, and the pecans were half the proper size. Now, that sawdust would keep the moisture in. I am a great believer in the use of sawdust. It's a tree product itself and it has some of the constituents of what the pecan should feed on.

As Dr. Waite told us one time in Washington--you will probably remember the remark he made about the pecan trees in an orchard which were absolutely fruitless year after year. He went through that orchard, and he saw a pecan here and a pecan there that had a good, big crop right among the empty trees. He examined them and found signs driven into the trees, and some of the signs were put up with zinc covered nails. Those signs that had the steel covered nails had no nuts on, but those that had zinc in had a huge crop. It excited the growth of the female blossom.

Now, we have got an awful lot to discover, as you gentlemen say in this nut culture, way beyond the imagination of the human mind.

DR. MacDANIELS: We had better limit discussion to this particular problem. Is there more comment?

MR. McDANIEL: On that problem, I have observed the brooming in the heartnut seedlings about three years old, which were seedlings of the Fodermaier variety growing at Norris in the late 30's. Brooming developed in some of them in either the second or third year from seed.

DR. MacDANIELS: That answers their remark about the young trees.

MR. SLATE: A plant that is well fed and making very vigorous growth may be more attractive to the insect vector. Therefore, a healthy tree might take it.

MR. McDANIEL: These trees were very vigorous.

DR. MacDANIELS: How many growers of nut trees have this bunch disease on their property?

MR. KINTZEL: Black walnuts?

DR. MacDANIELS: On anything at all. (Showing of hands.) There are at least a dozen.

When Mr. Burgart up in Michigan finds out that the limiting factor practically cleans him out, there is this question of bunch disease with witches'-broom resulting from ground deficiency. I know in the Wright plantings in the vicinity of Westfield they had brooming trees of the Japanese walnut which apparently recovered after treatment with zinc. And, of course, we know on the West Coast you get witches'-broom in the Persian walnut which cannot be cured by zinc.

Is there any other discussion on this point?

(No response.)

We will go on to the next paper.

MR. CORSAN: Anybody passing through Toronto can drop in and see my Japanese walnuts with 24 to the cluster and not a sign of bunch disease.

DR. MacDANIELS: Yes, you may not have the bunch disease near you. We hope you haven't.

The next paper is by J. A. Adams, who is from the Experiment Station here at Poughkeepsie. This experiment station is a branch of the Geneva Agricultural Experiment Station. I believe that's right, isn't it, Mr. Adams?

MR. ADAMS: That's right, and it is concerned primarily with the fruits down here in this region.

DR. MacDANIELS: His subject is "Some Observations on the Japanese Beetle on Nut Trees." Let me say Mr. Adams would like to show some slides, but it didn't seem feasible to close this window down.

The Japanese Beetle and Nut Growing

J. A. ADAMS

Associate Professor of Entomology, New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva and Poughkeepsie, New York

It is a pleasure to attend this meeting of the Northern Nut Growers. Association and to take part in your program. I shall discuss the Japanese beetle as it seems to affect nut culture, and outline our methods of control.

The Japanese beetle evidently came into this country in the soil about some roots of plants imported to a nursery near Philadelphia nearly 40 years ago. Since 1916, its distribution, habits, and control have been closely studied by the federal Japanese Beetle Laboratory at Moorestown, New Jersey. The insect has become generally distributed in the coastal area, as far north as Massachusetts, as far south as Virginia, and as far west as West Virginia. Beyond these limits, it has established local colonies in New Hampshire, Vermont, Western New York, Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina. In most of the states affected there is an investigator who, like myself, carries on local studies, more or less in cooperation with the federal laboratory. In New York we now have, in addition to the generally infested areas on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, about 50 isolated infestations in the central and western parts of the state.

Might I have a showing of hands by those who have Japanese beetle already? (Showing of hands.) There is quite a sprinkling of you who have them. Many of you do not have them yet, but, since the insect is spreading every year, you can expect them some day, especially if you live in the Northeast. It is expected that this pest will not thrive in the drier central States, but it might become established in the Pacific States some day, unless prevented.

You can see these beetles anywhere in and around Poughkeepsie. From Poughkeepsie I have watched them spread in the past few years to Pleasant Valley and eastward. This morning as I parked my vehicle by this building I picked these specimens from the smartweed, ~Polygonum persicaria~. (Passing of specimens.) These insects also feed on the flowers and foliage of purple loosestrife, ~Lythrum salicifolia~, so plentiful and showy in our swampy fields. The most conspicuous damage is done to the foliage of wild grape vines. You will observe this when you visit Mr. Stephen Bernath's nut plantation. You will note the conspicuous defoliation of the vines on the fence rows. Willow is another host heavily attacked. I believe you have the beetles at your plantation at Wassaic, Mr. Smith?

MR. GILBERT SMITH: Plenty of them.

DR. ADAMS: You will also observe the damage at Mr. Smith's place. You will see that it is strictly a matter of skeletonization of the leaves.

A MEMBER: They eat the fruit, too.

DR. MacDANIELS: You have damage on fruit.

A MEMBER: They eat berries.

DR. ADAMS: Yes, but on nut plants the damage above ground is confined to leaf skeletonization. It varies widely, depending on the kind of nut plant. Before visiting Mr. Bernath's planting, I sought out the botanical names of the commoner nut plants in Dr. MacDaniels' Cornell Extension Bulletin No. 701, on "Nut Growing." Of the ~Juglans~ species, the black walnut, ~J. nigra~, is sometimes heavily attacked. There are large black walnut trees near one of our peach orchards. I have seen hordes of beetles gather in these trees in July and August, skeletonizing the leaves until the defoliation reached 40% or more. Late in August the beetles seemed to leave the walnut foliage and descend upon the ripening peaches. The heart nut, ~J. sieboldiana~ var. ~cordiformis~, was moderately fed upon at Mr. Bernath's nursery. The butternut, ~J. cinerea~, is only lightly attacked, as a rule.

The hickories and pecans are not attacked to any appreciable extent, but at least some of the chestnuts are very attractive to this pest. I have seen shoots of ~Castanea dentata~ with their foliage reduced to lace. Some of the small Chinese chestnuts, ~C. mollissima~, at Mr. Bernath's place, were about one-fourth defoliated in mid-August.

The hazels seem to be attractive to these beetles. When the Japanese beetle spreads to Prof. Slate's plantings of ~Corylus~ at Geneva, we may get more information on varietal preferences. I find that exposed foliage of ~C. americana~, the common wild hazel here, is sometimes fairly heavily fed upon. I am holding up to the window a portion of a hazel bush; you can see that the leaves along one side are skeletonized. It is probable that the species, hybrids, and varieties of ~Corylus~ will show the same marked variation in susceptibility that is shown in so many other genera of plants.

Among the oaks, the pin oak, ~Quercus Palustris~, and the English oak, ~Q. robur~, are commonly one-third defoliated while the common white and red oaks are almost immune. Among the maples--to go farther afield from nuts--the Norway, ~Acer platanoides~, and the Japanese, ~A. palmatum~, are often severely injured, where the sugar maple, ~A. saccharum~, is only lightly injured and the delicate-leaved red maple and silver maple, ~A. rubrum~ and ~A. saccharinum~, remain untouched.

Since the Japanese beetle is here to stay, and to spread, these differences are worth considering where plant materials are being selected for new ornamental plantings. In our bulletin on Japanese beetle (Cornell Extension Bulletin 770) we have to warn the reader that planting chestnuts may bring him trouble with the Japanese beetle, trouble which he would not have with flowering dogwood, ~Cornus florida~, or the common lilacs, ~Syringa vulgaris~, which are immune to this pest.

It may be, however, that some of the chestnuts carry immunity factors. In the U. S. Department of Agriculture Circular No. 547, published in 1940, "Feeding Habits of the Japanese Beetle," by I. M. Hawley and F. W. Metzger, ~Castanea crenata~, the Japanese chestnut, is listed with beech and chestnut oak as "generally lightly injured." I understand you consider the nut of this species poor, but if resistance factors are in the genus, there can be hope of finding or developing a chestnut resistant to Japanese beetle.

We might be able to do with chestnuts what has been done with poplars. The common poplars range from the Lombardy, ~Populus nigra italica~, which is heavily damaged by the beetle, to the white, ~P. alba~, which is immune. The forest geneticist, E. J. Schreiner, has written an article, "Poplars can be bred to order," which appears on pages 153 to 157 in "Trees," the Yearbook of Agriculture for 1949, published by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Schreiner provides an interesting diagram of random planting of 102 poplar hybrids, in plots of 50 trees each, representing 30 parentages. He writes, "Japanese beetle infestation was heavy in ~1947~; as late as September 9 beetles were as numerous as 10 to 12 per leaf on the most susceptible plants. Although the insects were feeding everywhere on the sparsely scattered weeds growing under the hybrids, beetle feeding was found on only nine hybrids, representing four parentages. Three of these parentages include hybrids that were entirely free of beetle feeding during the entire infestation." Among five hybrids of ~P. charkowiensis~ and ~P. caudina~, three were highly susceptible, one moderately susceptible and one was non-susceptible.

Japanese beetles, when infesting rows of plants of the same variety, usually occur unevenly on the individual plants. Some of the factors have to do with the vigor or color of the tree. In my observation on peach, I have repeatedly seen a sickly, yellow and half-wilted tree with thousands of beetles in it, while other similar but healthy trees in the same row averaged only a few hundred beetles. You can make one branch of a tree more attractive to the insects than the rest of the branches by partly girdling it or permitting borers or cankers to damage the base of the branch. This observation suggests that the increased sugar content raises the attractiveness of the leaf. It coincides with what is already known that extracts of plants preferred by the Japanese beetle have, in general, a higher sugar content, or more of a fruit-like odor than those not attacked. (Metzger et al, Jour. Agric. Research, ~49~ (11): 1001-1008. 1934. Washington, D. C.)

There are other observations you can easily make yourselves. The Japanese beetle avoids shade, except on the hottest days, and its feeding in dense trees shows up most in the tops; its feeding on uniform plantings tends to show up most in the edge rows. Nursery-size trees are more extensively defoliated than larger ones. At this point we must consider that the insect usually has to fly into a planting from the outside, for it breeds chiefly in lawns and meadows. If the foliage mass of the nut planting is small and the grass areas nearby are large, the beetles are likely to do heavier damage than where the planting is very large and grass areas negligible. A small planting in a suburban area, beside a large golf course, cemetery or dairy farm, is going to be more heavily attacked than a large one set in a clearing in the woods.

~Control of the adult:~ The safest, most direct measure is to pick or knock the beetles off the plants, preferably in the early morning, when they are cool. They may be dropped in a pail with a little kerosene in it. Some plants can be shielded with thin nets which can be placed on them by day. We do not recommend Japanese beetle traps. These yellow traps, which are baited with geranoil and other essential oils, can draw beetles in from a considerable distance but we have found that, possibly because many beetles miss the trap, the population of beetles remains high near the trap, in spite of heavy daily catches. Although the use of one trap to the acre on a block 10 miles square would probably get results, the use of a few traps on a small nut planting is likely to be disappointing.

A MEMBER: Will birds or any kind of poultry eat them?

DR. ADAMS: Yes, poultry will eat them, as far as they can reach. Certain birds, of course, will feed on them to some extent, but birds, in summer, seem to have plenty of other things to eat, and they certainly leave plenty of beetles in plain sight uneaten. We can see that the birds are a fairly constant helpful factor, but are not to be relied upon to prevent injury occurring in a beetle outbreak.

Rotenone, which, I believe, is one of your main insecticides in nut culture, is fairly effective on Japanese beetles. It kills the beetles hit with the spray and gives protection for several days thereafter. If you apply it often enough, rotenone can take care of the plants so that they don't become disfigured by the beetles. Using cube powder, you may apply five ounces of 4% rotenone in 10 gallons of water. Of course, in many cases there is no objection to using DDT wetable powder or dusts, unless you are afraid of a mite problem arising after DDT is used. If DDT can be sprayed on the plants, it needs to be applied only about three times during a summer, or sometimes only twice. For plants that are growing very fast, the new growth, of course, has to be kept treated. You may prefer to spray once heavily over all the plants in July and then, after that, keep the beetles off by spraying or dusting the new growth, during August. For more directions see U.S.D.A. Farmers Bulletin No. 2004.

Now, there are new chemicals that will kill Japanese beetles very quickly. Parathion will kill them, but its toxicity necessitates great care in handling and, on peaches, we find it protects the plants for only a few days. Chlordane, which has a very important use in connection with these insects in the grub stage, is not recommended above ground; it is too brief in its action. Methoxychlor may be used instead of DDT. It is less effective, but much less poisonous, and should be applied more frequently.

Now, the other aspect of control is to try to reduce beetle production over the whole area so that you don't have so many beetles flying in to the plants during the summer and you don't have to spray so frequently, if at all. This is the phase to which I wish to give particular attention, after we consider the life history.

~Life history:~ The Japanese beetles in the adult stage are in evidence here from late June to late September, or, roughly, for the summer season. The adults lay their eggs in the soil, mostly in lawns, mowed grassy fields and pastures. The adults die but the eggs give rise to tiny, bluish-gray larvae which feed chiefly on grass roots. The larvae grow through the fall and spring, and, if more numerous than about 40 to the square foot in September, or about 25 in April and May, can cause severe lawn damage.

MR. CORSAN: That's the stage when the pheasants and starlings eat them.

DR. ADAMS: Yes, in the grub stage.

MR. CORSAN: I see thousands of starlings gorging themselves.

DR. ADAMS: Yes, scratching birds, crows and skunks can take them out; the starlings make a hole the size of a pencil point to do so. In our survey areas grub populations sometimes seem to drop rapidly in May, when the birds are feeding their nestlings. In June, the surviving larvae mostly change into pupae, and by July they are appearing as beetles. From the lawns and grassy fields they readily fly to weeds, shrubs, grapevines and trees. They fly at least a few hundred yards, if need be, to find their host plants. Well kept, sunny, lawns with good, moist soil, which carry 40 grubs to the square foot in the fall may still have plenty at transformation time in early summer. A lawn of 5,000 square feet could thus produce 100,000 beetles. Yards, roadways and pastures commonly produce as many as six beetles to the square foot, which means a quarter million to the acre.

~Chemical control in the grub stage:~ In New York we suggest that on a home property the more valuable sections of permanent lawn be grub-proofed with chemicals as soon as there are 5 to 10 grubs to the square foot. This grub-proofing has two effects: (a) it stops beetle production from that lawn, and (b) it prevents the lawn grass being damaged by the grubs of this and other annual grub species and by the birds and animals, including moles, which damage grubby turf. For grub-proofing I prefer to use chlordane. It may be applied in a spray, at 8 ounces of 50% wettable powder to 1,000 square feet, or it may be purchased in the more bulky 5% form and applied dry with a two-wheeled lawn fertilizer spreader. For each 1,000 square feet I take 5 pounds of 5% chlordane and, since it tends to clog the spreader, I mix it in a cardboard drum with 5 pounds of a dry, granular material such as the activated-sludge fertilizer known as "Milorganite." The ten pounds of mixture is then spread on the 1,000 square feet, half east and west, half north and south.

If applied in the fall or early spring there will be no beetles coming out in July and no grubs for several years. DDT at 6 pounds of 10% DDT to 1,000 square feet will give an even longer grub-proofing effect. Our plots so treated in 1944 are still grub-free. The possible trouble with DDT is that it is too nearly permanent, and if you should plow up a piece of lawn treated with it and try to raise tomatoes or strawberries, you might find the soil too toxic.

~Biological control in the grub stage:~ The chemical grub-proofing of the sunny parts of the front or main lawn on a property is desirable for the reasons stated, but it does not usually stop more than a fifth of the beetle production around the property, because there are usually plenty of neighbors' lawns, pastures, public grounds, and other beetle-producing turf areas nearby. How are you to reduce the beetle crop on these places, mostly on ground you don't control? Here is where biological control comes in, something which I feel will appeal to you in this group. The parasitic insects known as spring Tiphia, imported from the Orient and well established on hundreds of estates, golf courses, and cemeteries around Philadelphia and New York, may be introduced in your vicinity when grubs reach about 5 to the square foot. The parasites, which are like flying ants, appear above ground in spring and feed on honey-dew. The female burrows in the soil and attaches her eggs singly to Japanese beetle grubs. A maggot hatches and consumes the grub. I have charge of the distribution of these parasites in New York. I like to liberate at least one colony in each village or town division. Some of you may help me plan the liberation for your vicinity, possibly on a cemetery near your place. The colonies enlarge to about a square mile in 10 years, and may cut beetle production by 50%.

Another biological agent which can be added to grub-carrying turf is the bacterium causing Japanese beetle grubs to turn milky white and die. A powder is made from diseased grubs and talc and this milky disease spore inoculum is applied with a teaspoon in dots or spots over the turf. The important point is that the spore powder must be used on a plot where there are grubs to get the disease, and not on chemically grub-proofed soil. Milky disease spore powder is sold under three brand names, "Japidemic," "Japonex" and "Sawco-Japy." One-half pound, suitably applied, will cost you about $2.50 and be an act of good citizenship, for the disease slowly spreads to any grubby soil in surrounding properties. I can supply addresses of the producers and detailed reprints of my studies.

Discussion

MR. McDANIEL: Does this disease affect any other beetles we have in America, besides the Japanese?

MR. ADAMS: Yes, one other species; it causes some sickness in the grubs of the turf pest known as the Oriental beetle.

MR. McDANIEL: How about the green June beetle?

DR. ADAMS: No, unfortunately, it doesn't work on that beetle, which is a pest on Long Island and in the South.

A MEMBER: How much area would a (1/2-pound) can like that treat?

DR. ADAMS: It depends. You can apply a half-pound to a quarter acre, or any smaller space you want to put it on. If you want to put spots down closer together, say every three feet, it will treat about 1,000 square feet. It suggests on the label that you do. But if you treat a plot on a large field, I'd recommend you put it out at about a teaspoonful every ten feet. In other words, I wouldn't put less than a half-pound on the plot set aside for it on my place. The application is just a starter to introduce the disease in the area, and it doesn't matter too much whether you spot it at 10-foot intervals on a pasture or put it at fairly close intervals on an area about the size of this room. The point is that it mustn't be broadcast, because that spreads the spores too thin. Grubs don't get the disease if they eat only a few spores. We assume that where you put the spots down on the ground the grubs under those spots will get the disease and wander off and die. When a grub dies, it multiplies the number of spores up to many millions. That portion of soil becomes infective, and more grubs going through the infective portions carry the disease to intervening areas until the whole piece of turf is unhealthful to these grubs. Droppings of birds feeding on sick grubs spread the disease.

MR. FRYE: One application is all that's needed?

DR. ADAMS: One application is all that's needed. Control is slight at first, but increases with the passage of the years.

MR. CORSAN: Quail feed on them. Why can't we have quail around the farms instead of shooting them?

DR. ADAMS: I would be for that, but we have to find other methods for a lot of people. Besides, we need something that will intercept some of the grubs in the fall, before they get big. After all, by the time the quail are interested in them, they have already done some damage in the ground. In the ground the grubs can do two kinds of damage. They can make turf loose so it can be rolled back like a rug. Second, if you should plow up a piece of sod that has many grubs in it and try to plant row crops or nursery stock, they may eat the roots off the planting in the spring.

DR. McKAY: I'd like to ask what effect low temperature has on them and how far north you think will be their limit?

DR. ADAMS: The soil temperature at which the grubs begin to die in hibernation is 15 degrees, and I have never seen the soil temperature that low here under turf. (I operate a soil thermograph on my lawn.)

A MEMBER: How far down do they go?

DR. ADAMS: They hibernate at 4 to 8 inches in the ground. It's rare to have it drop below 27 degrees at these depths.

MR. STERLING SMITH: What do you mean, Fahrenheit?

DR. ADAMS: That is Fahrenheit.

A MEMBER: That's frozen solid. That's at 32 degrees.

DR. ADAMS: The deeper soil will drop only a few degrees below freezing. The soil here usually remains no lower than 32 degrees, except within an inch or two of the top.

A MEMBER: Do you think soil temperature is going to be a limiting factor?

DR. ADAMS: I think the limiting factor northward is the coolness of the summers. In Northern Japan their life history gets altered because of the shortness of the summer, and I think in the Adirondack area they won't be serious for that reason.

MR. WEBER: Will this spore powder kill other kinds of grubs that are in the sod?

DR. ADAMS: Not to any practical extent. It does not control the grubs of the "June bugs," or brown June beetles, or what are called "white grubs."

MR. LOWERRE: Would the DDT kill the parasitic wasps?

DR. ADAMS: Turf treated with chlordane or DDT is grub-proofed and is not of any use to the flying parasites as a place to lay eggs, or for bacteria to multiply. So we don't want to put chemicals on top of biological control plots. For instance, on an average home property I would treat the front lawn, the more valuable piece, with chemicals so that it would be 100% grub-proofed to protect the turf and to take that much turf out of beetle production. Then on the back lawns or grassy fields adjoining, I would apply at least a half-pound of this milky disease material, and in that way provide a complete treatment; the parasites can be added on some large public turf area nearby. And don't think you are going to stamp the Japanese beetle out just by spraying all the adult beetles you see each summer on the cultivated plants, because there are lots more on the shade trees, weeds and vines.

A new book, "The Insect Enemies of Eastern Forests," contains a great deal of information on the insects feeding on nut trees. Unfortunately, it isn't indexed to crops, so you can't look up "walnut" and find what insects bother you. You have to know what the insect is, and you will find it with its insect family. That is U. S. Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication 657, by George E. Craighead. Price $2.50, from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C.

MR. CORSAN: What in the world has become of the black walnut caterpillar, that big, black fellow with the grey hairs?