Chapter II: Part 2

I am prepared to say that if you are going to plant trees for timber there is no other tree which will give such a yield as the black walnut, with the exception of the catalpa, and, perhaps, the black locust. It is the most valuable tree we have, and it is the most valuable wood grown in the North. I don't believe, either, the black walnut will ever be less valuable than it is. I know positively that the Stabler tree is not over sixty-five years old, perhaps, not over sixty, and yet that tree, judging from the prices I have seen paid for other trees of similar size, is worth from $125 to $150 on the stump. From the time that tree started until now, it has increased in value at the rate of two dollars a year, for timber alone, to say nothing of the nut. Suppose the tree had been purchased sixty years ago at two dollars from the nurseryman. It would have paid one hundred per cent annually on the investment. It bears, as a regular thing, a crop every other year.

As to what Mr. Pomeroy said about the black walnut not cracking well and crumbling up when it gets to be old, I have some specimens here of the Stabler walnut I cracked this morning, which are of the 1915 crop.

The kernel of these old nuts keeps its flavor and sweetness wonderfully. There is hardly any change in quality within one year, whereas some other nuts, as the hazel and some varieties of the pecan, become rancid after keeping six months.

DR. MORRIS: I would like to say one word about the curly walnut. In Maine, not long ago, I saw a young man who had bought a bird's eye maple, perhaps fifty years of age, that he paid $1,500 for. I asked him why he didn't graft one million ordinary maples from that tree and sell the stock at $200 per tree, and then he would have $200,000,000 at just about the time of life when he could enjoy it. Well, that hadn't occurred to him. Now, if Mr. Littlepage will hunt up this curly black walnut stump that sold for $3,500, and if he will graft a million trees from that he will be able to raise a family of ten children (Laughter.)

DR. STABLER: Mr. President, I just want to call attention to an omission in the little talk that my son gave about the characteristics of this Stabler tree, namely, its beauty as a shade tree. He didn't mention that, and I don't think any one has mentioned it in connection with the black walnut. Now, the black walnut trees, as we meet them along the roadsides, vary exceedingly in habit of growth. The majority of them have very few main limbs, perhaps not over half a dozen main limbs on a tree, and they will be gaunt, ungainly things, stretched out straight, like great arms reaching out with very little beauty. Now, if you plant seedlings, that is what you are likely to get on your lawn. You may have something that is not pretty except as a trunk, but the tree that produces these very remarkable nuts is also one of the most beautiful in its conformation. It is shaped just like an umbrella, rather low, very spreading, and very frequently with a very much larger number of limbs than almost any black walnut tree that I have ever seen, and its habit of growing in the nursery confirms that opinion--that it produces a very large number of buds and branches from each graft.

Mr. Littlepage has in his fence row, uncultivated and surrounded by bushes of every kind, a small seedling walnut that he grafted this year with the Stabler walnut. When he grafted the seedling it was a little over an inch in diameter. I measured the growth from that graft recently, and five shoots measured over five feet long, and others over four feet long. Four month's growth--five shoots over five feet long! Now, I don't know of any other walnut or any other nut tree that would have produced that many shoots from a single graft. It makes a very beautiful shade tree and has a top which is capable of producing very large crops of fruit.

THE PRESIDENT: It sometimes makes me feel ashamed of my race when I realize our limitations in comparison with the trees. We run across a valuable type of tree genus, and we can make millions like it in a short time. But when a remarkable specimen of the genus homo, arises, he stays with us but a short while before we cart him off to the cemetery, and that is the last of him. Does any one else wish to make a contribution to the black walnut?

MR. M. P. REED: Mr. Littlepage made the remark that it is very easy to propagate the black walnut. We haven't found it so. We have made almost a complete failure of both budding and grafting.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, I was speaking of my experience in grafting this spring. I think I remarked that my personal experience in budding had not gone far enough to tell definitely what the results are going to be. But I put in about fifty-five grafts, and I had fifty of them to grow, and of that fifty there were probably ten or twelve knocked out--thrown out at the first cultivation--and probably thirty-five are growing there yet. I don't know what Mr. White's experience was in Indiana. I think it was, perhaps, not as good as he expected, because of the fact that a lot of the bud-wood dried out, but I think Mr. McCoy can give some experience. Now, Mr. Roper here, has had experience in budding the black walnut, haven't you?

MR. W. N. ROPER: We only put in about a dozen buds a short time ago. I think half of those are growing.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, we budded, perhaps, two or three hundred this summer, and I don't know really how they are coming out, but, from the way these grafts behaved this spring, I don't see any reason why it is going to be very difficult. What do you know about it, Mr. McCoy?

MR. R. L. MCCOY: Mr. Stabler's grafts didn't take very well, but so far as budding the black walnut is concerned, it is just as easy as handling the peach; there is nothing to it when you get the bud-wood; but first you have got to have the bud-wood. You can't jump on to any old tree and get buds that will give satisfactory results. Now, if Mr. Reed and his father had to go into Wisconsin and Michigan to get their bud-wood, and cut it from some old cherry trees, we'll say, and came back to Indiana and tried to produce trees from those buds in the nursery, they would fail.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the net result, apparently, of the discussion on propagation seems to be that Mr. McCoy, in Indiana, has had great success with buds; Mr. Littlepage, in Maryland, has had great success with grafts; I also had great success with grafts put in by a man who could neither read nor write, but who was taught the technique as taught by this Society. Is there any further discussion?

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, Professor Hutt ought to know something about the black walnut. He knows something about everything else I have ever talked to him about. I believe he wrote me, in connection with some of his tests, that forty-seven per cent of the Stabler nuts were meat.

PROF. W. N. HUTT: I think so. I think it was pretty close to a half. There were no broken halves at all, and some of them came out entirely whole.

THE PRESIDENT: We want to hear from Dr. Deming.

THE SECRETARY: I just want to call attention to one of the questions on our list. "What can we do to cheapen nuts and nut meats in the retail market so as to make this valuable food available to persons of small means?" It seems to me that we are going to do that with such nuts as the black walnut. I think we ought to work for the time when the black walnut can be sold in quantity in New York City, and in all the larger cities for around a dollar a bushel. Perhaps the shellbark hickory is also going to be a nut of the same kind, a nut that can be put on the market in large quantities at a small price, for the man of limited means to buy and crack out himself. Dr. Morris, speaking of some tough nut, once said it was so tough that it was only of interest to squirrels and men out of work. That expression about "men out of work" made me think, as do so many things that Dr. Morris says. If a man out of work can buy a bushel of black walnuts for a dollar, and if he can crack out several bushels a day, or even only one bushel a day, he can make more wages just cracking out that bushel of black walnuts than at ordinary laboring work. I think that we ought to get on the market a supply of cheap nuts for the man of limited means and that we ought to educate the people to a knowledge of the value of such nuts.

THE PRESIDENT: It is always well to put the brakes on. I haven't heard a thing about this black walnut except virtues. I believe Mr. McMurran, of the Department of Agriculture, is present, and I think he has been giving particular attention to the black walnut, and perhaps he will tell us of some of its enemies, either animal or vegetable.

MR. S. M. MCMURRAN: Well, Mr. President, unfortunately, I haven't given much attention to the black walnut. My time has been given to the pecan until this summer, when I worked on the persian walnut to some extent, but I can say, generally, that the black walnut hasn't got any very serious enemies. Everything it has got is right here now. There isn't any reason to suppose that it would have any serious disease if we cultivated it on an extensive scale.

As to the insects, I am not able to state. I have never noticed any particularly on the nut since a boy.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, I think Mr. McMurran has covered the diseases of the black walnut. I think the observation of every one will confirm what Mr. McMurran has said.

THE PRESIDENT: The chair will deviate from parliamentary practice for a moment by dismissing the question. I wish to contribute three small facts. One is with reference to the special growth of the black walnut under fertilization. The men on my place have to cut bushes around apple trees, and some stray black walnuts planted by nature under those trees have been cut for 10 years but for the last two seasons have been left alone. They have promptly come up through those apple trees, under the influence of nitrate of soda, like a steer going through a bush. They have grown five or six feet each season.

Another point is the great variation, apparently, of the black walnut with regard to its keeping qualities. I recall putting away in a garret, in 1894, a number of bushels of a nut of particular merit, and they were perfectly sweet and edible as much as seven years later. Now it is only occasionally that you will find one that will keep as long as that, but with the trees bearing every two years, it is quite possible that the fruit would be marketable for two or three, or even four years afterwards, if kept properly.

There is no reason to think that the Stabler is the best nut growing in the United States. It merely grew within reach of the eyes of observing men.

The filbert and the almond we hope to cover briefly before adjourning. I will ask Mr. Reed to give us a short contribution on the almond.

MR. M. P. REED: This almond (exhibiting specimens) we received scions of from Mr. C. A. Reed, of the Department a few years ago. It was three years ago this summer that we top-worked it, and we picked almost half a bushel of almonds from it this summer. The almond has a thick shell, kernel of good flavor, but I don't think it will amount to anything very much except for home use.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: How old was the tree that bore them?

MR. M. P. REED: Top-worked three years ago this summer.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: And bore how many?

MR. W. C. REED: Bore a half a bushel this last summer.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: If any one here would like bud-wood of that almond I will be glad to send it to them.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Littlepage offers to send those present bud-wood of that tree, which can be, with great ease, top-worked on the peach by the ordinary process of shield budding.

DR. IRA ULMAN: I have grafted scions of this nut on Amygdalus Davidiana, the new Chinese peach of the Department of Agriculture, and the growth is marvelous. It does just exactly as Mr. Reed told you.

DR. STABLER: I would like to ask whether the almond is attacked by the same insects and diseases that affect the peach, whether it is affected by peach yellows and whether it is affected by the peach borer. I understand that the apricot is, in a measure, immune to the peach borer at least, and possibly also to the peach yellows. If the almond is to be short-lived like the peach tree, it may not be nearly as valuable as if it were a hardy tree. If you place it upon peach stock it seems to me you must expect it to be attacked by the peach borer.

MR. M. P. REED: I believe that the original tree of this variety is something over sixty years old. Not very many peach trees live to be that old, and in the nursery it is a very vigorous grower.

THE PRESIDENT: The commercial almond is a rather long-lived tree in the countries where it is grown. Of course, here is a question of technique and individual behavior which only experience can answer. We ought to take some of these nuts home that Mr. Reed has given us. I should like to know why Mr. Reed so deprecates a tree which bears so much fruit in so short a time. If the fruit is good, why can't it be handled commercially?

MR. M. P. REED: It is the cracking quality. It has a very thick shell.

THE PRESIDENT: Is that a problem that machines cannot solve?

MR. M. P. REED: No, sir.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: How is the flavor?

MR. M. P. REED: The flavor is good.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: I was just going to say, Mr. President, that I visited Mr. Reed's place this summer, and it is utterly surprising how fast and beautifully this hardy almond grew. He took me out at the edge of the garden where he has them growing, and I could hardly realize that they were only three-year-old trees. They were as full of little almonds as the peach trees were of peaches, only they were much longer and with very red leaves. Vincennes, Indiana, is on the thirty-ninth parallel, which is the northern boundary of the District of Columbia, and it gets much colder there than here, and those trees haven't the slightest sign of winter-killing. I don't know anything about the quality of the meat, but they are certainly wonderful bearers.

DR. MORRIS: I find that in the region of Stamford, Connecticut, hard shelled almonds do pretty well if you look after them pretty closely, but they take all your time. They have so many different blights on them that I am glad mine died a long time ago. They bore heavily, but they were too much trouble. They blossom so early in our locality that the blossoms are apt to be caught by frost. You may overcome that if you set the trees on the north side of a stone wall where the ground retains the frost for from one to two weeks later than on the south side. I find, that by doing this you can retard their time of blossoming sufficiently to materially lessen the danger of their being caught by spring frosts.

MR. HARRY R. WEBER: Will you get the same results if you put a mulch under the tree? Won't that prevent thawing and hold the tree for a week or two?

DR. MORRIS: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you used this particular almond?

DR. MORRIS: One very much like it, and it was a mighty good almond--hard to get at but good.

THE PRESIDENT: I would like to ask Mr. Reed as to the blooming time of this particular tree in comparison with some standard peach like the Elberta.

MR. M. P. REED: It bloomed about a week earlier than the Elberta, and the peach crop is light.

MR. HENRY STABLER: I have been associated for the past three or four years occasionally with Mr. M. B. Waite, of the Department of Agriculture, and I have had a good chance to study the effect of spraying on peaches in preventing brown rot and curculio. At Mr. Littlepage's I observed an almond tree that started, I should think, with twenty-five or thirty almonds on it this spring. Those almonds gradually succumbed to the curculio and brown rot until, at last, only one was left, and it seems to me that, if this almond is to be grown commercially in this climate, we will have to use the same methods of growing as with peaches, and we will have to spray them.

THE PRESIDENT: I think the chief benefit of the discussion of the almond would be to get more of us to try it, and the fact that we have one which is only one week earlier than the Elberta peach in blooming shows that we have a good chance, possibly, of even exceeding the possibilities of the peaches.

MR. MCCOY: Mr. President, I notice a good many almonds bloom about the same time as Elberta peaches. I have probably twenty-five trees of this almond that Mr. Reed spoke of, and I think they were in bloom at the time the peaches were. It is very productive, just as he says. I have noticed some of the old trees around in our neighborhood have borne good crops for several years, and I don't notice much disease on them either.

DR. STABLER: I asked the question whether anybody knows whether the almond is affected by peach yellows, and nobody seems to know, but peach yellows is something connected with climate. There is a yellows line that has remained definite and distinct for the last twenty-five years, and you can describe that line on the map, and it stays right where you put it. All north of that line the peach trees are affected by yellows, and south they are not. That line runs through Mount Vernon and Annapolis, and across Chesapeake Bay to Chestertown. Now, below that isothermal line there is a little peninsula south of Chestertown, in Kent county, a little peninsula there--a little long neck that runs out into the bay below Chestertown--where they have never had any peach yellows, and yet at Chestertown the trees have always been affected by peach yellows, and it is probable that it will be found, if the almond is affected by peach yellows, that the same laws apply to it. That is, south they will have the yellows, and north they will not. Now, at Vincennes, I suppose that they are north of the yellows line for peaches. Do your peach trees have peach yellows?

MR. M. P. REED: No, sir.

DR. STABLER: Perhaps you are north of it, then. If so, the almond hasn't been tried out as to yellows.

THE PRESIDENT: This association is greatly indebted to Dr. Morris, who helped to get it together, for his indefatigable searching of the corners of the earth for specimens, species and varieties of trees in his ambition to get to his Stamford place all of the varieties of nut-bearing trees. Several of our members have taken a little interest in the question of the hazel-filbert family. Dr. Morris has taken a lot of interest. Last year he gave us a most exhilarating presentation of the subject, and he is this year going to give us some brief notes on the progress of his knowledge concerning the hazels and filberts. Dr. Morris.

DR. MORRIS: Just a word, in order to start the discussion. I have tried to work out during the past year two or three points that came up for discussion last year. I stated that in Connecticut the common American hazel would probably not become a horticultural proposition for the reason that the main stock seldom lives more than seven or eight years, and then dies. New stolons, starting from the root, make abundant new stocks. In that way, dying at the center, and growing at the periphery, like a ring worm, one plant may extend so widely as to drive cows out of the pasture lot. (Laughter). Dr. Deming understood me to say that it spread so "rapidly" as to drive the cows out of a lot. I said "widely," not "rapidly." (Laughter). For that reason a plant of our common hazel bears a few nuts about the third year; it bears a good crop about the fourth year and sometimes in the fifth year. It then begins to die and is gone by the seventh or eighth year, while new stolons, coming up on all sides, are ready to perpetuate that rotation. That, at least, is ordinary hazel history in my part of Connecticut. So I doubt if this species will ever be a good horticultural proposition.

This year, for the first time, I have budded the European hazel upon our common stock for the purpose of observing whether the character of the guest will change the character of the host.

Now another point. Many of the European hazels that have been brought to this country, I find, do not bear for the reason that they flower so early that the staminate flowers are caught by frost--not the pistillate. The pistillates will hold out against frost for a long time and make good. There are two or three ways for overcoming this difficulty. We may select for cultivation those kinds which bloom a week or two, or even three weeks later than others, as in the case of the Bony Bush variety.

There is hardly any more valuable tree in Central Europe than the purple leafed hazel. I never have seen one bearing in this country. Its staminate flowers come out too early in Connecticut. I have now some in which I have grafted the Bony Bush, which flowers so much later that I hope to have my purple hazels bearing nuts at Merribrooke.

On the whole, most of the points have been simply confirmatory of points previously considered. We need not fear hazel blight because it is very easily controlled, and many of the European hazels will furnish an immensely valuable crop for almost all parts of temperate America. We may develop, by breeding and by cultivation, types which will be hardy, which will give us large, valuable, marketable crops, and which will be desirable from the market man's point of view.

DR. STABLER: Can you get stocks that are free from blight?

DR. MORRIS: Last year I showed specimens of blight. The blight, fortunately, begins upon a fairly large stem--upon a part of the stem that is in plain sight. It takes from two to four years for a patch of that blight to encircle a limb. If one will go over his hazel orchard once a year and, where a bit of blight appears, cut it out with his jack-knife and later paint the spot with a little white paint, one can very readily control hazel blight. It is so easily done that we need not fear it at all.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Ulman, I believe, is a hazel enthusiast.

DR. ULMAN: I have attempted to gather as much information as I could by seeking out the failures with hazel because I had found no one reporting success. In answer to a large number of letters which I sent out I received some 290 replies which reported failures with the European hazel. Dr. Morris tells us that blight can be readily controlled. So far, that does not seem to be the experience of others, but it is only fair to say that they do not know how to get rid of it in the way that Dr. Morris has told us.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Ulman, I should like to ask if it is not true that the hazels growing at Rochester could be added to your collection of 290 and change this complexion a little bit. Certainly last year we saw hazel trees almost the diameter of this room which appeared to be perfectly healthy.

THE SECRETARY: Can we recommend the hazel to be planted commercially?

THE PRESIDENT: If the hazel propagates by underground stolons automatically, why can we not take the stolons and plant them in the places that the trees have abandoned, letting them run on elsewhere?

DR. MORRIS: In regard to Dr. Deming's question, green European hazel nuts are now selling in New York, out of cold storage, at seventy-five cents a pound. Green hazel nuts like green almonds are prized by the gourmet. All of the European hazels will eventually furnish a good commercial proposition provided that the market is large enough, and the market will probably grow, is growing in fact. Ripe filberts bring, approximately, from ten to fifteen cents a pound. The trees bear well, and I don't know of any reason why the hazel proposition should not be a first rate one right now. The thing to do is to select kinds which we know are valuable here. One may go through the seedling orchards at Rochester and select one parent which bears large nuts prolifically, and then propagate any number of European hazels from that one stock. My Bony Bush is probably a desirable hazel.

In regard to the question of breeding from stolons, if we can keep that thing going it would be all right, but it requires so much work I doubt if we shall do anything in that way with the American hazel. The European hazels don't travel by stolons. That is the advantage. So I have given up the common American hazel as a commercial proposition. A number of European and Asiatic hazels will be commercially profitable, unquestionably, just as soon as we care to develop them.

MR. WEBER: What do you know about the hazels of the Western coast?

DR. MORRIS: Very profitable in parts of Oregon and Washington. They have a large, good crop, which sells locally, but, like most Pacific Coast fruits, the nuts lack flavor and quality. They have size and beauty, but lack quality. The fruits and nuts grown on the Pacific Coast all lack a certain fineness of character, for some reason yet unknown.

You have got to look after your European hazels, and not neglect the orchard. I remember seeing some very beautiful apple trees in central Maine not very long ago--no blight--no codling moth, and the trees free from almost everything in the way of insects or fungous troubles--beautiful, cultivated trees, and beautiful apples on them. I asked another man, one of my acquaintances there, an old farmer, why he didn't set out a lot of similar trees and make a good income. He said, "Well, it won't go." He had a pasture about eight miles north of there, and, said he, "I spent thirty dollars for apple trees to put into an orchard, and I had great ideas about those apples. I set the trees out in that orchard about three or four years ago, and last year when I went up to look at them, there were hardly any apple trees left." He hadn't looked at them for three or four years. (Laughter.) You can't raise hazels that way.

THE SECRETARY: The reason I asked about the commercial value of the hazel is that my own experience has been very unsatisfactory. I got some hazels from Gillet, on the Pacific Coast six or seven years ago, set them out around my place, and they have grown beautifully. I haven't been able to detect any blight on them anywhere. Some of them are fifteen feet high, have grown luxuriantly, and blossom every year, but I haven't seen one nut yet. On the other hand, the other day I visited a man near my home, who told me that he had raised some trees from nuts which he had bought from an Italian grocery on the corner. He gets the nuts when the crop first comes in, and stratifies in wet sand all winter, and he says they all grow. He had some beautiful hazel trees. One I estimated to be twenty feet high. I never saw a hazel tree which approached it. He said it was only five or six years old. Last year he had a fine crop of nuts from it. This year, however, he said that during a warm spell in the winter the staminate bloom came out and was killed, and there were no nuts on the trees. Now it seems to me that there is great uncertainty about the hazels, and I don't know exactly what to advise people to do. People ask me for advice as to what nuts to plant commercially. I don't know whether to advise them to plant hazels or not, and I don't know what varieties to advise people to plant. I don't know how to advise them to overcome this difficulty of the early staminate bloom and the winter killing. I can't now conscientiously recommend people to plant hazel nuts commercially.

DR. MORRIS: Go to Rochester and get some there that bloom every year and that bloom later. My Bony Bush blossoms some three weeks later than the others, I presume. It is a bush that bears well every other year, apparently.

THE PRESIDENT: Are there any further questions about this large family of nut trees of which we have but a small corner of knowledge? If not, we may look to an adjournment.

First, I wish to announce that this afternoon we are going to devote to an excursion around the city, to see some of the most remarkable Persian walnut trees which I think may be found anywhere.

I am asked by Prof. Close to say that the Department of Agriculture has an exhibit of nuts on the fourth floor at 220 Fourteenth Street, Southwest.

Meeting adjourned.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8TH, 2 P. M.

Meeting called to order by the President.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Metcalf, Chief of the Bureau of Forest Pathology, of the Department of Agriculture, has been in charge of the investigations concerning the chestnut blight for a number of years.

DR. HAVEN METCALF: Mr. Chairman and Members of the Society: I will present, first, a few general facts regarding the present status of the chestnut bark disease, and, for the greater part of the information you desire, I will rely on you to ask me questions.

The chestnut bark disease is getting to be an old story, but that plant hyphenate, that objectionable imported disease, is more of a live issue today than it ever has been before. All my attention during recent months has been taken up with another imported plant disease, the white pine blister rust, of which you have heard, and which does not concern the special subject matter in which this Association is interested, unless, perhaps, you may be interested in the pinon nut as the pinon pine may ultimately be subject to attack by blister rust. However, this disease, like the chestnut blight, is an example of what a relatively harmless, or at least, not serious disease in a foreign country can do when it is permitted to get into the United States.

This brings us to the question of the origin of the chestnut bark disease, which, although the story has been told many times before, has been the subject of so much dispute that I probably had better recapitulate that matter. It has been proved beyond question that the chestnut bark disease is a native of eastern Asia, China, Japan and Korea; that it was introduced into this country in the '90's, upon diseased chestnut nursery stock. It was not critically observed until 1904, but the condition of trees which were observed at that time shows conclusively (provided the disease progressed in those early years as it has since) that it was introduced into the country as early as the late 90's. The final demonstration of the fact that the disease is a foreign disease and a native of Asia we owe to Mr. Frank Meyer, of the Office of Seed and Plant Introduction, of the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Meyer's observations are so interesting that I will pass around a few pictures illustrative of his observations in China, the first picture showing the country that is the home of the chestnut bark disease. The second picture shows a chestnut orchard in China where the trees have, with characteristic thrift, been planted around human burial mounds. The remaining pictures show how the chestnut blight acts in China--very differently from the way it acts in this country. In China, it produces, as the pictures show, definite cankers, which do not girdle the tree, which kill young trees occasionally, mutilate old trees, kill branches, but the cankers do not girdle the trees. That disease has been known in China we have no idea how many years, and, while it does a certain amount of harm, is said by Mr. Meyer not to be really serious in China. You can readily see, upon examining these pictures, that there is a sharp contrast in the behavior of the disease as observed in China and its behavior as observed in this country, where it will girdle a comparatively large tree and the fungus spread all through the bark, completely covering it, and doing that in a very short time. Of course, then, the chestnut blight is one of those cases of which we have so many, where a disease, passing to a new country, finds new surroundings, hosts more favorable to its development, and progresses rapidly.

The natural range of the chestnut bark disease at the present time--that is, I mean, its range on the native chestnut and the range through which it is now spreading by non-human agencies, is, on the north, practically co-extensive with the range of the native chestnut. The disease is found in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, as far south as Virginia, and as far west as western Pennsylvania and eastern West Virginia. Throughout this area it is spreading by what I may call natural means, and the disease has been shown to be unusually well provided with means of dissemination. I will speak a little later about the spread of the disease outside of this area--that is, west and south, since in the West and in the South it is being spread, as far as we know, exclusively by human agencies.

The question is often asked me, "What is the future of the chestnut--that is, the native chestnut--in this country? What is the course of the disease going to be?" The only way in which we can answer that is to look in the parts of the country where the disease has been present longest--Long Island, for example; Westchester county, New York; Bergen county, New Jersey; Fairfield county, Conn. Upon a recent examination of those areas I found no chestnut trees surviving in a healthy condition. We have, of course, from the beginning, hunted, and hunted hard, to find individual chestnut trees that might be immune to the disease--native American chestnuts. We expected to find such trees, but up to date we have not found them. It is a very extraordinary fact and an almost unparalleled fact, because with the majority of plants affected, by any given disease, we can find some individuals that are not only resistant, but immune.

Now, in these old areas, particularly on Long Island, in 1907, when the disease first came under my observation, I marked certain trees in order to observe how long the stumps of these trees or the dead trees would continue to send up sprouts from the ground. It is an interesting fact that some of those trees which were dead in 1907 are still putting up sprouts. The sprouting capacity of the chestnut tree is indeed marvelous, but I am sorry to say that I haven't been able to find any healthy sprouts over three years old. I haven't been able to find any living sprouts more than four years old. The disease seems to be following up the sprouts as it followed up the original stem.

Right there, in the behavior of the disease toward the sprouts, we have an interesting fact. During the first year of its life the chestnut tree or the chestnut sprout is immune to this disease, or practically so. You can rarely find a seedling or sprout of the first year that is attacked by the disease, and even in the second or third years a comparatively small per cent of them are attacked. It is thus possible to produce chestnut nursery stock that for several years does not show the disease.

So far as I can see, the chestnut blight is not stopping naturally in its course anywhere. I cannot get a particle of reliable evidence that it is. In this part of the country and to the south of here, in Virginia, for example, the parasite has more months in the year during which it can grow, it appears to be utilizing that time in spreading more rapidly, at least killing trees more quickly, than to the north of this area. From the standpoint of the grower of nuts, the important question is, of course, whether the disease can be controlled. I think your Secretary, in a recent article, summed the situation up as clearly and briefly as can be done. He said, in an article entitled "The Progress of Nut Culture in the East:"

"Of the chestnut we have excellent varieties such as the Rochester, Boone and Paragon, but all development in the culture of this nut is being held up by the blight. Everybody is awaiting the results of the government work in breeding immune hybrids. There may be great opportunities, nevertheless, in chestnut growing outside its native area, where the blight can be controlled."

There is no doubt that in an orchard tree, in chestnut orchards, the disease can be controlled within reason by the cutting out method that has long been advocated, but the point is that the margin of profit on the chestnut is not sufficient to make that method pay, and whenever members of this Association or others interested in the propagation of chestnuts have written to me for advice I have simply advised them not to plant chestnuts at present. I cannot see at the present time, that any attempt at control is profitable. That is a very different thing from saying that it can not be done, or that it may not later become profitable.

A few words regarding the method of spread of the disease. In 1908, when the office of which I have charge was first organized, Professor Collins, who has addressed this Association a number of times regarding this disease, visited a number of orchards and nurseries in the Eastern States, going as far as southern Virginia to the south, and west as far as York county, Pennsylvania, Although that was comparatively early in the progress of the disease, wherever he went, without exception, where there was a nursery, he found the disease present and spreading onto the native trees. There were, however, several established orchards which he visited where that was not the case, where the disease was not present. It has been brought out repeatedly that, while the chestnut blight is marvelously adapted to spread by natural means--wind, birds, insects, rain, all the ways in which a plant disease ordinarily spreads--the way in which it spreads over great areas and through great distances is on chestnut nursery stock.

In that connection, then, I may briefly discuss the present range of the disease so far as we know it, outside of the natural range of the chestnut tree. South of Virginia, so far as we know, the disease is present at only one point (Greensboro, N. C.), where it was introduced in a nursery and spread to native trees. In stating this area of distribution, I ought to say that for about a year and a half we have made no special effort to determine the range of this disease. I mean we have not gone out of our way to do it. We have simply collected such evidence as has come to hand casually, and so it may be that there are now other points of infection in North Carolina, or south of there, but, if so, we do not know of them. In Ohio, the disease is present at three points, of which one is a large and serious infection at Painesville. In Iowa, it is present at one point, Shenandoah, in a nursery. In Indiana, it is present at five points; in Nebraska, at two points. In Michigan, one point has been reported. In all of these cases it is in nurseries, or on very recently planted trees. There is, or was, an interesting point of infection in British Columbia. Probably the trees there are all dead by this time, but that point is very interesting as being probably an independent importation from the Orient.

There needs to be little said as to how the disease is spreading in this area. Perhaps the best thing I can do is to read some letters that have come to my attention:

"MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE,
"EAST LANSING,
"Aug. 18, 1916.

"Dr. Haven Metcalf,
"U. S. Dept. of Agriculture,
"Washington, D. C.

"Dear Mr. Metcalf:

"Last December, the Forestry Department of this College ordered of Glen Bros., Glenwood Nurseries, Rochester, New York, five 6-foot trees of the Sober Paragon chestnut. These were shipped to them April 4th and were almost immediately planted in the Forestry Nursery here. About six or eight weeks ago, the Forestry Department noticed that these trees were dying and called our attention to this matter about four weeks ago. I examined the trees in company with Mr. J. H. Muncie, one of our assistants, and found all the external appearances of Chestnut Blight with, however, only a very few imperfectly developed pycnidia. We brought pieces of the bark of these trees into the laboratory and made cultures and obtained the typical mycelium of chestnut blight. The trees have been removed and we now have them in our laboratory.

"I am calling this to your attention as the trees were doubtless infected when shipped. I feel that you ought to know that this firm is sending out diseased trees.

"Very truly yours,
"(Signed,) ERNEST A. BESSEY,
"Professor of Botany."

The following is an extract from a letter from Frank N. Wallace, State Entomologist of Indiana, dated July 13, 1916:

"My Dear Sir:

"Under separate cover I am sending you some samples of chestnut blight which I secured from some trees shipped by Mr. C. K. Sober, Lewisburg, Pa. Mr. Sober doubts that we have even seen a case of chestnut blight and wanted some samples and I sent him the other half of the samples which I am sending you.

"I have been trying to check up on some of Mr. Sober's trees and so far I have found nearly fifty per cent of them have died from chestnut blight disease."

The samples sent with this letter showed typical chestnut blight.

Some months ago Dr. W. H. Long, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, became interested in the possibility of growing chestnuts in that country and communicated with Glen Brothers, of Rochester, N. Y., to secure certain information regarding them. He secured the information he wanted and also some that was slightly gratuitous. I will read extracts from the two letters:

"In regard to the blight, which you call the Eastern Chestnut Canker, would say that this tree is practically immune from this disease, and you would stand no more chance of having your chestnut trees infected with the blight should you plant them, than you would if you planted apple trees, of having them infected with the San Jose Scale or peach trees, of the Peach Blight.

"There are over half a million trees at the famous Sober orchard in Paxinos, Pa., none of which have the blight, and yet the blight rages all around them in the American Sweet Chestnut groves that are all through the mountain. Further evidence of its immunity from this disease we cannot guarantee. We think this speaks for itself.

"We believe that if you would investigate this variety that you would plant an orchard of Sober Paragon Chestnut trees, even if not a very large one. We should like very much, indeed, to serve you and shall give our personal attention to the selection and shipment of such trees as you may require.

"Very truly yours,
"GLEN BROS., INC.
GM-AB "(s) JOHN G. MAYO."

* * * * *

THE PRESIDENT: Would you mind giving us the date of that last letter?

DR. METCALF: That is October 20, 1915.

The other letter signed by Mr. Mayo is as follows, and is dated Oct. 29, 1915:

"Replying to your October 25th letter we do not think that you or your friend need have the least anxiety on account of the chestnut blight reaching your section. This disease seems to be confined to a very small area in northeastern New Jersey, southeastern New York, and southwestern Connecticut. The disease has been in existence in this country since 1842, it has made very little progress, and the highest authorities now state that it seems to be on the wane." (Laughter.)

* * * * *

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Do the experiments of the Department show any possibility of control of the disease?

DR. METCALF: I don't think that there are any methods of control which can profitably be applied to orchard trees under present commercial conditions. If a man has a few orchard trees which he regards as novelties and to which he is prepared to give very careful attention, I think the disease can be controlled. So far as I can see, the only hope of commercial control lies in none of the present varieties, but in Dr. Van Fleet's hybrids, possibly in the Chinese chestnut, and, aside from the objectionable qualities of the Japanese nut in certain strains of Japanese. With the rapid withdrawal of the wild chestnuts from the market, however, the price of chestnuts may rise, and control methods in orchards become practicable.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. McCoy has been in Pennsylvania and has come back with the very optimistic idea that the chestnut blight was under control up there. I took him out on my farm in Maryland and showed him my trees, and that the only thing that could destroy the trees faster than the blight is a forest fire.

DR. METCALF: Exactly.

THE PRESIDENT: I believe, Dr. Metcalf, you conducted a series of spraying experiments recently, and I understand that others have done the same thing. Mr. P. A. Dupont, I believe, on his fine estate near Wilmington, tried to spray a few chestnut trees with Bordeaux mixture, and I understand he gave it up as a physical failure, to say nothing of the cost. Am I right about that?

DR. METCALF: That is my understanding, that he was dealing with large trees and failed.

A MEMBER: Well, did you succeed with small ones?

DR. METCALF: In the line of spraying? That is a long story, and I suggest that Mr. Hunt answer that.

MR. HUNT: In the spraying work conducted on Dr. Smith's place at Bluemont, Va., we had 2500 numbered trees under observation; about 1500 of them being sprayed. Equal numbers of trees were sprayed with Bordeaux and with lime-sulphur. The number of sprayings given different lots of trees varied, but even trees sprayed as often as every fifteen days blighted in a number of instances. While I did not get a greatly reduced percentage of blight (approximately 50 per cent) among the sprayed trees taken as a whole, the difference between individual plots seemed to depend rather on location in the orchard, as some blocks of unsprayed trees showed practically no blight and some blocks of sprayed trees showed considerable blight. I might say that the grafted trees did not blight nearly so heavily as the ungrafted trees. So far as any real success is concerned there was none. It would cost over one hundred dollars per acre per year to spray as often as some of the trees were sprayed, and it wouldn't control the blight. So I wouldn't consider it at all practicable.

THE SECRETARY: What is the reason that the grafted trees blighted less than the ungrafted?

MR. HUNT: Well, I wouldn't pretend to say as to that, except that it is so. I had each tree numbered and kept an individual record of all the trees, and I found--I have forgotten the exact figures--but there was about three-fifths as much blight among the grafted trees as among the ungrafted trees. Of course, they are an imported variety, I believe, and it may be that on that account they may have developed some resistance. But Mr. Van Fleet may know more about that.

DR. METCALF: There seems to be some evidence that the imported European varieties have a slight degree of resistance, not enough to count, but enough to show in that fraction that Mr. Hunt gave.

THE SECRETARY: It is only a varietal condition, then, not from the fact of grafting, but simply because of a different variety?

MR. HUNT: Oh, yes, I think so.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: Mr. President, in view of this information about the chestnut, is there the slightest use in the world for this Association to encourage anybody to plant chestnuts anywhere in the United States?

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kellerman is here, and I wish to refer to him Mr. Littlepage's question with a slight addition. Is there, first, any prospect of any place staying immune? Second, would it not be to the advantage of the country if the sale of chestnut stock were stopped?

DR. KARL F. KELLERMAN: Mr. President, to answer those questions involves a rather large contract on my part. (Laughter). In the first place, the problem of growing and marketing chestnuts, I think, is one that I could hardly be expected fairly to discuss. I am here rather to explain the attitude and action of the Federal Horticultural Board than to try to give any constructive advice to the nut growers.

The Federal Horticultural Board is a board of five men to advise the Secretary of Agriculture in establishing plant quarantines, either on the introduction of plant material into the United States, or on the movement of plant material inside the United States within the quarantined areas. The Horticultural Board, therefore, has to deal more with actual conditions than with outlining such policies as your chairman has asked me to outline.

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me, Dr. Kellerman, but we wish to know if there is, in your opinion, any prospect of any region remaining immune?

DR. KELLERMAN: Well, even that is going rather further than I would like to go, and yet the negative answer to that question is practically the basis on which the Federal Horticultural Board decided that it was impracticable to quarantine infected areas at the present time. The evidence at hand appears to indicate conclusively that if the trees that are to be grown are distinctly susceptible to the disease they will almost certainly have an opportunity to become infected, no matter what part of the United States they may be grown in. Now, whether that infection would be a matter of a few months, or a few years, or a few decades, of course, would be altogether a matter of chance, but, with the wide distribution of nursery stock that is infected, with native chestnuts rather generally infected and continuing to be infected, and with practically no chance of preventing the continuation of the disease in the native chestnuts, abundant sources for infection of susceptible material appear to exist. For that reason, it appears to be, from an economic standpoint, inadvisable to attempt to check the disease through the establishment of quarantines.