Chapter II: Part 2

It is entirely possible that I have not have understood those two statements made by Dr. Morris and I may be rather careless in saying that I do not object to them. They were, I believe, that nurserymen prefer, naturally, to produce the things that they can produce most easily and at least cost, and, in the second place that they produce the things that they can sell. That is what most manufacturers do. I could not find fault with either statement. The nurseryman as a manufacturer or as a merchant of course produces the things that people want to buy. He may go a certain distance in producing the things that are worth while, that are better than other things; but in the last analysis he must depend upon the buying public and the buying public is always going to get from the nurseryman just exactly what it demands.

THE SECRETARY: In regard to the presence of so few nurserymen at our meetings I would like to say that we have long tried to interest the nurserymen in nut growing. We always have had a few nurserymen with us; but I think without exception they have been those who had either previously become interested in nut growing or had become interested in it through some other influence than that of this association. It has been a great disappointment to us that we have never been able to interest the nurserymen generally. Although we have at times sent special communications to a great many nurserymen I think we have universally failed to get any response except from those who were already interested in nut growing.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think there is a movement in the country today that will amount to as much for the nurserymen of America as this particular movement that we have been promoting for a few years back. I know that it is becoming universal. During my short experience as your president I have found that inquiries have come from all over the United States asking how they may procure these trees and especially asking how they may procure the finest varieties. It is along that particular line that the nurserymen certainly could extend their business greatly; because as this movement of road-side planting goes along the man who has a good farm, the general farmer in his business, or any man with a small piece of ground that he can call his own, will want to plant a good nut tree thereon of a most improved variety. Now so many of these trees will be called for in the next few years (I do not think I am over-optimistic in the matter at all) that it will be impossible to supply the demand. So I am sure that any man who is regularly engaged in the nursery business will find that he will be called upon to supply a demand for the better class of trees that really cannot be filled for years to come. In this way his business will be largely benefited. Are there any further remarks on this particular phase of the question?

MR. OLCOTT: As editor of the American Nurseryman I am especially interested in this discussion. There is scarcely a catalogue of a southern nurseryman of any consequence but lists nut trees; and yet we have the Northern Nut Growers' Association convention here now, and we will have a National convention in Mobile next week right in the heart of the pecan growing section at neither of which will there be a half dozen nurserymen. I think both of these associations should have more nurserymen members. They list nut trees but do it in a perfunctory way. I do not believe nurserymen know what this northern association is doing nor how near they are to the demand for the trees which will be wanted in the very near future. I think it is up to this association to make special efforts to acquaint them with the facts, and then I think they will come in and be active members. All persons connected with nut culture and all nurserymen ought to be most active members of such an organization as this. The subject should go before the membership committee.

MR. SAMUEL L. SMEDLEY: I have had a little experience with black walnuts and have found that they do not mix at all with farm crops nor with fruit. Possibly you folks from Michigan can solve the problem but I would not thank anybody for planting black walnuts along the road in front of my place. I am in favor of road-side planting but I do not think black walnuts would be acceptable in this part of the country, from what my experience has been.

THE TREASURER: Let me ask why it is you think they would not be acceptable.

MR. SMEDLEY: I had a grand big walnut tree on my place at one side of the road. I tried to get apple trees to grow on the opposite side of the road but could not and it could not be accounted for by any other reason. I know other people have come to the some conclusion that certain things would not grow near a walnut tree. Some grasses will. If you go down through Lancaster County along the Lincoln Highway you will find a quantity of locust trees thriving there. Wheat and things will grow right up to the roots of those trees, but I do not think you will find that they will grow up to a black walnut.

THE TREASURER: I had a chance to observe, last summer, a black walnut tree out in the field with a crop planted right under it. It seems to me it is a question of shade. With this walnut tree with branches low down the corn seemed to be stunted where it grew a little way under the branches. On the other hand I saw another one where the branches were high up and cabbages growing almost up to the tree and about as luxuriantly as outside of its branches. It seems to me that it is a matter of shade rather than the tree getting the fertility in the ground. It may be that if the fertility in the ground is not sufficient for both tree and crop the tree will take it and let the crop suffer. But I imagine if there is enough for both, and the crop is not shaded, the crop can be grown much nearer the tree than we have any idea of.

MR. J. G. RUSH: I want to say a word about this way-side planting in our neighborhood. I do not think it is the general practice in Lancaster County where land is valued at two or three hundred dollars an acre. If you plant a walnut tree on a public thoroughfare there is temptation for children to go there to gather walnuts, endangering their lives on account of the automobiles.

One gentleman said something about a walnut tree damaging the crops. In my experience with black walnut nursery trees some have what is called a very strong top root while others have a deep root. It is the first kind, the surface rooted, that will do your crop damage but not the deep-rooted kind.

Now another thing. Suppose one plants a cherry tree. To whom do the cherries belong? To the man who planted the tree practically on his premises. But the limbs extend out on the public highway. If I, the owner, take a ladder out there and pick cherries and an automobile comes running past and throws me down I am practically a trespasser on the public highway. I believe I would not plant along the public highway with the idea of getting any fruit from the trees. I think however when you have a railroad going through your premises it is entirely practicable to plant your nut trees alongside the railroad, especially where there is a fill. Where the roots will grow under it and thrive luxuriantly. Nearly every farmer has a small stream running through his premises. You plant your walnut trees or your filbert trees along that stream, and you will have magnificent results. I do not want to be understood as disparaging nut tree planting.

MR. D. F. CLARK: I would like to know if the planting of black walnut trees is discriminated against because of the difficulty of getting the meat out of the nut. I have made a great many experiments and have not been able to get the meat out of the nut in large pieces. Is there some kind of a machine made for that purpose? Black walnut kernels bring a splendid price and if we could get them open right it would be fine.

THE SECRETARY: That difficulty is being taken care of by the improved varieties which are being raised and which you can get on grafted trees.

I am inclined to agree with Mr. Bixby in regard to its being the shade of black walnut trees that affects the crops growing near them rather than the roots of the trees. I have seen the same thing that Mr. Bixby describes, a high-pruned black walnut tree with wheat growing clear up to the trunk. I have photographs of a number of fields in Europe where the English walnut is grown. The trees are pruned high and the wheat grows up close to the trunks of the trees.

I would like to say also that I think it is the purpose of those who advocate the road-side planting of trees not to do it forcibly nor to compel anybody to have trees planted in front of his premises if he does not want them, but to give him a voice in the selection of the kind of trees that should be planted in front of his property. I think that is a necessary thing for the success of the movement, that the co-operation of the property owners should be invited by giving them a voice in the selection of the trees that are planted in their location.

DR. RITTENHOUSE: I feel that this matter of the injury caused by a black walnut to surrounding vegetation should be more thoroughly thrashed out. It is doubtful to my mind whether the injury that a black walnut produces on surrounding vegetation is solely due to shade. Seven years ago I planted an apple orchard and some of the young trees began to be injured by a large walnut tree possibly seventy five feet away. The walnut tree happened to be on the line and I got the permission of my neighbor to cut the walnut tree down. The apple trees immediately began to thrive. I thought perhaps it was due to the roots demanding too much moisture from the soil because it was impossible for the shade to do any harm to those young apple trees. There is a superstitious idea among the people of our locality that the black walnut root is injurious to growing vegetation.

MR. SMEDLEY: In my case the walnut tree was on the opposite side of a public road thirty feet wide and the influence was shown to the second row of apple trees on the other side. I do not think it was the shade in that case. The limbs were pretty high too. It was a public road. I do not think there were any roots that reached the apple trees at all.

MR. MCGLENNON: Mr. Rush's reference to the ownership of the crop on trees planted on the road-side is a thought that has occupied my mind, and I have found some consolation in the belief that the ownership of land applies from the center of the roadway. I am not sure about that and I think it is a point that ought to be clarified.

MR. SMEDLEY: I think in Pennsylvania the public just have the right-of-way there; they have no claim to anything that grows.

THE PRESIDENT: In Michigan, the law applies that the ownership goes to the middle of the highway. The recent act of the legislature of our state causes the state highway commissioner to plant trees for the maintenance of the roadway. The planting of the trees he claims benefits the roadway, so that under that application he plants the trees for the maintenance of the road. The distance from the fence line varies. The state highway department of Michigan has a department for the planting of trees since the law introduced by Senator Penney some two or three years ago came into effect. The commissioner varies his planting, sometimes in groups and sometimes in a formal way, according to the stretch of road; but the basis of it all, perhaps, would be thirteen feet from the lot line on each side of the road. Our roads, or at least ninety per cent of them, are sixty-six feet in width. Thirteen feet from the lot line on each side would take twenty-six feet, and planting them forty feet apart in the other direction makes those trees forty feet apart each way. A great majority of the trees being planted in Michigan follow that particular plan, so they are thirteen feet from the property holder's fence line.

I might say that occasionally the highway commissioner would run across an obstinate individual who would not plant trees in front of his place nor permit such trees to be planted as would conform to the other plantings. But the law passed at the last session of our legislature leaves it entirely in the control of the planting department of the highway department. The law reads that the owner of the adjacent property shall have the privilege of gathering the fruit or nuts or whatever may come from that tree. He has no better right, perhaps, than any other citizen of the State of Michigan, but he is there and can get the first ripe fruit or nuts which come from the tree. THE PRESIDENT: Are there any further remarks upon this subject? If not, I have a paper prepared by Prof. A. K. Chittendon, Professor of Forestry in the Michigan Agricultural College, which I will ask the secretary to read.

ROADSIDE PLANTING

_Prof. A. K. Chittendon_

The improvement and beautification of our highways is one of the best investments that can be made. Particularly in the Middle West where we do not have the panorama of hills and mountains, much of the beauty of the road depends upon the roadside trees. They frame the long vistas of farmlands, woods, lakes and rivers and lend enchantment to the road. Under recent legislation Michigan has taken a leading place in the care and planting of roadside trees. Provision has been made by the Legislature for the planting of ornamental and food-producing trees along the highways and for their protection.

The highways offer an almost limitless field for ornamental planting and they also offer opportunities for raising certain food producing trees of which at present the nut trees are the principal species used. A time may come when we can safely plant fruit trees along the roadside but until provisions can be made for their systematic care and spraying, such trees would be liable to spread disease to nearby orchards.

Roadside trees increase the value of adjacent property. They attract birds and thus assist in keeping down insect pests. They may be used to prevent erosion on steep slopes. They increase the life of certain kinds of improved highways by protecting the roadbed from the direct heat of the sun. They serve as a source of food if nut-bearing or sugar-producing trees are used. They invite tourists to travel over the highways. They may serve as a windbreak to prevent the drifting of sand.

Roadside trees may, however, be too close together or by their shade injure crop production in adjacent fields. Some species of trees are particularly harmful if planted on the edge of a cultivated field. They send out their roots under the cultivated land and sap the moisture essential to plant growth. This can be avoided by using trees with deep or compact root systems.

The desirability of planting trees of any sort along the highways is sometimes questioned. There are places where it is urged that trees are not desirable. On stretches of road where the soil is naturally wet the heavy shade cast by certain species of trees is undoubtedly objectionable; but there are also trees whose shade is very light. Some trees make such a dense mass of foliage that they tend to prevent air currents and thus keep the moisture in the road from drying out. Along such stretches of road the method of planting may affect the matter of light and air, and species of trees can be chosen which will be practically unobjectionable. Most of the highway planting in the past has been a matter of chance and there have been few definite plans for any long stretch of roadway.

In selecting trees for planting the probable rate of growth and appearance of the tree at maturity should be borne in mind. What might seem entirely satisfactory in young trees may prove objectionable in the cost of mature ones. The size and shape of the tree at maturity should be considered as it affects the spacing of the trees. Also the amount of care which it will be possible to give the trees should influence the choice of species; for certain trees will produce good results with a small amount of attention while others require a great deal of care. The matter of interference with telephone and electric wires must also be considered. A species should be selected which is relatively free from the attacks of insects and fungi. It would be very difficult to find a tree which is entirely immune but there are some trees which are more resistant than others. The amount of shade cast by the tree is of a great deal of importance in connection with the moisture conditions; trees are often placed too close together which prevents their proper development. Where quick results are desired two species are often used, a fast growing one planted in between slower growing trees; the idea being to cut out the fast growing tree after the slower growing ones have reached good size. This is alright in theory but seldom works well in practice. The fast growing trees are seldom cut at the proper time and the result is often the stunting and injuring of the better and more durable trees. The fast growing trees usually die before many years. The result is seldom satisfactory.

The question of litter while of importance with city street trees does not matter so much in the case of highway trees, but the cottony seed from poplars is very objectionable anywhere. The longevity of a tree is important. The desire for quick results often outweighs other considerations. Many of the trees which give results such as silver maple, box elder and Carolina poplar do not last long and the effort spent on them is wasted. More time and money is needed within a short time to remove and replace such trees. It is better to plant well in the first place. Trees do not grow at the same rate throughout their life. They usually grow slowly at first and then fairly rapidly between the tenth and thirteenth years, after which the rate of growth usually falls off gradually. If small trees, about ten feet high are used for planting they should reach the following sizes in twenty years on favorable soil:

American elm 18 inches
Basswood 15 "
Chestnut 12 "
Hard maple 11 "
Red oak 11 "
Pin oak 9 "
White ash 9 "
Black walnut 8 "
Hackberry 7 "

Certain trees such as the horse chestnut and the evergreens generally appear to better advantage alone or in groups while others like the elms, maples and box elder show to fine advantage in long rows. It is doubtful if the planting of windbreaks along the highways is advisable. Windbreaks are sometimes planted with the idea of preventing the drifting of snow but the snow will collect and form great drifts on the leeward side of a windbreak and the shade from the windbreak may prevent the snow from melting so rapidly. Hedges may be used, however, to prevent the shifting of sand or the erosion of steep slopes.

The highways offer excellent opportunities for nut production and such trees as the black walnut and hickories may often be used to advantage. The presence of birds may be encouraged by planting hackberry and other trees or shrubs of which they are fond.

The Michigan Agricultural College was authorized by the Legislature to raise trees for roadside planting. The College is raising red oak, black walnut, oriental sycamore, sugar maple, elm, hackberry, snowdrop tree, Juneberry, hickory, European larch, Norway maple and box elder for this purpose. Other trees may be added to the list from time to time.

In addition to the planting of trees we need also the proper care of those already planted or growing naturally along the roads. The commonest source of injury is due to improper pruning for telephone lines. A great many trees are badly injured in this way. We already have a large investment in highway trees and it is only the part of wisdom to protect this investment.

Michigan has started active work in highway planting and we hope in a few years to be able to point with pride to our highways, not only because of the good roadbeds but also because of the trees and shrubs that line those roads.

THE PRESIDENT: Is there any discussion on Prof. Chittendon's paper? If not, it will be received and filed in the proceedings.

It is now near the noon hour and I think it would be well to have Mr. Jones or Mr. Rush state what program has been arranged for this afternoon.

MR. J. F. JONES: I believe the plan is to get dinner here, and then to go to our nursery at Willow Street. From there some machines will take the parties who do not have conveyances, around to other points.

THE SECRETARY: Mr. President, in accordance with Article V of the Constitution, I move that a committee of five members be elected for the purpose of nominating officers for the ensuing year.

(Motion seconded and carried.)

THE SECRETARY: Mr. President, I move that Mr. Olcott be named the chairman of that committee.

Mr. J. F. Jones, Mr. John Rick, Mr. Ernest M. Ives and Mr. C. S. Ridgeway were nominated as members of said committee.

Messrs. Olcott, Jones, Rick, Ives and Ridgeway having been nominated were on motion duly elected members of a committee to nominate officers for the ensuing year in accordance with Article V. of the Constitution.

On motion the meeting adjourned until 8 p. m. same day.

EVENING SESSION

October 6, 1921, 8 p. m.

_Hotel Brunswick_

PRESIDENT LINTON: A recess was taken from the morning session until this time for the purpose of considering a roadside planting bill that might be recommended by this association to the authorities of every state in the Union. In order to bring this about we will have presented to you by Senator Penney, who was the introducer of the original bill that became a law in the Michigan legislature, a copy of the laws practically as they exist in our state today. We take a little pride in Michigan in being the first state to work along this particular line. Our agricultural college staffs, the highway department and several other branches of the Michigan government, are heartily and enthusiastically co-operating in this work. I have in my hand a notice that has been sent out by the state highway commissioner of Michigan to every highway commissioner in the state. We have about two thousand of the latter. We have in the neighborhood of two thousand townships six miles square and in each of these townships we have a supervisor, we have a highway commissioner and we have members of what is known as the township board. This notice that I have, and you will see it is quite complete and goes into a number of details, is sent by our state highway commissioner to each one of the township commissioners of north Michigan, and he closes his letter accompanying it with this:

Fourth: (President Linton reads).

You will see from that that we are well under way in connection with roadside planting in our state of Michigan. I now take pleasure in presenting to you a member of our legislature who introduced the first bill that became a law along these particular lines, Senator Harvey A. Penney of Michigan.

SENATOR PENNEY: In the legislature of Michigan several bills have been introduced by its members, but as I stated at the last convention they were not drawn up in such a way that they were fitted for our laws. As Mr. Littlepage said it takes quite a while to figure out a law that fits your own state law. These several laws were introduced but in some way or another the committees of the legislature never took kindly to them and they were not passed. But two years ago I had a bill passed. Since then we have seen some imperfections and we passed another law at the last session of the legislature which provides that the cost of planting trees and caring for them shall come out of the maintenance fund, that is, the maintenance fund that provides for the maintenance of highways. I don't know how the laws are in most of your states but in Michigan the law is that the owner of land owns not only his farm but the land to the center of the highway subject to the right of the public to have the use of it for travel. Then how are you going to plant trees on a man's land if the highway belongs to that man? They did it on the theory that the trees were necessary for the maintenance of the highway. There never has been a test case on this law but the highway department has a very able lawyer who was in the attorney general's office and since then has been elected circuit judge of the county in which Lansing is located. His idea was that the trees should be planted on the highway for the purpose of protecting the highway, and the cost of planting them and taking care of them should be taken out of the maintenance fund. So that is the theory upon which they are working under this bill.

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A BILL to provide for and regulate the planting of useful,
memorial, ornamental, nut bearing and other food producing trees,
shrubs, and plants along the streets, highways and other public
thoroughfares and places within the State of (Michigan); and for
the maintenance, protection and care of such trees and shrubs as a
part of the maintenance of the roads in certain cases; and to
provide a penalty for injury thereof, or for stealing the products
thereof,--

_The People of the State of (Michigan) enact:_

1 Section 1. The (State Highway Commissioner) is hereby authorized
and empowered

2 and it shall be his duty to select and plant by seeds,

3 scions or otherwise, useful, ornamental, nut bearing and other
food producing trees, shrubs and plants

4 suitable for shade, maintenance and protection of the highways

5 along State trunk line and Federal aided roads and for the use
and benefit of the public, and to care for and maintain all such
trees, shrubs or plants.

6 The care of such trees shall be deemed a part of the road
maintenance work.

7 The varieties or species

8 so planted shall be subject to the approval of the

9 (State Department of Agriculture) and may be supplied

10 by the (State Agricultural College) or other State Institution
or Department, or elsewhere acquired by the

11 (State Highway Commissioner). The (State Highway Commissioner)

12 shall make and publish rules and regulations for the

13 planting and proper placing of trees, shrubs or plants and for
their proper

14 pruning, care and protection under the provisions of this act,
and all

15 such planting shall belong to the State, but the owner of

16 the adjacent land shall have the right to take and use the
products thereof.

17 All expenses incurred in planting or caring for such trees and
shrubs along

18 trunk line and Federal aided roads of the State shall be paid in
the same manner as is or may be provided

19 by law for the payment of the cost of maintaining trunk line or
Federal aided roads.

1 Sec. 2. Counties, townships, cities and villages of the State are

2 hereby authorized to appropriate money for the purpose of
planting,

3 caring for and protecting useful, memorial, ornamental, nut
bearing and other

4 food producing trees, shrubs and plants along and within streets,
highways, thoroughfares and other public places

5 other than trunk line or Federal aided

6 roads, within the respective limits of such municipalities and

7 subject to the jurisdiction thereof. The expenditure of any such
fund

8 raised hereunder in a township shall be vested in the

9 (highway commissioner) of the township subject to the approval of
the township board.

10 Any such fund raised by a county shall be expended by and under
the

11 direction of the (board of county road commissioners;) and

12 any such fund raised in a city or village shall be expended by
the highway or other proper municipal board or authority

13 thereof, in accordance with its charter laws or ordinances or
under the direction of the common council

14 or legislative body of such city or village. All such

15 appropriations made under this section by any municipality shall

16 be made in the same manner as is or may be provided by law for

17 the raising of money for highway or park maintenance purposes.

Sec. 3. Trees may be planted along the highways or other public
places by proper authorities and designated as memorial trees for
the purpose of commemorating important military or civic events, or
in memory of any person distinguished for noteworthy acts, or for
conspicuous service in behalf of the nation, the State of Michigan
or any local community thereof. Suitable tablets, boulders or other
markers of a permanent character may be contributed by any person,
or by any civic or military association and placed in conjunction
with such memorial trees subject to the approval and consent of the
proper authorities in control or in direct charge of such highways
or public places. that

1 Sec. 4. The owner of any real estate in the state of (Michigan)
that

2 borders upon a public highway other than a trunk line, Federal
aided or

3 county road shall have the right to, plant useful, ornamental,

4 nut bearing and other food producing trees and shrubs along

5 the line of said highway adjoining said land, and within the
limits thereof,

6 and shall receive annually a credit of twenty cents upon his

7 highway repair tax for each tree so planted and growing in good
order: Provided, however,

8 That all such planting shall be done in accordance with the

9 rules and regulations prescribed by the (State Highway
Commissioner)

10 for the planting of trees along trunk line and

11 Federal aided roads. Said trees and shrubs and the products

12 thereof shall be subject to the same incidents as to ownership
and use as are

13 provided for in section 1 hereof with respects to trees planted

14 along and within trunk line highways. No bounty shall be paid

15 or deduction allowed under the provisions of this section upon
any tree or trees for a longer period than five years.

16 The owner of the adjoining land shall have the care of such

17 trees and shrubs and shall have the duty and responsibility

18 for the trimming, spraying and cultivation thereof unless
otherwise provided in the charter, ordinances, or other regulations
of incorporated cities and villages.

19 In case any such tree or shrub should become diseased or shall
in any manner

20 interfere with the public use of the highway the authorities

21 having jurisdiction over such highway may by written notice

22 require the owner of the adjoining land to cut and remove such
trees or shrub.

23 If such notice is not complied with within thirty days after

24 service thereof such authorities may cut and remove such
diseased

25 or obnoxious tree or shrub.

1 Sec. 5. The (State Board of Agriculture) and other State
Departments having lands and facilities therefore are hereby

2 authorized to acquire and grow suitable seeds, scions, and

3 trees for planting under the provisions of this act and to

4 establish proper rules and regulations for the distribution
thereof at

5 nominal cost, or otherwise, to the State, to municipalities of
the State, and to

6 private citizens for the purposes hereby contemplated.

Sec. 6. It shall be unlawful to cut, destroy or otherwise injure
any shade or ornamental tree or shrub growing within the limits of
any public highway within the State of Michigan without the consent
of the authorities having jurisdiction over such road. In the case
of a trunk line of Federal aided road the (State Highway
Commissioner) shall be deemed to have such jurisdiction in all
cases. It shall also be unlawful to affix to any tree or shrub any
picture, announcement, notice or advertisement, or to negligently
permit any animal to break down or injure the same. Any person
violating any of the provisions of this act shall be deemed to be
guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished
by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars or by imprisonment
in the county jail for a period not exceeding thirty days, or by
both such fine and imprisonment within the discretion of the court.

Now some of the farmers along the road say that the trees will be diseased, but I don't think that nut trees as a rule, or shade trees, are affected very much with pests. The elm trees have been troubled somewhat. In the West where we live I don't think there is any trouble of that kind. There may be with apple trees and fruit trees.

Our agricultural college at Lansing has at the present time one hundred thousand trees ready to plant under this bill. There are some that they have been raising for a long time and some they have recently planted. They hardly knew what to do with them. Now they have agreed to turn them over to the state to be planted on our highways.

One thing that we had trouble with in Michigan was the telephone and telegraph companies stringing wires along the public highway. They have cut the top of the tree right straight off and disfigured the tree and disfigured the appearance of the highway. This bill is supposed to prevent that. Our highway department has been trying to get the telephone and telegraph companies to get the right from private owners to put their poles on private land, or to put a pole and let an arm stick out through the tree without cutting the tree down. I recently came from Detroit. There the telephone companies have started to string lines and to cut trees. The highway commissioner has notified them that they must not cut the trees down or cut them off or disfigure them and he has introduced the state constabulary to enforce this ruling. Undoubtedly sooner or later there will be a test case to determine whether or not the state has this authority.

I listened this afternoon to a discussion about walnut trees shading the highway. I have no practical experience to know whether these trees do any damage to crops on account of the shade, but supposing you raised a fine walnut tree along the highway and the tree begins to bear. Would not the products you get from that tree more than offset the damage it does to a crop close to the tree? I once had an aunt, when I was a very small boy, and it seems to me she said that she raised forty bushels of black walnuts on one tree. I saw that big hickory tree today. They claimed they raised fifteen bushels on that tree. I thought forty bushels was a lot to come off of one tree.

MR. BIXBY: That was in the husk. There have been records of that kind in the husk.

SENATOR PENNEY: This bill has been introduced and passed and Mr. Linton, who is practically the author of this bill, is desirous of having this followed up in the different states. I think it would be a good plan. What better investment could you make to beautify our highways than the planting of good trees? In the southern part of the state of Michigan there are quite a lot of good trees, black walnuts, butternuts, which not only add beauty to your highways but are useful in many ways. During the war we know that the government scoured the whole country to find walnut trees to make stocks for guns, and to use in airplanes for propeller blades. They used the shucks to make gas masks. The trees could be made of further service to man by planting them as memorial trees. And again they furnish food, not only bear leaves but food.

I would like to hear a discussion upon this bill from those who are from other states. I would like to hear what their opinion might be as to the different provisions of this bill.

PRESIDENT LINTON: The subject is now open for discussion. I am sure that there are those here who would perhaps offer amendments to that bill. They might desire to modify it some. They might desire to add other features to it. For instance, it might be well to recognize the desire at the present time to save useful bird life throughout the country. That might be stated in the title to this bill as one of the purposes of roadside planting. Certainly that would be one of the results of road side planting.

SENATOR PENNEY: The bill provides not only for planting trees, but for planting shrubs along the highway. That created quite a fight in the legislature. One fellow thought we were going to buy a whole lot of nursery stock and spend a pile of money. We are not. But here was the idea. Those shrubs are useful not only for furnishing food for birds, that are necessary to farmers, but are useful sometimes to prevent shifting sand, and also snow from covering the highways. You have often noticed that the railroad companies put up fences at different points to prevent snow from drifting on the tracks. Bushes can serve the same purpose.

PRESIDENT LINTON: The subject is now before the body for discussion.

MR. LITTLEPAGE: To print the newspapers in the United States it requires enough wood each year to make one cord of timber from Boston clear across the American continent and across to the Hawaiian Islands and further. Most of that, perhaps half of it, comes from Canada. There is cut from the forests of the United States every year timber to make wood pulp enough to make one cord of wood from Boston to Liverpool. That is just for newspapers. That has nothing to do with furniture, with houses, with cross ties, with everything else, which are estimated to take four times as much. Now if that be true there is cut every year from the forests of the United States enough timber to make four cords from Boston to Liverpool. That is going on every year. We met here seven years ago. In that seven years there has been enough timber cut from the forests of the United States to make twenty-eight cords of wood from Boston to Liverpool. Now when you begin to contemplate that you see what is happening.

Roadside planting furnishes one of the greatest opportunities. There are many details that will have to be worked out. The bill which the Senator and our distinguished President have given much consideration to seems to be working along the right lines. Many difficulties will come up from time to time but this is one of the things that this Association ought to get behind. Here is a great need, a fundamental need, when you think of the figures which I gave you. Here is one of the opportunities to fulfill that need. We, as an organization of tree planters, ought to get busy to help to work out the details and difficulties that cannot be all foreseen in the application of the machinery of roadside planting and the particular laws of each state. Some people think sometimes that because a fellow is a lawyer he knows all the laws. There are forty-eight different states in the Union. I know that every state in the Union has a statute of limitations. It is three years in the District of Columbia. It is six years here. The fundamentals, the machinery of laws, are different in these particular states. Now then, what are the duties and what are the opportunities? A duty and an opportunity are rather more or less synonymous after all. It is for this Association to get actively behind this proposition, and help adapt this legislation to each particular state, keeping in mind that the fundamental thing is to plant trees. We are meeting here in Lancaster, Pa., a city to which I have always turned my thoughts with great pride, because here was the home of the founder of the great common school system of America, Thaddeus Stevens. Do you suppose when he began to originate the system which has made America that he could foresee all the difficulties, that he could foresee the difficulties in Texas, in Indiana, in New York? He started with a principle, and that principle has been adopted and developed and worked out in each particular state, until we have the great forty-eight different big school systems of America. We can take this proposition and by working it out, adapting it to the particular machinery, the particular laws, and meeting the particular difficulties, we can work it out until it becomes a great monument. We must plant trees.

MR. MCGLENNON: I want to say a word with regard to Senator Penney's reference to the importance of shrubs as a protection to the roadways from shifting sand. Mr. Volbertsen, my collaborator in my filbert enterprise in Rochester, got his early education in horticulture in Germany when a young man of twenty years of age, and he informed me the other day that along the side of the railroads' right of way, filberts were planted very extensively, in different parts of Germany, for the maintenance of the roadbed, to protect them from shifting sand. Not only that but they garnered wonderful crops of nuts.

MR. O'CONNOR: Concerning the planting of trees along the roadside, what enemies have they? I have watched this very closely since I have been connected with Mr. Littlepage's farm and I find that the walnut trees and pecan trees have very few enemies. I think that he has something like four hundred trees, and there were not three of them that were troubled with caterpillars. What better could we have along our road sides than nut trees when from the oak, the elm and other trees there are pesky worms dropping down when you go along with an automobile or carriage.

PRESIDENT LINTON: I want to say to the ladies present that the ladies of Michigan are greatly interested in this work. We recently established a state trunk line highway known as the Colgrove Highway, named for the President of our Michigan State Good Roads Association. Senator Penney was the introducer of that bill also and it became a law. That particular road runs across our state in such a way that it is about three hundred miles in length. One county that it crosses is known as Montcalm County. At a meeting we had in their court house we had a committee named in each township through which the highway passed for the purpose of properly planting trees and beautifying that highway. Upon my return home I received a letter from the county judge saying that the people of Montcalm County would not stand for planting and beautifying that one road alone but the whole county has been organized and every township in it and half of the membership of each committee is composed of women, and they want these trees and plants on every township road as well as on that state road. That is the way in which the work is going along in many sections of our state and it will soon cover it all with the same enthusiasm. So that the ladies can be of great good in this organization also. There is not a home or a residence street but desires fine shrubs and fine trees. It is especially so with the farmers. They want these beautiful things that the city people have been having for many years in their front yards. They are going to demand shrubbery and trees beyond any call that ever has been made for them in the past. So you can readily see from our work, although much of it is to be carried on in a public way by our agricultural colleges and state institutions of that kind, that they will be able to furnish only one tree or one plant in a hundred of those that will be demanded. That feature I wish especially to impress upon the minds of any nurserymen that may be present. The call in the next decade is going to be along those lines, for ornamental shrubbery and for useful trees, just as the fruit tree has been called for in the past.

MR. FAGAN: I don't know that I have anything constructive to add to the road side planting idea. I know that our landscape gardener at the experimental station in the college has, in the past few years, been giving it serious consideration, and if I am not mistaken he has taken the question up with our forest and state highway commissioners in the state. How far it is going to go I don't know. There is a feature of the roadside planting which has been mentioned indirectly this evening that we must not overlook. Just as soon as we consider a program of roadside planting we must also consider a program for the control of pests. Regardless of whether they be pecan trees or hickories or walnuts we are bound to meet with these pests. Whenever we begin a systematic planting, or collection of plants, it does not make much difference whether oak trees, or catalpas or chestnuts, or what not, we can look forward to the time when we will be confronted with a pest control proposition. As to roadside planting in New England it would not make much difference whether it was a walnut or butternut or pecan. A gipsy or brown tailed moth would just as soon eat the foliage off a butternut tree as off an elm. We have here in New Jersey at the present time the Japanese iris beetle and it will eat anything in sight. As soon as we turn nature upside down, as we have nearly done in many sections of the country, we are bound to bring in these pests. It would be well in any law--and I know in this state we would consider a law, and an experimental station could have charge of work connected therewith--that one of the provisions we would insist on being put in the law would be one to control the pests which may come. Right in our district today the tent caterpillar is playing havoc with our walnuts; the oyster shell scale is going through our timber in Center County; and I can take you into the mountains five miles from any residence and I can show you oyster shell scale on half a dozen of our native species. It is nice to kid ourselves along to think our butternuts and our hickories would never be subject to these pests, but they will be. When the Northwest started to plant apple orchards they said they had no codling moths up there. There were some orchards that didn't but sooner or later they came. The time to nip those things is in the bud, and not let them spread. Lack of foresight has cost New England millions and millions of dollars just because they would not take the advice of one man when he told them that the gipsy moth and brown tail moth had gotten away from him. They laughed at him.

I wonder whether this association could not get our federal road department back of this idea of roadside planting. I know that back of the federal aid movement there is an important point of contact in roadside planting.

SENATOR PENNEY: Our bill provides that the highway department shall care for and maintain the trees. I think the bill is broad enough to cover that subject. I think we all realize that we cannot stop planting trees for fear of some pest that might come, but we have got to provide the means of fighting it if it does come. Our highway department in Michigan has employed a man, a graduate of Yale College who is an expert in horticulture and all this work of planting and caring for the trees is to be turned over to him.

DR. CANADAY: In many parts of Germany the practice of planting trees along the state highways has been in vogue for perhaps half a century. They have used fruit trees and it has been found to be very feasible. The state has found that the proceeds of the trees has gone a long way towards keeping up the highways. Of course they probably have had their population under more rigorous control than ours has been. They have been able to collect the proceeds of the trees better. The question of the railroad rights of way might be taken up. A few of the railroads in the United States have already begun planting trees along their rights of way looking forward to a future supply of cross ties. It seems to me the greatest difficulty that will be encountered in this work will be the conflict with the telephone companies and the power lines. If that can be satisfactorily solved, I think the rest of it will be comparatively easy.

MR. SMEDLEY: In Pennsylvania near our large cities, the highway department has become aware that the roads are all too narrow. There was a bill passed in the last legislature giving the commissioner of highways a right to establish the width of roads at thirty-three feet, I think it was, with one hundred and twenty feet as the maximum. The department is now making a survey of all the main highways near the large cities. I happen to live just out of Philadelphia, about fifteen miles, on the line between Philadelphia and West Chester. It is a continuation of Market Street the principal east and west street of Philadelphia. It was laid out sixty feet wide. That was one of the first to claim the attention of the department and it will soon be, I understand, established on the map as one hundred feet wide or probably one hundred and twenty feet. That primarily is to stop the encroachment of the buildings near Philadelphia so that when the question of opening this road to its new width comes up damages will not be excessive. Some of us living along there take great pride in that road and want to see it developed but it is going to be some time before this is opened to its full width and it is needless to plant trees until it is. I don't know how you have things in Michigan but a great many of our Pennsylvania roads are old highways that have worn down with banks ten or fifteen feet high, and it is oftentimes a question where to put the trees.