166 



owners of trees of that character, wishing to preserve them if 

 possible, have paid large sums of money to allow treatment to 

 be applied, but 1 do not know of any instance yet where it may 

 be said that any particular treatment has been a complete suc- 

 cess. Occasionally, and vc^ry freiiuently of late, we have been 

 reading about methods of treatment in the newspapers, where 

 men say they have just the thing. J^^or instance, we had a letter 

 the other day from a gentleman in northern Ohio. He said 

 he had a preparation that would kill the chestnut blight and he 

 wanted us to buy it right off. Now, there is no chestnut blight 

 in Ohio, and I take it that this man had never seen a blighted 

 tree and does not know what the cliestnut blight is; yet there he 

 has the remedy all prepared. Much of this remedial business 

 is just of that character. I believe also there is an opportunity 

 to try out a lot of remedies and get some results, but there are 

 no results of value to be had from jumping at conclusions and 

 saying ''This thing will do the work," or that thing, until we 

 know it actually has done it. Therefore, the Commission is 

 giving all reasonable latitude to these gentlemen who have any- 

 thing of the kind to offer, and every opportunity to try out their 

 methods, in the hope that something will be found that will do 

 some good. That is part of the Pennsylvania proposition, to let 

 nothing be untried, even if it does not produce results. 



THE CHAIRMAN : If that does not fully answer Mr. Back- 

 enstoe's question, we will nsk him to bring it up later. The 

 question was with reference to the treatment of thousand dollar 

 trees. 



MR. WILLIAMS : All trees down there are thousand dollar 

 trees. 



THE CHAIRMAN: Delaware. 



PROFESSOR C. A. McCUE: The chestnut grows naturally 

 in the two northern counties of Delaware. It is found in the 

 southern county only here and there, and mostly in plantations. 

 The disease is common over the entire State. While I do not 

 say that it would be impossible to quarantine against this dis- 

 ease in the State of Delaware, I do say that, considering the 

 way we have the disease now, it would not be a good proposition 

 in the St^te. I am not in favor of the State of Delaware ap- 



