174 



ill West Virginia, and certainly some effort will be made to deter- 

 mine the extent of infection and the best methods of handling 

 the disease in the State. 



MK. BESLEY, (acting temporarily as Chairman) : Are 

 there any questions to be asked Professor Giddings? The next 

 is Ohio; is there anyone to represent the State of Ohio? (No re- 

 sponse). 



North Carolina. Is there anyone to speak for North Carolina? 

 (No response). 



We will next hear from Tennessee. 



MR. J. W. FISHER: Mr. Chairman: As far as I know, 

 there is no infection in Tennessee. We are extremely interested 

 in the matter, because we have such a vast area of chestnut forest, 

 and a very large amouut of it is the original forest. We have 

 very far-sighted Congressmen down our way, who have been for- 

 tifying, or are about to fortify, us against sucli infection, by hav- 

 ing a bill passed through Congress appropriating one million dol- 

 lars, to establish forest reserves in western North Carolina and 

 eastern Tennessee, knoiwii as the A^jpalachian Region. Just last 

 week the Government purchased eighty-live thousand acres near 

 me, in eastern Tennessee, for a forest reserve, and Avill continue 

 to purchase large areas, so that we will have the backing of the 

 Federal Government in the lighting of this disease in the future, 

 I shall, however, call the personal attention of the Governor to 

 this matter, so that we may take it up ourselves, as a State, 

 and 1 trust that, when the matter comes to our attenion per- 

 sonally, we shall have some means that will help to battle with 

 the disease, if it should occur. I am very much interested in 

 listening to these discussions, and I think I shall go home very 

 greatly profited. As I am a tanner and an extract man, I am 

 personally and financially interested in the prevention of any 

 loss of chestnut timber. I might say to you, for your information, 

 that a large number of the trees in our country are very old. 

 The Federal Government inspectors who have been in those 

 forests have placed the age of those trees from two hundred to 

 four hundred years, and some of them range as high as eight 

 feet in diameter, — immense trees. The area is so large and the 

 chestnut timber growing so thickly that it affects us, or would 



