213 



DR. MURRILL : I heartily commend that. 



MR. CRAMER, of Lehigh University: In reply to the gen 

 tleman at my right, Dr. Murrill said his observation was based 

 on many years' experience of his own in and about the forests. 

 1 would like to submit the question to this gentleman as what 

 those experiments were, — actual work, or scientific experiments, 

 actual work in removing these infected trees, or examining 

 them? 



DR. MURRILL: Both. We tried various experiments. 

 When tlie disease first appeared, we tried the cutting off and 

 cutting out, but not the cutting of the stumps. Some of the 

 stumps were burned, and we found tliat the sprouts sprung up 

 from several inches below the ground and that the disease went 

 into tlie roots some distance. It also went beneath the bark 

 into the wood and re-appeared, so that it Avas impossible to cut 

 it out. We have had a number of observations and experiments 

 about New York to show that forest management, so far as 

 clean culture goes, has no effect whatever on the eradication or 

 on the control of chestnut blight. 



MR. ZIEGLER : I am concerned with the management of 

 about twenty thousand acres of forest, which is largely chest- 

 nut coppice. I want to tell you about a condition existing 

 there, and to ask Dr. MurrilFs opinion as to what should be 

 done. We have chestnut blight in those twenty thousand acres 

 in about ten spots, the largest of which is about ten acres, ex- 

 isting there for two years. The first year's attack killed merely 

 a few trees here and there. The second year's attack shows 

 the deatli of trees in a radiating direction from the central 

 focus, you might call it. I would like to know what action 

 sliould 1)0 taken; whether he would recommend cutting out 

 these few acres at once and thereby trying to reduce the number 

 of spores produced, to the degree of say one one-hundredth, at 

 a very small cost, or whether he would leave those trees go a 

 year longer and await some other measure? 



DR. MURRILL : I have received hundreds of letters of that 

 same nature, and now I must answer all of them in this way: 

 To save, utilize, and market your timber is the first considera- 



