i'lVii lliaL SI) closclv icsriiihlcs it iIimI il is hard ti» tdl it. Il is 

 •soinetiines doiiiit fiii. I Ii.inc imt, iKtwcNci-, t'oiiiid any ascospores 

 tlicrc tliis fall. TIk' iiiir.sery sL«)ck shows nothing ut all. The 

 i<l('a is to k('0[) it ch'aii, cut out cvcrylhiiiji;. so \vc do not, wait to 

 sec whether it is tlicre or iioi. 



DLL J. liUSSELI. kS.MITH, of I'ennsyivania : Air. ("hairjiian: 

 before the cutters-out and anti-cut ters-ont begin taking up the 

 (juestions of the afternoon, 1 want to s[ieak aitoiit on(.' p<»ini in 

 ccninection \\ith the recent lecture. Mr. Davis stated, in pass- 

 ing, that the waste land of this Slate would feed as many i»igs 

 as the wh(de Slate produces. We have lots of pigs, yet that 

 asseilioii as to the possiliilil ics of the waste land is understate<l. 



Man, in h.'oking at the lioianital realm, hegan at the wrong 

 end. When tiie huniaii race looked at the hundred thousand 

 species of jilants, it picke(l out little measle}' grasses, with a 

 grain or two of seed, from which it developed v\e, corn and wheat, 

 while here were the giants of nature, bearing hickory nuts, wal- 

 nuts, ijersimmous, peaches, apples, and pears; yet very few of 

 Ihem have been improved, for the reason that, for the annual 

 cropper, his grains permit of easy improvement aud the big 

 trees, with their slow gemn-ations, were very dillicult to improve. 

 Yet they are the potciiiial heavy harvest yielders. AVherever we 

 lind land put over to tree crops, it yields several fold the annual 

 cro}). Chestnut-gTowing in Europe, as in Italy for exam])le, is 

 an established imlustry. Ollicial reports show an annual pro- 

 duction (»f chestnuts in Italy of thirteen bushels to the acre, and 

 I know, by examination of the orcdiards, that they are not in any 

 way in a high class comlition oi- very carefully attended to in 

 nmny localities. ^Ve average at least that, with the American 

 stamhird of weight i)er acre, in the United States. I have not 

 a doubt that if some (»f those big .Iai)anese chestnuts were bred, 

 selected, and hybridized, we could get varieties of chestnuts 

 which would yield lifteen or twenty bushels per acre on the aver- 

 ages of first-class pig feed. Furthermore, it permits the u.se of 

 land whi( h is n(tw entindy unusable for anything except forest, 

 whiidi is a vei-y low graile ]u-oducer of annual cash value. For 

 exam]de, to-day on the train between here and I*hiladeli>hia I 

 saw a ldo( k oi' gionnd which covers t wellty-t^^■o (honsand a«-res, 



