lOG 



there, aii<l ilie jiinniiiil oC inrccliitii. Not oulv dial, l>\i( lliey eaii 

 find out if there is ohl infection tliere. In that way we can find 

 out whether there has been infection in America for a number 

 of years, as lias been suggested by some, and possibly get those 

 states interested, if the infection appears to be spreading. In 

 some i^laces that I have seen lately there was evidence of the dis- 

 ease working on trees that Avere partly dead, but we should find 

 out more about that while the work is going on. 



DR. J. AV. IIAKSHBERGER, University of Tcnna. : Mr. 

 Chairman : Professor Stewart, in his communication this af- 

 ternoon, discouraged the work which is being done by tlie P(;nn- 

 sylvania Chestnut Blight Commission in the removal of trees 

 along the outposts of the disease. I would like to present my 

 view of the probU'ni, because I think it is largely a question of 

 the attitude of the State of Pennsylvania toward these larger 

 questions of conservation which have agitated the country for 

 the past few years. 



Pennsylvania is the Keystone State. She is so situated with 

 regard to the other states of the Atlantic Seaboard that she oc- 

 cupies a central position, halfway between the North and the 

 South, It would be to the lasting shame of Pennsjdvania if she 

 would let the opportunity pass of taking some means of attempt- 

 ing to check the disease. The states to the south and west of 

 us, Ohio and West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee and North 

 Carolina, which are very largely concerned in this movement, 

 would point to Pennsylvania as having let the opportunity sli]) 

 of doing something to check the ravages of this disease. Two 

 hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars seems a large sum 

 of money to appropriate for the x>revention of the destruction 

 of property; that is, it seems a large sum to use in the combating 

 of a single disease. Yet Pennsylvania is a wealtliy State, and, 

 if we take the many millions of dollars which are at sUike, the 

 amount of money which the State has appropriated is merely 

 a drop in tlie bucket, and it seems to me that the money is well 

 spent, because we are standing, as a buffer State, between the on- 

 spread of this disease from tlie locality Avhere it started, and the 

 States beyond. In the future, when Ave look back on the history 

 of the conservation movement in tlie United States, this move- 



