102 



and Is itself covered with stones. It is laughed at by the Lan- 

 caster county people, and it is rocky; but chestnut trees are 

 sticking their roots between the rocks which cover the surface 

 and reaching down into the good, strong clay beneath, and that 

 twenty thousand acres of good, strong clay is more potentially 

 productive than the tops of the Apennines, which are to-day 

 yielding thirteen bushels to the acre. 



So in the chestnut we have something more to consider in po- 

 tentiality than mere timber. The time is coming when we 

 will put one hundred dollars in the breeding of tree crops mid 

 get ten thousand dollars for the people of (he next decade. (Ap- 

 plause). 



DR. MERKEL, of New York City: Mr. Chairman: I would 

 like to ask Mr. Davis a point that does not appear quite clear to 

 me. Was the blight kept out of the orchard, or out of the entire 

 valley and out of the surrounding country? 



PROFESSOR DAVIS : It is in the valley, but just beginning, 

 apparently, to appear. I have hunted through there and hunted 

 days at a time without finding any evidence. Yet I have found 

 evidences of what apparently is the genuine Diaporthc, as I saw 

 it on Long Island ; and I will say that I think I saw the blight on 

 Long Island in 1897, or 1898. It was at the time when the Long 

 Island road was building a log cabin near Cold Spring Harbor. 

 Mr. Jarvis was the carpenter building the cabin, out of chestnut 

 logs, and, when he pulled the bark off, under that was found what 

 we recognize now as the chestnut blight. Mr. Jarvis and I dis- 

 cussed it, and did not know what it was. It was in patches ; on 

 some of the logs which were ten to fifteen inches in diameter, the 

 patches were as large as my hat, and I do not doubt in some 

 cases that the trees were girdled entirely and the trees were 

 dying. That was at Cold Spring Harbor, and I also saw some of 

 the same thing between Cold Spring Harbor and Huntingdon, 

 and especially back of Huntingdon, through the hills around 

 there. So I think it was in 1898 well established in those locali- 

 ties. Of course, I cannot prove that is what it was, but I have 

 seen so much of it near Cold Spring Harbor that I think it is 

 the same thing. 



