138 



I cannot believe, in view of the great value of chestnut wood 

 and the rapidity and vigor of its growth, that we can get along 

 without it in our Pennsylvania forests, or in our eastern forests. 

 I am optimistic naturally, and I do not believe that we will ever 

 carry on forest management in this country without using chest- 

 nut. 



With the possibility of the complete commercial destruction 

 of this valuable tree, it is indeed time that the foresters of the 

 country consider what the effect of the removal of this tree will 

 have upon the future of the .forests and whether or not the intro- 

 duction of some special method of management may not make it 

 more difficult for the disease to spread or make it easier for the 

 tree to resist the disease by keeping it in the most healthful and 

 vigorous growing condition. These are not easy questions to 

 answer, because we have no precedent to follow, either in the 

 practice here or abroad. We have never had such a serious 

 enemy of the forest working in a well settled region of the coun- 

 try, and at a time when both the national and state governments 

 are so well disposed to appropriate sufficient funds for combating 

 the pest. In the State of Pennsylvania we are now carrying on 

 work against this disease which was undreamed of when we 

 were suffering earlier from special insect devastations in our 

 forests. 



A very brief statement of the devastations of two similar pests 

 may help us to appreciate somewhat our problems in connection 

 with the blight. In 1882 the Larch Saw-fly worm appeared in 

 the native larch or tamarack in Maine, and during the next five 

 years did tremendous damage throughout northern New England 

 and New York. By destroying the needles of the trees it caused 

 their slow death and not until the territory had been pretty thor- 

 oughly covered by the insect and until certain natural enemies 

 arose did this insect finally disappear. Nothing, of course, was 

 done to combat the insect or prevent its spread. While it was 

 not possible to estimate the damages resulting from the Avork 

 of this insect, it must have exceeded several millions of dollars. 

 There was no serious re-occurrence- of this pest until last year, 

 when it appeared in the tamarack swamps of the Northern Lake 

 States. It is reported that Michigan is studying this pest with 



