215 



the blight into Pennsylvania. I have here in a jar a sample of 

 that very first specimen, three and one-half years old. It has 

 been sealed ever since, I am told, and it shows living or active 

 spores. I show you this to demonstrate the care that is nec- 

 essary to take in getting rid of the refuse of the trees and their 

 bark when we go to cut them down. 



To land owners I wish to say that I have myself a tract of 

 chestnut timber in Lebanon county. The trees there are forty- 

 one years old and they will range all the way from forty to 

 ninety feet in height, and from ten to twenty inches in diameter. 

 This tract of land shows every condition, you may say, of alti- 

 tudes, of moisture, and of soil conditions. It has a north, south, 

 east, and west exposure, because it is in the shape of a horse- 

 shoe. It has an altitude of eleven hundred feet at the highest 

 part and at the lowest of seven hundred feet above sea level. It 

 also has a stream running through it which gives you a swampy 

 portion. Up at the top it is very gravelly; on one side it is 

 clay, and on the other side you will find some of the best of 

 wheat land. In every one of these sections I have found focal 

 centers of blight, making this tract a perfect field for study. 



Here I want to call your attention to one thing that has just 

 come to my mind: Do not depend on discovering blight from 

 surface indications only. The inspectors and myself have gone 

 through my tract several times, and we thought we had discov- 

 ered several trees only with the blight in its advanced stages, 

 and a small number of other trees showing only traces. 



Two weeks ago, however, the Forestry Department asked me 

 to cut two carloads of blighted wood to demonstrate to the ex- 

 tract manufacturers that the blight had no effect on the produc- 

 tion of tannic acid. So we went out to my tract, and Mr. Wirt 

 and Mr. Fox of the Forestry Department, helped to locate trees. 

 After going through the tract and locating only two focal 

 centers of about twenty-five trees, we commenced to wonder 

 where the two carloads, twenty-seven cords, were to come from. 



I then suggested to Mr. Fox, who remained on the job, that 

 we start cutting down the trees around the focal centers, and, 

 if we found trees not infected, we would throw them aside. We 

 started cutting and chopped down an acre of trees that showed 

 few signs as viewed from the ground, but when cut down, we saw 



