CHESTNUT BARK DISEASE. 399 



East Rock Park, New Haven. This rock rises to a considerable 

 height above the surrounding country, and the soil in many 

 places is quite shallow, so that the trees have suffered severely 

 from lack of moisture during the dry years. The chestnut has 

 suffered with the other trees, and the blight has developed con- 

 spicuously, killing many of them. Superintendent Amrhyn 

 furnishes us with the following list of dead and dying trees 

 that were found in this park in 1910. 



"I herewith enclose a list of dead trees found in the East 

 Rock Park forests in an inspection made during the month of 

 August, 1910. You will find the largest percentage of them 

 to be chestnut and hemlock. The first were not all dead, but 

 were severely affected by the blight. The hemlocks are all 

 dead, but a few of them have been in that state for two or 

 three years, while all affected or dead chestnuts were cut down 

 last winter. 



Chestnut 1,362 Hickory 75 Beech 15 



Hemlock 494 Maples 48 Elm 10 



Oaks 271 Walnut 44 Linden 7 



Birch 101 Wild cherry ... 24 Locust 4 



Cedar 101 Ash 23 Sassafras 3 



Carpinus 84 Pines 17 Apple 2 



"I think that a very large percentage of these trees, 2,685, 

 have died on account of the great dryness which has existed 

 for about three years, changing conditions ever so much for 

 the root systems of the trees." 



Other investigators have admitted the connection between 

 drought injury and blight infection, or at least the possibility 

 of such connection, as shown by the following quotations: 



Stone (Rept. 23, p. 57) says: "Our observations on the effects 

 of meteorological conditions on vegetation, and the unusual 

 opportunities we have had to study shade tree conditions for 

 some years, have brought to our attention the unusually large 

 amount of dead wood found on chestnut trees the past four 

 or five years. From what we have seen of the chestnut during 

 this period, we are of the opinion that it has not been in the 

 best condition during late years, and that the chestnut, like the 

 native white and black oaks, elms, red and rock maples, ash, 

 etc., has been more or less affected by the severe cold and 

 droughts of late years." A year later he writes further (Rept. 



