408 CONNECTICUT EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT, 1912. 



Personally we believe that this tree is extremely susceptible to 

 changes in the natural environment, and that such changes, with 

 water playing an important part, have been the chief factors 

 back of the gradual decline of this important forest tree. Other 

 factors, such as forest fires, deterioration through repeated 

 cuttings, insect and fungus attacks, are contributing causes 

 varying in different localities. 



The question naturally arises, has the blight fungus had 

 anything to do with these previous troubles of the chestnut? 

 As no one ever made a careful study of them at the time, it 

 is impossible to state whether or not the blight was connected 

 with them. One thing is certain, and that is that the sapro- 

 phytic Endothia gyrosa is so generally scattered over the South 

 to-day that there is no doubt it occurred in the regions where 

 these chestnut troubles existed. It seems almost equally certain 

 that the real chestnut blight does not to-day occur in those regions, 

 or if it does, it is very inconspicuous. This would seem to indicate 

 that if the blight had anything to do with these troubles in 

 the past it was not able afterwards to exist there, but gradu- 

 ally extended northward. When one reads the accounts of the 

 outbreaks, he can easily imagine that the trouble might be due 

 to the blight fungus. We give here, arranged according to the 

 time of their occurrence, some references to these troubles. 



1825-45. We quote the following from an article by Mr. 

 Jones of Georgia, which appeared in the American Journal of 

 Science, Vol. i, p. 450, in 1846: "The present remarks are 

 particularly directed to the death and disappearance of some 

 of our trees and shrubs. The first that I will mention is the 

 Castanea pumila, which is a -tree from ten to thirty feet in 

 height. In the year 1825, during the months from June to 

 September, I observed this tree dying when in full leaf, and 

 with fruit half matured. I examined numerous individuals, 

 and could find no internal cause for their dying. I at first 

 attributed it to the great fall of rain which took place in the 

 year 1823. During the month of July of that year a consider- 

 able quantity of land not subject to overflow was covered with 

 water for some time, and the highest lands were completely 

 saturated. The latter part of 1824 was also very rainy. Know- 

 ing that this tree belongs in our highest and dryest soils, I con- 

 cluded it was owing to a too moist state of the ground, but 



