CHESTNUT BARK DISEASE. 411 



solve in the future." Recently writing to Professor Mell 

 regarding this trouble, he replied: "In reference to Bulletin 3 

 of the Alabama Experiment Station in regard to the disease 

 which attacked the chestnut trees in Alabama during 1889, I 

 do not think investigation was ever carefully carried out." 

 Atkinson, former, and Wolf, present botanist, at the Auburn 

 Station are unable to throw any additional light on this trouble. 



1894. G. McCarthy, in N. Car. Exp. Stat. Bull. 105, p. 267, 

 says concerning chestnut in this state: "The woodman's axe, 

 casual fires, and the ravages of the root disease, have wrought 

 much havoc with these grand forests." 



1896. W. P. Corsa, in Nut Culture in the United States, 

 a special report of the U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Pom., published 

 in 1896, p. 78, writes: "From causes not well understood, there 

 is a marked decline in the vigor of the chestnut throughout the 

 broad area of territory in the Southern States where the white 

 man found this tree among the most thrifty of the original 

 forests. Down to the first quarter of the present century there 

 seems to have been no mention of a trouble in the chestnuts 

 of that section. Within the memory of residents of the Gulf 

 States the chestnut flourished in all their higher lands. In 

 point of time the trouble seems to have begun in the most 

 southern limit of chestnut growth, and there the destruction 

 has been most complete. It has pushed its encroachments 

 throughout Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, 

 and is now reported in the strongholds of chestnut growth in 

 North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Observation of the 

 native chestnut growth of Maryland and Virginia discloses the 

 fact that many trees are dying without apparent cause. In 

 some sections this is attributed to the ravages of insects. 

 In others, to an unknown disease resembling blight. There 

 is need for a more thorough investigation of this subject than 

 has yet been made. No injury to the Japanese or European 

 chestnut planted in this country is yet reported." 



ipoi. Dr. Mohr, in Plant Life of Alabama, published by 

 the U. S. Dept. of Agr., Div. Bot, in 1901, page 61, states: 

 "The chestnut, usually one of the most frequent trees of these 

 forests, is at present rarely found in perfection. The older trees 

 mostly show signs of decay, and the seedlings, as well as the 

 coppice growth proceeding from the stumps, are more or less 



