EASTERN FOREST LANDS BOUGHT 



233 



discovery of the finest pecan in America, growing in In- 

 diana, 3 is again suggestive of the lack of botanic explora- 

 tion in this country, especially economic botany. There 

 are shag-barks that will come out of their shells in whole 

 halves. The same is probably true of black walnuts. 

 Where are the best of these parent trees? There are 

 doubtless mazzard cherry trees with kernels in their seeds 



A GRAFTED PERSIMMON TREE 

 This tree, burdened with fruit, is standing where it sprung up by chance in a 

 Georgia cow-pea field. Peas and persimmons are both gathered by foraging pigs. 



big enough and nutritious enough to make them a crop 

 for pig feed, but no one as yet has taken the pains to 

 search them out or make tests. 



3. Finally comes plant breeding, and its possibili- 

 ties when applied to the native and imported fruitful 

 trees growing in America are quite beyond adequate con- 

 templation. The well-known experiment of Dr. Van Fleet 

 with the chestnut is, however, so suggestive as to merit a 

 brief rehearsal. By using the useless, small, but very 

 sweet chinquapin, and the large, prolific, Japanese chest- 

 nut, useless because of its poor quality, he has produced 

 a hybrid good enough to eat, big enough to handle com- 

 mercially, and with two added highly useful qualities: 

 First, high immunity to the ravaging chestnut blight and 

 such prolificacy that the seedling will sometimes bear 

 eighteen months from the sprouting of the seed. That 

 does not agree with our ideas of the slowness of nut trees, 

 or the slowness of tree breeding. It should be remem- 

 bered that trees are individuals, and that they vary in 

 almost all respects, such as speed of growth, flavor of 

 fruit, size of fruit, abundance of fruit, frequency of fruit- 



J This is the Posey. It was awarded the prize at a Mobile 

 meeting of the National Nut Growers' Association, an organization 

 practically limited to southern pecan growers. 



ing and resistance to pests. The tree world is to the bota- 

 nist as clay in the hands of the potter and the botanist has 

 scarce begun. I hope that the ensuing years may see a 

 vast increase of constructive work looking to the fuller 

 utilization of our tree resources as a factor in production 

 and conservation. 



EASTERN FOREST LANDS BOUGHT 



THE National Forest Reservation Commission has 

 authorized the purchase by the Government of 32,- 

 266 acres of land in the Southern Appalachian and 

 the White Mountains, for inclusion in the eastern National 

 Forests. In accordance with the policy of the Commis- 

 sion, only tracts were approved which block in with the 

 land already owned or acquired in the established "Pur- 

 chase Areas." 



The largest and most important purchase is that of a 

 number of tracts in Lawrence and Winston Counties, Ala- 

 bama, which total 14,360 acres. The Alabama Purchase 

 Area was authorized two years ago in order to protect the 

 headwaters of the Sipsey River, an important tributary of 

 the Black Warrior River, on which an expensive system 

 of locks has been installed by the Government to facili- 

 tate navigation. Within the boundaries of the Purchase 

 Area and adjoining the tracts just approved there are 

 approximately 13,000 acres of rough mountain timber- 

 land to which the Government still retains title and 

 which have been withdrawn from entry for inclusion in 

 the National Forest. 



A total of 11,116 acres in Oxford County, Maine, and 

 Coos and Carroll Counties, New Hampshire, in the White 

 Mountain National Forest, was also approved. Of this 

 amount about 7,000 acres was comprised in a single tract 

 on the Kilkenny Division. Other tracts whose acquisi- 

 tion was authorized include 998 acres in Caldwell, Hender- 

 son, Macon, McDowell, and Yancey Counties, North 

 Carolina; 954 acres in Shenandoah and Amherst counties, 

 Virginia; 600 acres in Oconee County, South Carolina; 

 738 acres in Randolph County, West Virginia; and 3,500 

 acres in Monroe County, Tennessee. 



TVTEW uses for wood are being developed constantly, 

 -L but the first wooden tennis court of which there is 

 any record has been built at the country home of E. B. 

 Hazen, who lives several miles from Portland, on the 

 Columbia highway. The tennis court is built of inch 

 pieces, three inches wide, set on edge, and sufficiently 

 close together to make a solid floor, yet sufficiently spaced 

 to give ventilation and allow the water to run off without 

 gathering and promoting decay. 



T^HE day of the wooden golf club shaft is not passing. 

 -* There is enough hickory in America to provide all 

 the shafts for the golf clubs that American golf players 

 can want for years to come. It has been asserted of late 

 that the time was coming when, from scarcity of hickory, 

 club shafts would have to be made of steel, but there is 

 no foundation for such a statement. 



