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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



were already infected with the chestnut bark disease. 

 The cankers were outlined with paint at the time the 

 chemicals were injected into the trees, so that an accurate 

 record of the effect of the chemical on the fungus was 

 obtained. The war interrupted this work before it had 

 gone further than to show interesting indications. In the 

 case of diseased chestnut trees injected in the spring and 

 early summer months with dilute solutions of lithium car- 

 bonate and lithium hydroxide, the fungus causing the 

 blight was checked in its growth and the trees started to 

 form a callus at the edge of the canker. In some cases 

 this callus growth resulted in so completely cutting off 

 the diseased tissue from the rest of the tree that the 

 diseased portion dried out and could be picked off like 

 any other dead bark. However, the lithium was gradu- 

 ally eliminated from the tissues of such trees and they 

 were then subject to reinfection by the disease. Thus, 

 the success in controlling the blight has so far been only 

 to find a temporary check. 



The results of these experiments indicate that there is 

 a large field for further research on the possibility of 

 finding a cure by the injection method for chestnut 



blight and similar parasitic fungi that grow beneath the 

 bark of trees. This work is preliminary only and has 

 not solved the problem. It took many years of patient 

 experiment to develop salvarsan, and this solved a prob- 

 lem as apparently hopeless as that of finding a practical 

 remedy for the chestnut blight. 



The subject is intensely interesting and will undoubt- 

 edly be further explored in the future. In the meantime, 

 owners of chestnut and other valuable shade trees should 

 know that itinerant "tree doctors," who claim wonderful 

 curative powers for mysterious substances inserted into 

 trees, are not likely to have been successful in achieving 

 that which years of careful scientific research have failed 

 to produce. This statement is not intended to reflect 

 on trained men who are conducting legitimate tree 

 surgery operations, but is directed against those "quacks" 

 who prey on the ignorance of shade tree owners by selling 

 worthless "remedies" at fabulous prices. Such persons 

 not only get their money through fraudulent representa- 

 tions, but frequently cause death or serious injury to a 

 valuable tree. 



NEED OF FORESTS FOR WOOD PULP 



BY E. T. MEREDITH, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE 



THE United States is today facing the most critical 

 pulp and paper situations in its history. Of these 

 the newsprint situation is the most serious. Present 

 demands, abnormal though they may seem, are merely 

 an incident in the rapidly growing normal demand for 

 newsprint paper. 



Today we are dependent upon other countries for the 

 equivalent of two-thirds of the pulpwood, pulp, or news- 

 print which goes into American newspapers. Our news- 

 print industry is concentrated largely in New England, 

 New York, and the Lake States. I am told that sixty 

 per cent of the pulp and paper concerns in New York 

 have no stumpage of their own, and that less than five 

 have enough timberland for continuous future operation. 

 The predicted life of the industry in New York, New 

 Hampshire, and even in Maine, where the great bulk of 

 our eastern pulpwood still remains, is alarmingly short. 



We have on the other hand, large quantities of suitable 

 newsprint woods in the Pacific Northwest and in Alaska. 

 The annual growth of timber on the National Forests 

 of southeastern Alaska alone would supply half of our 

 present American newsprint requirements. Here the in- 

 dustry is undeveloped. 



A far greater degree of independence in newsprint 

 manufacture can be accomplished by two measures the 

 development of the industry in the Pacific Northwest and 

 in Alaska, and the large-scale growing of timber in New 

 England and the Lake States. Both of these measures 

 would be greatly stimulated by the passage of the Poin- 

 dexter Pulp Survey bill now pending in the Senate. A 



* From a letter by Secretary E. T. Meredith, to the American 

 Paper and Pulp Association. 



pulpwood survey would secure the facts on which a sound 

 development of the industry in the Northwest and in 

 Alaska could be based, and it would also afford a basis 

 for the production of pulp timber in the Lake States and 

 in the Northeast. 



The American Pulp and Paper Association has urged 

 the purchase by the Government of large areas suitable 

 for the growing of pulpwoods. The Government has 

 made a beginning in this direction during the past 

 decade. In New Hampshire and Maine an area of about 

 362,000 acres has been acquired admirably adapted for 

 this purpose. This area should be greatly enlarged to 

 include much of the mountain region in New Hampshire, 

 Maine and Vermont. 



We already have some technical knowledge of the 

 best methods for growing the pulp timbers of the North- 

 east and the Lake States, enough to begin intelligently ; 

 but a great deal of investigative work remains to be done. 

 If the pulp industry of the Northeast is to be perpetuated 

 in anything approximating its present size, the entire 

 forest area of the region must be utilized to the limit 

 of its productive capacity. This is hardly less true of 

 the Lake States. Forest experiment stations alone will, 

 in any reasonable time, furnish the required knowledge 

 of the best methods of cutting, planting, production, and 

 the various other steps in such intensive timber growing. 

 Bills now pending in both Senate and House of Repre- 

 sentatives provide for experiment stations on the White 

 Mountain National Forests in New England and in 

 Minnesota. 



Protection of forests from fire is perhaps the 

 most important single requirement in the growing of 



