NORTH CAROLINA FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 13 



And now, to recapitulate briefly: What are the forestry questions most 

 prominent at this time which the Association can assist in solving? 



(1) The question of fire protection is uppermost in the minds of most of 

 us, and we should make a special effort the coming summer to bring this to 

 the attention of the voters, and especially to the attention of the prospective 

 candidates for the Legislature, with the hope of getting an Assembly favor- 

 able to forestry legislation. 



(2) This must be done, and some kind of legislation passed before the sec- 

 ond question can be taken up, which is, the cooperation of the State with the 

 Federal Government in fire protection on the headwaters of streams, as will 

 be explained by Mr. Peters. 



(3) Wherever the pine is being destroyed by the pine beetle, the Associa- 

 tion should make a special effort to found local associations in the counties 

 affected, and then cooperate with them in every way possible. 



(4) The Association should encourage and advocate the teaching of for- 

 estry in the colleges and public schools of the State, and should endeavor to 

 make the observance of Arbor Day universal. 



(5) The Association should take up in earnest the question of the chestnut 

 bark disease, and bend every effort to keep it out of the State and then, 

 should it get into the State, to combat its spread. 



Finally, all these measures could be pushed forward most successfully if we 

 had the cooperation of the State Legislature, so that small State appropria- 

 tions might be made for the purposes of controlling forest fires, of coope- 

 rating with the United States in fire prevention, of cooperating with counties 

 in the fight against the pine bark beetle, and of cooperating with the United 

 States in the protection of our forests from the chestnut blight disease. 



Motion was made and passed that the Secretary's report stand ap- 

 proved. 



Mr. Holmes then read a paper on "The Chestnut Bark Disease." 



THE CHESTNUT BARK DISEASE WHICH THEEATENS JfOETH 

 CAROLINA. 



By J. S. Holmes, Forester, North Carolina Geological and 

 Economic Survey. 



Just four years ago Mr. Haven Metcalf, of the United States Bureau of Plant 

 Industry, in a brief circular* wrote, "The bark disease of the chestnut caused 

 by the fungus Diaporthe parasitica (Murrill), has spread rapidly from Long 

 Island, where it was first observed, and is now reported from Connecticut, 

 Massachusetts, Vermont, New York as far north as Poughkeepsie, New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, and possibly Delaware. It is no exaggeration to say that it is 

 at present the most threatening forest tree disease in America. Unless some- 

 thing now unforeseen occurs to check its spread, the complete destruction of 

 the chestnut orchards and forests of the country, or at least of the Atlantic 

 States, is only a question of a few years' time." 



Since that time two or three circulars have been issued on the subject by 

 the United States Bureau of Plant Industry as well as numerous articles and 



* "The Immunity of the Japanese Chestnut to the Bark Disease," by Haven Metcalf, Bui. 121, Pt. 

 vi., Bureau of Plant Industry. 



