CHESTNUT TREE BLIGHT. 13 
Agriculture, is associated with insects, is much slower in action than 
the bark disease, and produces a stag-headed condition of the tree. 
It can be quite confidently stated that the bark disease does not yet 
occur south of Virginia and at only a few points in that State. 
_Investigations are in progress to determine the origin of the bark 
disease in America and the details regarding its spread. The theory 
advanced in a previous publication of this bureau,' that the Japanese 
chestnuts were the original source of infection, has been strengthened 
by many facts. It yet lacks much of demonstration, however, and is 
still advanced only tentatively. 
While the disease has spread principally from the vicinity of New 
York there is much to indicate that it occurred at other points at an 
early date. Chester’s Cytospora on a Japanese chestnut, noted at 
Newark, Del., in 1902, 
may have been the bark 
disease. Observations 
by the junior writer in- 
dicate that this disease 
may have been present 
in an orchard in Bedford 
County, Va., as early as 
1903, and that in Lan- 
caster County, Pa., it 
probably was present as 
early as 1905. Allother 
points shown on the 
map outside of the area 
of general infection ap- 
pear to have been in- 
fected only within one 
or two years. 
The bark disease ap- 
pears practically to ex- 
terminate the trees in 
any locality which it in- 
fests. A survey of For- 
Fic. 1.—Map of the eastern portion of the United States, showing 
est Park, Brooklyn, “{. distribution of the chestnut bark discase. ‘The heavily 
ae 9 shaded part shows the counties wherein infection is already 
showed that 16, 695 complete. The round dots show other points where the disease 
chestnut trees were is positively known to occur. 
killed in the 350 acres of ; 
woodland in this park alone. Of this number about 9,000 were 
between 8 and 12 inches in diameter, and the remaining 7,000 or 
more were of larger size.” ; ; 
In a recent: publication Dr. W. A. Murrill estimates the financial 
loss from this disease ‘‘in and about New York City” at ‘between 
five and ten million dollars.” The aggregate loss throughout the 
whole area of country affected must be much greater. ; 
The bark disease occurs on both chestnut and chinquapin, regard- 
less of age, origin, or condition. Tt does not occur on'‘any other tree 
so far as known. All reports of its occurrence on the chestnut oak 
(Quercus prinus) have roved to be unfounded. It is not yet known 
whether the goldenleaf chinquapin of the Pacific coast (Castanopsis 
chrysophylla) is subject to this disease. 
1 Bureau of Plant Industry, U. 8. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 121, Pt.. VI. 1908. 
