18 CHESTNUT TREE BLIGHT. 
In regions in which the disease is so widespread that almost every 
tree is infected, as, for instance, within 25 miles of the city of New 
York, it is extremely doubtful whether any. individual treatment will 
pay. Under such conditions immediate reinfection is almost sure to 
occur at one or more of the small unnoticed abrasions or injuries 
which are quite certain to exist on most trees. In a region, however, 
where only isolated cases have yet appeared it is quite possible to 
stamp out the disease, or at least to prevent its rapid spread, by 
romptly cutting’ out and carefully burning all diseased bark and 
Testa, thus destroying these new sources of infection. If a tree is 
too badly infected to be worth treating it should not be left standing, 
for it will then become a continual menace to all surrounding chest- 
nuts. 
The Office of Investigations in Forest Pathology asks the cooper- 
ation of all persons who have observed the disease or experimented 
with it in any way. If such people will send in an early report of the 
- kind of treatment used, time of treatment, methods employed, and 
results obtained (even if adverse), it may be possible to arrive at an 
earlier and more definite conclusion in Sopael to the possibilities or 
impossibilities of control than would otherwise be the case. 
CONCLUSIONS. 
It is to be hoped that in the economy of nature some limiting fac- 
tor will arise to check the spread of the bark disease before it has 
wrought the same destruction throughout the country that it already 
has in the vicinity of New York. But at present there is nothing in 
sight that promises even remotely to check its spread into new terri- 
tory except the general adoption of the measures advocated in these 
pages. It can not be argued that because of its apparently recent ori- 
gin and rapid spread it will soon disappear of itself. Such diseases as 
pear blight and peach yellows have been in the country for more than 
a century and yet show no sign of abating except when actively 
combated by modern quarantine methods. Nor can any conclusions 
be drawn from the fact that chestnuts in the Southern States have 
suffered from a disease during the past twenty years, since, as already 
stated, that is a totally different thing from the bark disease. 
Where the bark disease is already firmly established and has 
attacked 50 Pe cent or more of the chestnut trees, as in the vicinity 
of the city of New York, it is probably too late to try to do anything, 
but where the disease is Just appearing there is no reason to doubt that 
strict quarantine methods wi f apply as well to this as to any other 
disease, whether of plants or animals. The question to settle is sim- 
ly which is more costly—to use the methods recommended or to 
ose the trees. The people concerned must decide. 
