372 CONNECTICUT EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT, IQI2. 
state, and in’ February, 1912 (12), it had been found in 164 
out of 168’ towns of the state. Since that time it has been 
reported in the remaining four. 
We have no doubt that a careful examination would have 
revealed the blight’s presence in many of these towns much 
earlier than it was first reported. There is no question, how- 
ever, that it was much more conspicuous in Fairfield and New 
Haven counties at first than elsewhere, and that to-day it is 
much more prevalent west than east of the Connecticut River. 
This is probably due to the fact that in the western part of 
the state chestnut is more abundant than in the eastern half, and 
also to the fact that the disease started earliest in the south- 
eastern part of the state. We doubt very much, however, if it 
has spread from a single infected locality in Fairfield County 
through all the rest. of the state, but hold rather to the idea 
that it was present in a very inconspicuous way in a number of 
localities scattered over the state, and has spread from these. 
See Plate XXI. 
Manner of Distribution. Many persons believe that the chest- 
nut blight started at some one locality in the region of New 
York City and from there spread to all of the localities where 
it is now known to occur. Maps issued from time to time by 
Metcalf and Collins are based on this idea. Williams (54, 
p- 198) has rather positively stated this in the following 
quotation: “I would like to ask the gentlemen from around 
the neighborhood of New York City whether if they had been 
really active and alert and on the firing line when this thing 
was discovered in 1904, might they not have accomplished some 
real thing which would have redounded to the benefit of the 
other states, as Massachusetts has done in her gypsy moth fight? 
If instead of sitting down and nursing their hands in idleness, 
and allowing the scourge to go on, simply because they could 
not originate sufficient interest in their state, they had gone out 
and done what they could, this thing would probably not have 
come upon us.” , 
This view almost of necessity carries with it the additional 
belief that the chestnut blight is of foreign origin, since if of 
native origin there is little likelihood that the fungus would 
have been limited to one locality; whereas if imported, it could 
have spread from one center or even from a single tree. On 
