CHESTNUT BARK DISEASE. 385 
W. O. Corning, of Marbledale, however, reports a worse 
condition, as follows: “I sent two men this morning to cut 
out my next winter’s wood, and I found a very bad condition, 
nine out of ten young trees about thirteen years old infected. 
I was on the same ground last winter, but I found only half 
as many diseased as to-day. Of my Japanese trees, a great 
many of them will have to be cut down, and with the same 
ratio of progress none will be left in three years.” 
Ellicott D. Curtis, of Bantam, likewise sees no improvement, 
as he writes: “In our own woods the blight is much more 
conspicuous than last year, and is doing much greater damage. 
Some of the infested woods were thinned last winter, and the 
diseased wood taken out. This winter the disease is very 
prominent in these, and it looks as if the chestnut would have 
to be cut clean. It looks to me as if our chestnuts were com- 
pletely doomed, although I have not so far been able to find 
the disease in a'small stand of trees about sixty years old.” 
F, V. Stevens also takes a similar view: “At Torrington the 
outlook is about as bad as it was here [Stamford] three years 
ago, i. e., it promises to cause a total loss of all the chestnuts 
in that vicinity.” 
Middlesex County. Forester Moss found a single infected 
tree in the state forest at Portland in March, 1910, and this 
is the earliest date we have for the disease in this county. 
Later examination, however, showed this infection to have 
occurred probably as early as 1906. The disease was seen by 
the writer at Middlefield and Middletown in March, and at 
Chatham and East Haddam in July, 1911. The blight as a whole 
is probably somewhat worse here than in Hartford County, but 
not so bad as in Litchfield. We estimate 30 to 40 per cent. of 
the chestnuts infected. Three persons report the disease worse, 
and three no worse, in 1912 than in IQII. 
Mr. J. E. Doane, of Centerbrook, writes: “I find plenty of 
blight in the chestnuts, more in the young than in the older 
growth. I find about one-half of the twenty-year-old trees in a 
tract that I have are either dead or diseased. I do not believe 
that there is any chestnut about here that has escaped from the 
blight, and think it has spread more in the last year than any 
time before.” D. Herdman, of the Wadsworth estate of Middle- 
town, also thinks the trouble on the increase, as he says: “There 
