402 CONNECTICUT EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT, IQI2. 
prime reason is their decreased vitality, which makes them easy 
prey to their natural enemies.” 
If the chestnut blight has no relation to the age or vigor of 
the tree, it is certainly. a curious coincidence that the blight 
makes its first appearance and causes its greatest damage in the 
regions where the chestnut has suffered most from repeated 
cutting over. This is indicated by the two following statements. 
Nellis, of the United States Forest Service, in an unpublished 
working plan on “Utilization of Blight-killed Chestnut,” writes: 
“Tt is expected that this study will show that the present range 
of the chestnut bark disease is in a region of entirely second- 
growth chestnut, which has been culled of its most valuable 
timber, where only rough products are now being produced.” 
Barrus, of New York (54, p. 160), says: “In those sections 
of New York state where the chestnut disease is present most 
of the marketable timber has been cut out. Fire has gone 
through the remainder, and as a result, there is a great majority 
of the chestnut which is sprout growth of small dimensions. 
I should estimate that one-fifth of the chestnut is of merchant- 
able size, and perhaps in the districts where the disease is, more 
than four-fifths is under merchantable size.” 
It has been our experience that young, especially isolated 
coppice growth, has suffered first and most severely in Con- 
necticut. We believe that these sprouts are naturally weak 
and easily killed by drought, etc. On the other hand, very 
large seedling trees have been the last to go with the blight. 
We noticed also, in our inoculation work, that it was somewhat 
easier to infect sprout growth than young seedling trees, and 
that the cankers on sprouts developed more rapidly. 
In June, 1912, we examined a field where the Ansonia Water 
Company had planted about seven bushels of chestnuts in 1908, 
in 1909 had set out 6,900 one-year seedlings, and in 1910, 
9,875 two-year seedlings. While many of these seedlings had 
been killed by drought soon after they were set out, as shown 
by the vacant places, we were able to find only two seedlings 
that showed any signs of the blight fungus. Yet the woods 
surrounding these trees were quite badly infected with the 
blight. 
At one of the Connecticut nurseries, however, in September, 
IQII, we inspected about three hundred five-year-old American 
