CHESTNUT BARK DISEASE, 411 
solve in the future.” Recently writing to Professor Mell 
regarding this trouble, he replied: “In reference to Bulletin 3 
of the Alabama Experiment Station in regard to the disease 
which attacked the chestnut trees in Alabama during 1889, I 
do not think investigation was ever carefully carried out.” 
Atkinson, former, and Wolf, present botanist, at the Auburn 
Station are unable to throw any additional light on this trouble. 
1894. G. McCarthy, in N. Car. Exp. Stat. Bull. 105, p. 267, 
says concerning chestnut in this state: ‘The woodman’s axe, 
casual fires, and the ravages of the root disease, have wrought 
much havoc with these grand forests.” 
—1896. W. P. Corsa, in Nut Culture in the United States, 
a special report of the U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. Pom., published 
in 1896, p. 78, writes: “From causes not well understood, there 
is a marked decline in the vigor of the chestnut throughout the 
broad area of territory in the Southern States where the white 
man found this tree among the most thrifty of the original 
forests. Down to the first quarter of the present century there 
seems to have been no mention of a trouble in the chestnuts 
of that section. Within the memory of residents of the Gulf 
States the chestnut flourished in all their higher lands. In 
point of time the trouble seems to have begun in the most 
southern limit of chestnut growth, and there the destruction 
has been most complete. It has pushed its encroachments 
throughout Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, 
and is now reported in the strongholds of chestnut growth in 
North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Observation of the 
native chestnut growth of Maryland and Virginia discloses the 
fact that many trees are dying without apparent cause. In 
some sections this is attributed to the ravages of insects. 
In others, to an unknown disease resembling blight. There 
is need for a more thorough investigation of this subject than 
has yet been made. No injury to the Japanese or European 
chestnut planted in this country is yet reported.” 
—r901. Dr. Mohr, in Plant Life of Alabama, published by 
the U. S. Dept. of Agr., Div. Bot., in 1901, page 61, states: 
“The chestnut, usually one of the most frequent trees of these 
forests, is at present rarely found in perfection. The older trees 
mostly show signs of decay, and the seedlings, as well as the 
coppice growth proceeding from the stumps, are more or less 
