62 
THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA 
Industry of the U. S. Department nf Asrifiilture. that he passed 
up our last convention, a most unusual thin.' for ilr. Miilford, who 
is one erf the tried and true, old guard. 
Richard II. Tacke. sujierintendcnt at Lexington. K.v.. who was 
reported last munth as having dropped his membership, has tliought 
better of it and is again on tlie rolls. There are a number of 
fine cities in Kentuck.v that should be represented on our roster 
and when they are. it will be easier for Ixaiisville to secure our 
convention, which she surel.v will some of these times. They put 
up a gallant fight at New Orleans, but St. Louis had jjrior claims 
which could not be resisted. 
George H. Hollister. of Hartford, was elected pre.sident of the 
Connecticut Horticultural Society, at its recent annual session. 
Hartford has surely produced its share of leaders along horticul- 
tural lines. As an example, it is a fact that our Association has 
six members in that city, a record equalled only by Boston. The 
six member.? are : Geo. H. Hollister. Sup't Keney Park ; H. O. 
Clarke. Engineer Keney Park ; F. .1. Huss, Sup't Goodwin Park : 
Edgar M. Brown. Park Forester. Robert A. Parker, Engineer and 
Geo. A. Parker. Sup't Parks and Cemeteries. Some other notables 
in our Association also made their way to fame, at Hartford. 
Our genial ex-presideut, E. T. Jlische has been taking another 
trip to California recently and something tells us that some of 
these days a California city is going to take on a park executive 
we know of and ne also know that he will be a credit to that city 
and to our Association. 
Prof. Jas. Sturgis Pray of Boston, president of the American 
Society of Landscape Architects, who had promised us a paper on 
"City Planning In Relation to Parks." for our New Orleans con- 
vention. Init who through illness was prevented from doing so. 
writes that he will yet prepare and submit the paper. This will be 
good news to our members who were disappointed at our failure to 
secure this contribution. When received it will be published in 
these columns. 
Henry H. Elbers. director of tlie South Park Botanic Garden at 
Buffalo, has received considerable press notice of a unique exhibit 
which he had recently on view in the conservatory. It consisted 
of a severed limb of a Banana Tree, with forty bananas growing 
on it. A part of a tree was cut away and it was observed that 
the severed limb was about to produce a banana stalk. The limb 
was placed in the conservatory in a tub of water and the stalk de- 
veloped and bore fruit, forming a most interesting freak exhibit. 
.Tas. A. Barr, who was in charge of the San Francisco Exposi- 
tion Convention Bureau, is working on a plan which is worthy of 
the support of all organizations which hold annual conventions in 
various parts of the country. The plan is to induce the United 
States Government to provide facilities for the holding of con- 
Tentions in our national parks. These would certainly provide 
scenic environment par excellence, there would be no city bright 
lights to draw delegates away from sessions and yet there would 
be ample opportunity for diversion in the way of auto tours, 
mountain climbing, camp fires and evening social affairs. There 
is a lot of merit in the plau. so think it over, for it may be heard 
iif nationall.v in the near future. 
Did you get your copy of the New Orleans convention proceed- 
ings? If not. notify the secretary and lie will supply you. It is 
the largest document of the kind the .\s^i elation has yet had. be- 
cause we had more in the way of papers, addresses and discus- 
sions, at New Orleans than for many years. The secretary is 
quite proud of this booklet as it is the first one he has personally 
supervised the publication of. The next thing in order will be the 
1917 Year Book, which will be sent to members not later than 
March 1st. 
MEET ME IN SAINT LOUIS. 
Our fellow members at St. Louis. Messrs. L. P. .Trnsou. Ernst 
Strehle. Emmett P. Griffin, W. W. Ohiweiler and Juliu.s'Koenig. 
have organized themselves as a special convention conimittei' and 
have shattered all records b.v alread.v outlining Ikow they iiropnse 
to entertain our next convention and a glance at their preliminary 
program is siifPcient to show that the St. l.ouis convention will be 
(•lie which should attract ever.v member of the Association. Here 
it is : 
Tuesday. Krpt. 11th. 9 a. m. Executive Committee Meeting. 
10 a. m. Business Meeting. 1 p. m. Tour of East St. Louis Park 
System. 4 p. m. Visit "to the Indian Slounds' I Proposed State 
Park1. G p. m. Supper at East St. Louis. S p. m,. Business 
Meeting. 
\Vedncsiilay Sept. 12th. 10 a. m. Business Meeting. 1 ii. m. 
Aut'i Tour. City Nursery. Chain of Rocks; refreshments at River- 
side Club: North StT'Louis parks and Forest Park -and Jlissouri 
Botanical Garden. 7 p. mv Annual Shaw Banquet for meaihers. 
Theatre Party for the ladies. -. 
Thiirf-dn;/. fiept. 13th. 10 a. m. Busini^ Sleeting. V2:'^0 p. 
m. Luncheon at Anheuser-Busch Brewery: 1:30 p. m,- Auto tour 
of South Side parks, then to Grants Farm where closing conven- 
tion session will be lield : :-'!0 p. m. Luncheon at the Sunset Inn : 
:"0 p. m. Reception"and Dance by the St. Loijjs--P#i'k Depart- 
ment Assmialion. " ■'• ' ' 
Special entertainment for the ladies during business sessions. 
To these V ho have heretofore been fortunate enough to, par- 
ticipate in entertainment furnished to our members by our St. 
Louis friends, it is not necessary to comment further, but to 
others, the above program should be convincing' evidence that those 
who mi.ss the St. Louis convention, will miss the big event in 
our history. 
DISEASE-RESISTANT CHESTNUTS. 
T^HE possibility for contintied growth of chestnut 
•^ trees in the United States, in the face of the 
rapid spread of the destrtictive chestnut blight, may 
depend mainly upon replacing of the susceptible na- 
tive trees by disease-resistant strains and hybrids 
bred from As'iastic stock. This is pointed out by plant 
pathologists of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 
who have made exhaustive studies of the disease in 
field and laboratory during the last five years. The 
chestnut blight, which is rapidly exterminating the 
American chestnut, came from eastern Asia on nur- 
sery stock. The disease is coiumon in both China and 
Japan, but in those countries causes relatively much 
less damage than in America. In both Asia and Amer- 
ica the parasitic fungus causes cankers on chestnut 
bark, but in the American chestnut these cankers soon 
completelv girdle the tree, and invariably cause death. 
In China and Japan, however, the trees commonly re- 
main alive and productive for many years although 
cankered, the cankers seldom growing fast enough to 
girdle the trees. 
The specialists have identified seven species of the 
genus of fungi to which the organism causing chest- 
nut blight belongs, five of which now exist in the 
United States. None of these causes disease, except 
the one which causes the chestnut blight. Fortu- 
nately, the chestnut blight fungus rarely grows on 
trees other than the chestnut : during their studies the 
specialists were able to find but four such speciiuens 
— three of these were oaks, and one a maple. Inocu- 
lation experiments indicated that although the fun- 
gus can be made to grow on trees other than chest- 
nut, it usually is but slightly parasitic in such cases 
and seldom injures the trees greatly. 
In their age-long struggle with the blight, the Jap- 
anese and Chinese chestnuts have acquired a high 
degree of resistance to it, and this fact is being util- 
ized by the specialists in breeding resistant chestnut 
trees for American use. Hybrids between the highly 
resistant Japanese chestnut and our native chiiuiua- 
pin have been raised in considerable numbers. They 
quickly form handsome dwarf trees, bearing at an 
early age profuse crops of nuts of excellent quality, 
five or six times the size of those of the wild chinqua- 
pin parent, and ripening weeks before any other chest- 
nuts. So far these trees show a very high degree of 
disease resistance. The second generation of hybrids, 
grown from self or chance pollinated nuts, appear 
quite as good as their parents, which is an important 
feature when the cost of propagation of nut trees by 
budding and grafting is considered, .-\nother line of 
breeding lies in the intercrossing of disease-resisting 
Japanese and Chinese varieties that are rapidly being 
imported into this country by the ofiice of Foreign 
seed and Plant Introduction, and the selection of the 
best resulting forms. Four generations of cross-bred 
Japanese chestnuts of a very early bearing type, pro- 
ducing nuts when two or three years old, have al- 
ready been grown, and the varietal characters appear 
to be well fixed. Some of the Chinese chestnuts are 
said to gmw 100 feet hi'^h in their horn- forests. 
