PARK AND CEMET ERY. 
71 
could be eliminated without great expense, thus materially 
checking the progress of the disease. During the last three 
years this method has been tested in the territory within 
about thirty-five miles of Washington. Fourteen points of 
infection were discovered and the infected trees were de- 
stroyed. Up to June, 1911, the disease had not reappeared 
at any of these points and at that date the experimental area 
appeared to be free from infection. 
If this method could be applied on a large scale with 
equal thoroughness and success it would probably result 
ultimately in the control of the chestnut blight, but the carry- 
ing out of a comprehensive campaign of this sort is confront- 
ed by serious legal and other difficulties. The disease already 
exists in ten States, and threatens to exterminate the chest- 
nut within its range. The issue, therefore, is a National one, 
but the Federal Government is not empowered to meet it. 
Each State must act for itself, and the efforts made to con- 
trol the disease in any State may be seriously handicapped by 
the negligence of adjacent States. In most of the States, 
furthermore, it will be necessary to pass special laws and 
make specific appropriations for the control of the disease, 
as has already been done in Pennsylvania. 
The first thing to be done in each State is to determine the 
exact range of the disease and, particularly, to locate the ad- 
vance points of infection. This is the most difficult part of 
the programme because the work must be directed by ex- 
perts in plant pathology and carried out by specially trained 
and trustworthy assistants. The diseased trees in the ad- 
vance stage of infection must be destroyed or marked and 
all neighboring chestnut trees carefully inspected. Scouting 
may profitably be suspended between October and April, 
when the symptoms of disease are very obscure, but the de- 
struction of marked trees may go on through the winter. 
The trees should be felled and barked and the bark and 
brush should be burned over the stumps — or elsewhere, if 
the stumps are barked down to the ground. The barked tim- 
ber is not known to carry infection and it may, therefore, 
be shipped and used. This work of destruction does not 
require expert pathologists and can be best directed by the 
State forestry officials. 
After all advance spots of infection are eliminated an im- 
mune zone must be established along the border of the area 
of general infection by destroying all chestnut trees, dis- 
eased or healthy, within a belt some ten miles wide, across 
which the disease is not likely to be transmitted. The chest- 
nut trees behind this barrier may be abandoned to the dis- 
ease but they should be felled and used as soon as possible. 
Pennsylvania has set a praiseworthy example by creating a 
commission empowered to control the chestnut blight by 
such methods as may seem necessary, to order the destruc- 
tion of diseased trees, to destroy such trees and assess the 
cost of destruction on owners who do not promptly obey the 
order, to destroy healthy trees (with proper compensation to 
the owner) in order to check the spread of infection and to 
establish and maintain quarantine on chestnut products and 
nursery stock. Liberal appropriations are provided and penal- 
ties are prescribed for violation of the regulations. 
The life of slightly infected ornamental or orchard chest- 
nut trees can be prolonged for several or many years by cut- 
ting off small infected branches, gouging out diseased parts 
of large limbs and trunk and coating the wounds with tar. 
Spraying with any of the standard fungicides is powerless 
to check the disease after it has started in the inner bark 
but it may prevent infection from spores carried to healthy 
parts by rain or other agencies. Strewing slaked lime about 
the base of a tree and whitewashing the trunk and large limbs 
appear to have some effect in preventing infection and the 
ravages of borers. Trees should be carefully examined sev- 
eral times during the growing season. 
In view of the uncertain future of the chestnut the De- 
partment of Agriculture advises against planting chestnut 
trees anywhere east of Ohio and warns western chestnut 
growers not to purchase stock from eastern nurseries. Own- 
ers of chestnut woodland within the area of general infec- 
tion are advised to convert their trees into timber as quickly 
as possible, as the still living trees will soon die and rapidly 
deteriorate. 
Outside this area careful inspection, prompt felling of 
diseased trees and burning the bark and brush over the 
stumps are advised in the owner’s interest, even when not re- 
quired by law. Owners of ornamental chestnut trees are 
warned against charlatans, who in many cases have extorted 
large sums for worse than useless treatment. Reliable tree 
specialists will have nothing to do with trees affected with 
the chestnut blight. The department will send copies of its 
CHESTNUT TREE PARTLY DEAD. 
Note sprouts with leaves near top, dwarfed leaves on 
middle branch, right side, and healthy lower branches 
and leaves. 
publications relating to the chestnut blight, and typical speci- 
mens of diseased tissue (previously soaked in formalin to 
prevent infection) to all applicants, and will examine sus- 
pected specimens sent to it. 
In conclusion, the bulletin lays stress on the great impor- 
tance of protecting the chestnut forests of the South, the 
source of the best chestnut timber, where the blight has al- 
ready appeared in a few spots. 
A still less hopeful view of the situation is taken by Dr. 
W. A. Murrill, assistant director of the New York Botanical 
Garden, who investigated the blight when it appeared in 
Bronx Park and discovered and named the fungus which 
causes it. In the March issue of the Journal of the N. Y. 
Botanical Garden, Dr. Murrill criticises the action of the 
interstate convention recently held at Harrisburg in adopt- 
ing, resolutions in favor of a general campaign similar to that 
already begun in Pennsylvania. Dr. Murrill thinks that other 
States would be unwise to duplicate the costly Pennsylvania 
experiments or to adopt methods which have not been tested 
and are pretty certain to fail. He believes that the blight 
cannot be controlled in the forest by the cutting out method 
because it is practically impossible to locate all advance in- 
fections or to eradicate all those that are located and the sec- 
ondary infections due to their widely disseminated spores. 
He says, moreover, that for ten to twenty years after the fell- 
ing of the trees the disease would affect and be spread by 
sprouts from their roots. Dr. Murrill places little reliance on 
the published account of the extermination of the blight in 
the vicinity of Washington, and says that no tree or grove 
affected by the disease has ever been saved. 
