2 
EASTERN SHADE TREE CONFERENCE 
THE PURPOSES OF THE CONFERENCE 
By W. O. Filley, Forester , Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station 
The purpose of this conference is stated on the program as, “a broad 
discussion of hurricane damage to shade trees, with special reference to 
rehabilitation and related problems”. It seems to me that this states 
the purpose so clearly and concisely that most of you may be wondering 
why I should take your time for any further explanation. However, the 
title, “Eastern Shade Tree Conference” may cause misapprehension 
which I wish to allay in advance. 
The only conceivable reason for calling such a conference at this time 
is the emergency caused by the hurricane of last September. It was so 
absolutely outside our experience in this region that most of us are still 
gasping for breath and wondering how it all happened. 
Now that the most completely damaged shade trees have been dis¬ 
posed of, we are confronted with many problems as to future conditions 
which few of us feel adequate to solve single-handed. Hence, the need 
for a meeting of this kind. 
As many of you doubtless know, I had some part in the development 
of the National Shade Tree Conference, and you may wonder why that 
well-known organization was not utilized in this instance. The Na¬ 
tional Shade Tree Conference, however, functions as an annual event 
and is slated to hold its next meeting here in New York in August 1939. 
These emergency problems of ours would not wait until then for dis¬ 
cussion, for we must begin to solve many of them before spring. 
Furthermore, the hurricane was confined to New England and neigh¬ 
boring states, so that the resulting problems are to that extent localized 
and restricted in scope. They are of most immediate interest to us here 
in the northeast who experienced the hurricane and now have to live 
with the results. 
For these reasons, a conference of similarly restricted scope seemed 
most practicable, and I was glad to serve on the committee of arrange¬ 
ments and now as temporary chairman. The choice of name may have 
been unfortunate, but, so far as I am concerned, no permanent organiza¬ 
tion is proposed and this emergency conference will stand on the record 
made here and now. 
(Mr. Filley also showed an excellent series of lantern slides depicting 
hurricane injury in Connecticut forests.) 
