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PRESIDENT MCGLENNON: We certainly have received great encouragement from Dean Mann's remarks, which to me, and I believe to all present, were most interesting and instructive.
I want to hear just a few words from our esteemed friend, Mr. John
Dunbar, Assistant Superintendent of Parks.
MR. DUNBAR: I think it is a very happy and fortunate circumstance that Mr. Mann is here this morning representing the College of Forestry of Syracuse. Every word that Mr. Mann has said is absolutely true. The forestry question of this country is indeed a very serious question. Every man, and every woman, should give most serious thought to it, and I hope the words Dean Mann has spoken to us here this morning will go in to all our hearts very deeply.
Of course the Park Department is studying trees from the ornamental and arboricultural point of view. We think, however, that arboriculture, horticulture and forestry, as the Dean said, are very, very closely allied and should surely work together. I think his idea is a very excellent one; that there should be a very close connection or union between forestry, horticulture, nut culture, and all kinds of fruit culture. I hope that day is not far distant.
PRESIDENT MCGLENNON: Ladies and gentlemen, the treasurer of our association is a man who is intensely interested in nut culture. He has done wonderful things for its advancement and especially for the advancement of the interests of the Northern Nut Growers Association.
MR. BIXBY: While Dean Mann was speaking the thought came to me, how could we better co-operate with the Department of Forestry? I think the work of the Nut Growers Association, which is particularly interested in the use of nut trees for orchards, and that of the Department of Forestry, which looks upon them particularly as producers of timber, could be very closely allied. The thought came to me, could not we right here work out some practical suggestion whereby we two could co-operate? I would like to ask Dean Mann what nut trees they are planting for forest purposes.
DEAN MANN: We have done very little. We have, at our experiment station at Chittenango, done some work with the English walnuts. This particularly hardy specimen that I have in my own back yard—I have two, one of them is growing very slowly—are from our experiment station. We have really had so much to do in the way of popular education in New York State in the timber products, that we are merely, as they say in the South, fixing to begin with other things. That is the only species with which we have made an actual start. There is this however: what can foresters, horticulturists and nut enthusiasts do to supply the place of the American chestnut? I really came here as a seeker after truth on this particular phase. You men probably know more about it than I. What can we produce? Is there any hybrid which can be introduced into this country which will take the place of the American chestnut?
MR. BIXBY: In reply to that I would say that I have hundreds of seedlings of the Chinese chestnut on which the blight has been working for years and has not destroyed them. I would be very glad to send them to the College of Forestry and let you try them.
DEAN MANN: They will be planted with extreme care and a barbed wire put around them.