MR. STOKE: It doesn't do it for me.
A MEMBER: Has anybody done work with polyethylene film in grafting?
MR. BECKER: I hesitate to tell you my experiment. I don't think much of it. I used polyethylene bags on chestnuts early in the season, and practically every one grew, but everything else that was out in the hot sun boiled. In the hot weather of June the grafts actually cook in the bags.
MR. MACHOVINA: Did you use a bag over the whole graft, or just a tube around it?
MR. BECKER: A bag over the whole thing. I have a few Carpathian grafts that grew well. I think I have better luck with hot wax than anything else.
DR. McKAY: Our time is up. I want to thank the panel, although we didn't work you too hard. The panel is adjourned.
PRESIDENT BEST: Dr. Gravatt will show a film entitled: "It Bringeth
Forth Much Fruit."
* * * * *
DR. GRAVATT: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, you all are familiar with the fact that the chestnut blight is loose in Europe. It was reported in Italy in 1938, and it spread rather rapidly in Italy. It had been there many years before they found it. In spite of our numerous warnings to get them to watch for it, they let it get away. It has spread into Switzerland, caused a great deal of damage there with no hope of saving the larger chestnuts there or in Italy. It's spreading into Yugoslavia. They are making very energetic efforts to control the disease in Yugoslavia, trying to delay it as much as possible. It happens the forest pathologist who handles this work is a young lady, and she has got the forester and other people interested to try to hold it back as long as possible.
The threat of the chestnut blight to the entire chestnut growth in all of Southern Europe helped to bring about the organization of an International Chestnut Council and Congress. This is made-up of delegates from a number of the European countries, Spain, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Japan and the United States. They have been meeting every other year, first for two years in succession, but the plan now is to meet every other year. They had a meeting in Spain and Portugal this past June, and the State Department paid my expenses over, and so forth, to attend as a delegate from the United States at this international meeting.