I believe success will attend the planting of black walnut orchards. This will encourage others to follow with orchards of other nut-bearing trees. Orchards of all kinds of fruit trees are being planted each year and the planters are content to wait until the trees are large enough in order to reap the benefits thereof. But somehow the impression prevails in the minds of many people that a nut tree should show results and yield profits soon after it is planted. In recommending to a lady of means that she should plant, as shade trees, northern pecans she promptly wanted to know how many bushels of nuts she would get off of the trees the next year.
Perhaps we place too much importance on selecting just the right spot and soil in which to plant a nut tree and thus cause the intending planter to be too timid in making a start. Those who know anything about trees know pretty well where it is not advisable to plant trees, especially those with a long tap-root. They can judge fairly well from the wild trees of the same variety growing round about.
As evidence of what a nut tree will do, those of you who have visited Devil's Den in Gettysburg Battle Field, have perhaps noticed a butternut tree, now quite old, growing out of the top of the cleft in a huge rock, having sent its roots down to the adjoining soil for nourishment. This tree has borne nuts even in its adverse situation.
For the benefit of those interested in the northern pecan, I wish to record the fact that a seedling pecan tree is growing in Clermont County, Ohio, on upland, not far from the eastern boundary line of Hamilton County, about five miles north of the Ohio River. The nut from which the tree grew was brought from Rockport, Indiana, and planted about forty-one years ago. The tree is quite large and bears nuts comparable with the wild seedling nuts that may be obtained from the Rockport district. If a seedling does this, you may readily see what a grafted tree will do.
THE PRESIDENT: We will now ask Prof. Collins for his address.
THE SEARCH FOR BLIGHT-RESISTING CHESTNUT SPROUTS[A]
Prof. J. Franklin Collins, Rhode Island
The chestnut blight has now been with us for more than twenty years and has destroyed practically all the chestnut trees of the northeastern part of the country. It has spread in all directions from its original center in the immediate vicinity of New York City until it has reached the limits of the native chestnut growth in the northeast and north, and is steadily approaching its limits in the west and south. The disease, a native of China and apparently imported into this country on some Japanese or other oriental chestnut, found a more susceptible host in our native chestnut and so became a virulent parasite on this new host. It was not until 1904 that general attention was attracted to the disease. By that time it had obtained a strong foothold on the chestnuts of southeastern New York (particularly the western end of Long Island), in southwestern Connecticut, and in northern New Jersey.
All of you are more or less familiar with the efforts made in Pennsylvania, New York, and elsewhere in the northeast, in co-operation with the federal government, to control the disease. These efforts are now an old story to most of you and there is no need of repeating it at this time.
Early in the fight against the blight the attention of many of us was directed to locating possible immune or resistant species, varieties, or individuals. The search for resistant native individuals and the accompanying experiments in crossing and grafting various species and varieties has been kept up ever since. Foreign explorers have constantly been on the lookout, with more or less success, for chestnuts in other countries that might be resistant to the blight. It has long been known that most forms of the Japanese chestnut (C. crenata) were in general highly resistant to the blight. Later it was found that the more recently introduced Chinese chestnut (C. mollissima) was also quite resistant, although both the Japanese and the Chinese were far from being immune. Quite recently Mr. Rock, explorer for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, has brought a new chestnut from southern China for experimental purposes. Notwithstanding newspaper reports to the contrary the possibilities of this chestnut in this country apparently are unknown at the present time. Nobody seems to know if it will stand our climate, resist the blight, produce worthwhile timber or fruit; nor is its name known, according to late advices that have reached me.