As the work progressed, I soon realized that it would be most difficult, or perhaps impossible, to locate resistant or immune trees in a region not so long exposed to infection; for, in such a region, one would have to inoculate all individuals suspected of possessing resistant qualities, in order to ascertain whether their healthy condition was actually due to resistant qualities or simply the result of a chance escape of infection. We therefore decided to restrict the work, for the present at least, entirely to a definite area about New York City. This area includes all of the territory within a radius of about 16 miles from New York City Hall, and therefore comprised in a general way, Greater New York and the adjacent parts of New Jersey.
Results of the Survey
First I made a thorough canvas of Staten Island, doing the work on foot, aided by the trolley and the Staten Island R. R., and often guided by that genial naturalist and lover of Staten Island, Dr. Arthur Hollick of the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, I made a careful survey of the whole 64 square miles of which the island is composed. After two weeks of this kind of work, I began to get fairly well discouraged, not so much because of lack of results which, it is true, were entirely negative, but more on account of the appearance of the dead chestnuts. For where it was not entirely cut out, the bare, weathered poles showed that they had been dead for many years. The only encouraging feature was the finding of large quantities of healthy seedlings, from 7 years of age upward, to which I will refer later.
The Palisade region along the Hudson has been notable in the past for its chestnut forests. I next attacked this, making as thorough a search as possible from Hoboken to a little north of Alpine, N. J., which is a small place on the Hudson opposite Yonkers. Here also the vast forests of dead poles weathered gray with time, bore silent witness to the completeness of the destruction.
About the middle of July while ferrying across the Hudson, I noticed north of the landing at Dyckman St., what appeared to be chestnut trees in bloom. On investigation, I found these to be living native chestnuts, of the peculiar strip type I shall describe later, and proceeding further north from this, where the Harlem enters the Hudson. I was led into a forest where I found at least 40 living chestnuts, some of which were in good condition, and one particularly was leafy nearly to the top. (Fig. 1) Naturally, one would immediately suspect that somehow these trees had escaped infection, but this could not possibly be the case, for mixed in with them on all sides were bare, weathered trunks showing signs of old worn cankers, proving incontestibly that the fungus had been present here also for a long period. Shortly afterward, Dr. Olive, of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, informed me that he had seen living chestnuts near Hollis, L. I., and at Valley Stream, L. I., and at each of these places I found a group similar to that near the Harlem.
These, in brief, are the high spots of the survey from the point of view of the scientist. In addition, I covered adjacent region of New Jersey to the west, including the Watchung Mt. range about Plainfield and the Oranges; the Bronx and Van Cortland Park and the country to Yonkers and the north, and to the northeast of New Rochelle. Long Island, as far as Hempstead, was also included. Altogether I travelled about 1200 miles on foot, not counting the distance traversed on trolleys and railroads. Always armed with opera glasses, I was careful not to use them when anyone was looking, for on the second day of the survey I had been arrested on the charge of being a German spy! I was also arrested on board a train in New Jersey for looking earnestly at a topographic map, then sharply out of the car window and noting what I had seen (dead chestnut trees) on said map. The carrying of a botanist's tin can (containing fungi, not bombs) was also an additional implicating circumstance on the latter occasion.
What then were the results of the survey? They may be stated briefly as follows:
1. No immune trees were found.
2. For the most part the older trees (from 20 years upward) were entirely dead, and had been so for a long period, as attested by the bare trunks, weathered a characteristic gray color which only time can produce.
3. However, large numbers of seedlings and young saplings were located, both healthy and diseased.