MR. MCMURRAN: It has helped somewhat, but it has not proved economical on the coast.
A MEMBER: In order to have that test made, would it be necessary to send the things to the Department?
MR. MCMURRAN: No; it would be necessary for me to come to you and test them on the trees.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Did those walnuts in Mr. Brown's yard look to you as though they had the blight?
MR. MCMURRAN: Yes, they looked like this (showing specimen).
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Did you notice that tree just across the fence? The reason I ask the question is that if that is blight out there, then that tree right across the fence is very likely resistant, because I have noticed that those walnuts have had this on and off for six or seven years. The limbs of the two trees are within twenty feet of each other.
MR. MCMURRAN: Well, that is a very encouraging point.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I didn't think that was blight. All those trees at Georgetown that I have observed have that condition on them, more or less, except that one tree.
MR. MCMURRAN: Yet, isn't it true that they bore pretty good crops of nuts, nevertheless?
MR. MCMURRAN: Well, that was the point I had in mind. Of the two trees one bears every other year, and the other bears heavy crops every year.
DR. MORRIS: You see the same thing at the Experiment Station in southern California. One tree will be absolutely resistant to blight; the other will be all killed. And down at Whittier, perhaps, seven-tenths of all the trees will be badly affected with the bacteriosis, and the others not very much affected, so that, apparently, it is largely a matter of this cynips, which introduces the bacteria, selecting certain trees. Certain walnuts are very much affected, and the involucre looks very much like that of these nuts (showing specimens), but, on examining them, I found a very large number of small larvae beneath the involucre. I sent some of them to the Connecticut Experiment Station and some to Washington, but they didn't tell me what they were. Those same larvae I found in one black walnut on my place, which is very heavily infested with them. Most of the nuts drop because of the injury to the involucre. I haven't determined the species yet. I don't know whether the larvae come first and the bacteriosis second, or whether it's the other way around.