Dr. Arthur H. Graves, formerly at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is now consulting pathologist at the New Haven, (Conn.) Experiment Station. We have been working with him and partially supporting his chestnut breeding for a good many years. He has a lot of hybrids up there. We expect to have something later, but have nothing to release yet.
A Member: Do you have any sprays to control diseases and insect pests in the tree that when they go into the soil won't destroy our ground friends?
Mr. Gravatt: I don't know what insects you are after, in the first place. We have a lot of trouble with Japanese beetles. Around Washington, Dr. Crane's and my plantings there would be defoliated if they weren't sprayed for Japanese beetle control, and it is the same way with filberts.
A Member: The same sprays have a tendency to work against most of the pests, do they not? Of course, DDT will take one, the arsenate of lead takes another, Black Leaf 40 another, but if we had a spray that we can use around on--well, not limited to the chestnut--that would be neutralized in the earth. Now, we have a good deal of friendly bacteria and insects in the soil that we want to keep.
Mr. Gravatt: I would say that I am a pathologist, and insect work is out of my line.
Mr. Chase: Does anyone else have a comment on that? Dr. Cross, did you hear the question?
Mr. Chase: Would you stand and repeat your question?
A Member: Is there a spray that we can use for combating the insect pests of our trees that when it is washed off and goes into the soil doesn't kill our soil friends. We have the friendly bacteria in the soil, as well as insect and worm life. Do we have a spray that will be neutralized as it hits the soil so we can spray the tree and not kill our lower friends?
Dr. Cross: Sorry, Mr. Chase, that's beyond me.
Mr. Gravatt: You are thinking of arsenate of lead poisoning the soil where you keep on spraying with it?
Mr. Gravatt: I think DDT may build up a little in the soil, but it is broken down, isn't it, Dr. Crane?
Dr. Crane: Yes, DDT is broken down and it is not a fungicide and it is not a bactericide. It is an insecticide that kills insects through affecting the nervous system, according to my understanding of it. I am not an entomologist, but that's what the entomologists say. So far we haven't any evidence to my knowledge of any build-up of DDT in soils that has been detrimental. I don't know what the situation would be if DDT was used to the same extent as arsenate of lead. It was not uncommon for some growers to put on anywhere from 6 to 15 lead sprays in a season in order to control codling moth, as they used to do in certain apple orchards, particularly in the West.