The Chairman: I think it has been pretty well decided that they are not in danger. I will, however, ask Mr. Rockey and Mr. Pierce to answer that question.
Mr. Rockey: Up to the present time there has been no indication that the blight will get into them. This might be a good occasion for me to mention the Connellsville fungus again. It was found on some of the oaks and other trees in this section of the country, and for a time it looked as though the blight was getting into other species, but since that fungus has been identified there has been no indication that the blight will extend beyond the chestnut group as a parasite, although you can inoculate oaks and other trees with the fungus and it will live in them, but only on the dead portion of the tree and not as the parasite lives on the chestnut.
Prof. Smith: I should like to ask Mr. Sober if he has found any evidence that the paragon chestnut differs from the native chestnut in resistance to the blight, and if his paragons are different from other paragons?
Col. Sober: I cannot say whether my chestnuts are different from the other paragon chestnuts or not, or whether they are as resistant to the blight. I know it is a very sweet chestnut. In regard to keeping my groves clean--from 1901 to 1910, we had three broods of locusts and two hailstorms that opened the bark in almost every tree and branch. The limbs were stung by the locusts thousands of times, so that I didn't have a crop of chestnuts. Professor Davis was cutting off limbs for a couple of months so you see my trees were open, if any ever were, to receive the blight. The hailstorms destroyed the leaves and I didn't have any chestnuts that year in one part of my grove and with all that--you people come and see how clean it is, that's all there is to it. I know what I've done and what I can do.
The Chairman: The next paper in order is that of Professor Smith.
NUT GROWING AND TREE BREEDING AND THEIR RELATION TO CONSERVATION
Prof. Smith: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen; I am going to ask your indulgence for including in my subject a matter that perhaps goes a little beyond the scope of this organization, for I wish to speak of fruit as well as nut-bearing trees. Conservation, whose object is the preservation of our resources for future generations, as well as for ourselves, finds its greatest problem in the preservation of the soil. The forests can come again if the soil be left. It is probable that we can find substitutes for coal, and for nearly everything else, but once the soil is gone, all is gone; and the greatest danger to the soil is not robbery by ill cropping, because no matter how man may abuse the soil, scientific agriculture can bring it back with astonishing speed. But the greatest enemy of conservation is erosion, the best checks for erosion are roots.