d like to ask you if there is any information that you
could properly release to the meeting about the sale of those trees. I
am sure everyone of us would be interested to know where they are going.

MR. REED:

The trees have been bought by the Interior Department with funds placed
at their disposal for the purpose of planting trees for the national
forests. Their attitude has been rather liberal in this case. They have
felt that if they could get trees planted, regardless of whether they
were planted on Interior Department land or not, it would be justified
expense. When the matter was laid before them, they at once thought of
the arboretum which is now being developed within the District of
Columbia. The final purchase was made largely in order that the
arboretum might be able to start off with the Bixby collection as a
nucleus. A complete list of all varieties that are in the collection
will go there. Another part of the purchase comes to the branch of the
Agricultural Department which I represent, and practically all of the
varieties in the Bixby collection which are not now in the plant at
Beltsville will be sent there.

It was the original plan of the Interior Department that all of the
trees which neither the arboretum nor the branch of the department which
I represent needed, should go to the Shenandoah National Park in
Virginia, and it was with that understanding that the deal was closed.
After the deal was closed and a notice was sent to the authorities in
charge at the park that a certain number of seedlings of different
species and a certain number of grafted trees would be delivered there
sometime this fall, the Shenandoah authorities took the strange attitude
that they couldn't use grafted trees. In other words, they preferred
mongrels to thoroughbreds. We chuckled in our sleeves. But nevertheless
they threw back upon us several grafted trees to find some place for. We
immediately took it up with the Forest Service. They have land in North
Carolina where all of the trees can be planted fifty feet apart, not
cultivated, but nursed and cared for, and available for study by our own
department and the state of North Carolina and any individuals.

I have omitted mentioning that there are certain limitations on the
ability of the Interior officials to buy trees for Interior Department
planting. It is a definite policy of the Interior Department that in all
national parks they plant only American species. That