then all of a sudden spring breaks loose,
everything comes out, and we don't have any setback, as a rule, from
then on. So early vegetation matters little, means nothing, the way I
feel about it.
DR. CRANE: Mr. Moderator, you ought to point out that most of the United
States isn't Michigan. If we had climatic conditions that Michigan has,
we wouldn't have that problem, but this problem becomes much more acute,
for example, as you go south.
The north knows nothing about cold injury, absolutely nothing. If you
want to see cold injury, you go south. I told Dr. George Potter that
twelve years ago. He was born and raised in Wisconsin and spent 17 years
in the mountains of New Hampshire. I told him he never saw any winter
injury, and he said, "Why, I never heard such a wild statement in my
life." Well, that was because of the fact he had never seen it. He has
been in the South now for 12 years, and he says, "You made a very
truthful statement." He has seen the injury.
In Oregon in 1950 or '51 we had a fall freeze. The temperature was
measured by the Experiment Station in Eastern Oregon, where they are
trying to grow some fruit and nut trees so they will have something else
to eat besides sage brush. They had extensive plantings of walnuts,
Mayette, Franquette and all of those hardy varieties, and along with
them they had some Carpathians. The temperature there in the fall
dropped to 36 degrees below zero, and all of their walnuts of these
other strains were killed to the ground, but the Carpathian came through
uninjured. In the spring of the year however it warmed up, the
Carpathians leafed out and were about ready to bloom when there was a
sharp freeze, and the Carpathians sure got it in the neck. So what
difference does it make whether you lose the trees in the winter or you
lose them in the spring? You have lost them just the same. I think we
ought to hear Spencer Chase cite the history of their big collection of
Carpathians in Tennessee Valley Authority. I understand from him that
they have never fruited any Carpathians down there at all. It's not
winter hardiness, it's this early foliation. So we have got a lot of
areas that are vastly different from that peninsula in Michigan which
the Good Lord designed to make a favored country in a lot of respects.
DR. MCKAY: I recognize Mr. Devitt, who is here from Canada and is well
qualified to discuss Reverend Crath's work there.
MR. DEVITT: It is interesting to me to
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