women of Sapulpa, Okla., who recently organized for city and county
improvement and advancement, have determined to plant pecan, walnut and
hickory trees on both sides of a road now being constructed through
Creek County, basing their action on the theory that two pecan trees
placed in the back yard of a homestead will pay the taxes on the
property. They believe that when the trees begin to bear they will
provide a fund large enough for the maintenance of the road."

The Chairman: That's all right if you can look after them.

Mr. Littlepage: It is very interesting to listen to these discussions of
roadside trees and I have until recently been a strong advocate of them,
but I have changed my opinion. I don't think there is anything in the
planting of trees in fence corners or along the roadside, for several
reasons. The first reason is that nobody knows how long it is going to
take that tree to amount to anything. I wouldn't give two cents a piece
for trees stuck out where you cannot cultivate them and get to them to
fertilize them. Another thing, we are right up against the problem of
the insect pests of these trees and who is going to take care of them
along the roadside? The insect pests will get on them and come into the
fields of the man who is cultivating and raising trees legitimately.
Down in southern Indiana, now, we find along the roadside hundreds of
walnut trees that are every year eaten up with caterpillars. They love
those trees and come over on to my trees. I keep my trees cleaned off
pretty well. There's that problem. Up to a short time ago I was an
advocate of roadside trees. It would be all right if there was some
means of cultivating them. If there is land somewhere that is of no use,
so that it doesn't make a bit of difference whether the trees on it have
insect pests or not, you can go out there and scatter nuts and let it
alone and wait the length of time you've got to wait. I don't think it's
of much value, however, even then. I don't think there is a thing in it.
I used to pride myself on the fact that I had set out more trees than
anybody else in the State of Indiana. I haven't bragged about that for a
long time, though I have set out, perhaps, in the last eight or ten
years, or had set out under my direction, about 750,000 trees; I am not
particularly proud of that any more, but I am proud to meet the fellow
who has set out twenty or thirty acres of trees on good land, the best
he's got, and cu