been the subject of so much dispute that I probably had better
recapitulate that matter. It has been proved beyond question that the
chestnut bark disease is a native of eastern Asia, China, Japan and
Korea; that it was introduced into this country in the '90's, upon
diseased chestnut nursery stock. It was not critically observed until
1904, but the condition of trees which were observed at that time shows
conclusively (provided the disease progressed in those early years as it
has since) that it was introduced into the country as early as the late
90's. The final demonstration of the fact that the disease is a foreign
disease and a native of Asia we owe to Mr. Frank Meyer, of the Office of
Seed and Plant Introduction, of the Department of Agriculture. Mr.
Meyer's observations are so interesting that I will pass around a few
pictures illustrative of his observations in China, the first picture
showing the country that is the home of the chestnut bark disease. The
second picture shows a chestnut orchard in China where the trees have,
with characteristic thrift, been planted around human burial mounds. The
remaining pictures show how the chestnut blight acts in China--very
differently from the way it acts in this country. In China, it produces,
as the pictures show, definite cankers, which do not girdle the tree,
which kill young trees occasionally, mutilate old trees, kill branches,
but the cankers do not girdle the trees. That disease has been known in
China we have no idea how many years, and, while it does a certain
amount of harm, is said by Mr. Meyer not to be really serious in China.
You can readily see, upon examining these pictures, that there is a
sharp contrast in the behavior of the disease as observed in China and
its behavior as observed in this country, where it will girdle a
comparatively large tree and the fungus spread all through the bark,
completely covering it, and doing that in a very short time. Of course,
then, the chestnut blight is one of those cases of which we have so
many, where a disease, passing to a new country, finds new surroundings,
hosts more favorable to its development, and progresses rapidly.

The natural range of the chestnut bark disease at the present time--that
is, I mean, its range on the native chestnut and the range through which
it is now spreading by non-human agencies, is, on the north, practically
co-extensive with the range of the native chestnut. The disease is found
in