ted out to get rid of the chestnut blight. On
several occasions before this notable body I told of the successes and
failures I had encountered, still believing that I was on the right road
and insisting that an antigen would be absorbed in sufficient amount to
stimulate immunity. Science has since vindicated that assertion and men
are now injecting all sorts of chemicals, and even dyes to stain the
grain of the wood.

I have been very cautious in the past and perhaps should be more so now,
in view of the fact that only a comparatively few years have elapsed
since I began my work on plants. Still, after having used vaccines on
human beings and animals for twenty-one years, and observing that plant
life reacts to an antigen in a similar manner, I am at least entitled to
the same conclusions. This gives me an opportunity of knowing years in
advance just what to expect.

While my work is still going on as an experiment I have no hesitancy in
saying that I can and have put as much active immunity to the blight
into the chestnut in five years as nature has been able to place in
perhaps four or five thousand years by her usual method. However it is
only fair to state that such results cannot be accomplished by mere
oratory. Injections must be made and the antigen must go into the
plants, not in single doses, if you please, but by the thousands.

In recent years there has been considerable discussion relative to the
chestnut coming back. This simply means further delay. The chestnut will
come back but not before from 25 to 150 years yet. There are few roots
that will stand mutilation for that period, and the few plants that do
survive will have taken the shrub form like the chinquapin, and the nuts
will likely be as insignificant. I have plants from a tree that holds as
much immunity in the natural way as any I know, being rated at 2X, and
these plants have inherited an immunity equal to the parent, no more and
no less. I have, however, a lot of seedlings from Paragon and Champion
trees rated at from 6X to 7X. These seedlings may confidently be
expected to perform as their parents and produce many plants of equal
resistance.

I shall not discuss the antigen or its method of administration. That
has been covered rather carefully in former papers. I do want to say a
word, however, about root stock. In a blight region it is preferable to
have chestnuts on their own roots. The nearest to own-rooted plants is a
graft on their o