Part 3

Mr. Silvis: Well, on the cuff, no, and off the cuff I would like to make this remark, that I just had one question I was going to require every member to answer to me for, and that was what kind of a nut tree should I plant, and thereby try to establish a zone between frost-free dates for various locations or states or territories. It didn't develop.

I received as late as last week John Bregger's note explaining why it was his reply came late. But I do want to make this remark, and for our able Secretary's first issue of _The Nutshell_ I know this to be a fact, that with it, it's the nuts, and without it, it's hell.

President Davidson: What shall we do with Mr. Silvis's report? We have some action to take presently on the matter of survey in addition to this report. Could I have a motion to accept the report of the Survey Committee?

Dr. Crane: So move.

Mr. Weber: Second.

(A vote was taken on the motion, and it was carried unanimously.)

President Davidson: Mr. Chase disappeared again. He is chairman of the Program Committee. We all have evidence of what he has been doing. Perhaps his program is sufficient to report.

Mrs. S. H. Graham is chairman of the Membership Committee. I think Mrs. Graham is not here, so perhaps we can pass on.

Report of the Necrology Committee fortunately is blank.

Mr. McDaniel: There is one that I know of. Mr. Schuster of Oregon passed away last winter.

President Davidson: I think that points out a little weakness in our organization. The death of Mr. Schuster should have been reported and some notice of it taken, perhaps.

Mr. Stoke, you are here as chairman of the Exhibits Committee. Would you like to say something?

Mr. Stoke: I don't know that I have anything to say. The exhibits speak for themselves back there. I wish to thank those who made contributions to that exhibit, and some still came in this morning that you haven't seen. I think it's been fine cooperation.

I feel an apology is due for not getting out more publicity on behalf of the committee. I had hoped that another copy of _The Nutshell_ would be out before this meeting so I could make another call for exhibits, but it wasn't, and I didn't get my material in to our Secretary in time for the earlier one.

Mr. McDaniel: I believe we did have a notice in the summer issue.

Mr. Stoke: Yes, there was a notice. At any rate, we have had exhibits here all the way from Georgia to New York. I am not sure whether they have any from Canada or not. I think it makes a very nice display, and I certainly appreciate your cooperation.

Dr. MacDaniels: In connection with these exhibits, we were driving along talking to Mr. Slate about the desirability of the Northern Nut Growers Association sending an exhibit to the Harvest Show of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. That was done about ten years ago, and the Society gave us a silver medal at that time. I know from talking with Mr. Nehrling that they would be pleased to have such an exhibit put on, and I think that if we could take much of the material from our exhibits here and send it there that that would make an acceptable exhibit, and we almost assuredly would get not only considerable publicity out of that, because it would be an exhibit of the Northern Nut Growers Association, but we might also get either a cash award or a medal. I think if we work behind the scenes, if we preferred the cash we could get that, which would be of some value to the Association.

Now, I speak of this merely to bring it to your attention and to point out that any of the personally furnished exhibits that you wish to turn over for that purpose, you may arrange with Mr. Stoke for that.

(Further discussion on the details of sending in the above-mentioned exhibits.)

Dr. MacDaniels: I would move this Association favored sending an exhibit to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society Harvest show, provided material is available.

Dr. Crane: Second the motion.

Dr. Silvis: May I make this remark and also be in the form of a motion, that those exhibitors report immediately at the adjournment of this session to Mr. Stoke and make known to him whether yes or no, whether their exhibits can be sent up.

President Davidson: Do you make that motion in the form of an amendment?

Dr. MacDaniels: I will include that in the motion.

Dr. Crane: I accept it.

(A vote was taken on the motion as amended, and it was carried unanimously.)

President Davidson: Place of Meeting Committee. I judge that that committee is not ready to report, is it, Mr. Slate, for this following meeting?

Mr. Slate: The chairman didn't realize until just before we were ready to leave that he was a member of that committee. I have given the matter some thought on the way down, and in the previous years I have usually gone fishing for invitations some time before the meeting. I did drop a line overboard a few days ago, but I didn't catch anything more than I caught in this big lake up here.

Now, from previous experience I don't believe we can consider going to the Middle West. Mr. Snyder, Mr. Becker in Michigan, and Dr. Colby at Illinois, have not thought that they had enough material to make it worth while to go out there. That throws it back to the East, and we have been to some of the better places in recent years; Ronoake, Virginia, Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Boston.

I think there are two places that we should consider. I think we should consider Beltsville and the New York City region. We all know that there is plenty of material at Beltsville. We have not been there for some time. And in the New York City region we have the plantings of Gilbert Smith, who is probably 85 or 90 miles above New York. He is not far from Poughkeepsie where I am sure there are ample facilities for handling the crowd. Then there may be possibly some of Dr. Graves' plantings that would be worth seeing on a field trip.

Now, of course, the committee will be very glad to receive invitations from anyone here and consider them, and we will make the final report at the final business session at the time of the banquet, I believe. But between now and then I want you to consider the matter rather seriously and let me know what you are thinking about.

President Davidson: I think it would be desirable, if it were possible, for Mr. Slate to wire the proper authorities at Beltsville or Poughkeepsie.

Mr. Weber: Mr. President, one of our members is Mr. Bernath, who has been quite faithful in attending nearly all our meetings, and he has, I imagine, much of interest to show to the members, and he is located near Poughkeepsie. I am just throwing that out for the members to think over as to what they would think about Poughkeepsie as a possible meeting place.

President Davidson: That's worth listening to.

Would it be advisable, do you think, for Mr. Slate at the expense of the Association to wire to Poughkeepsie or to Beltsville to see whether an invitation is available or not?

Mr. Slate: Those places are well represented now.

Mr. Weber: I imagine Mr. Bernath can speak for himself.

Mr. Bernath: I don't know, I think if we could delay it another year, Mr. Smith is going to retire from the State School, and he will have plenty of time. I am very busy, and he will have loads of time on his hands, and then he can give it his attention. I think that would be all right next year.

Mr. Slate: That's up to the Association to decide.

Mr. Bernath: We would like to have you come at that time.

Mr. Slate: Beltsville is very well represented in Dr. Crane.

Mr. Weber: Mr, Chairman, in view of what Mr. Bernath says, I'd accept Mr. Bernath's suggestion and have Poughkeepsie on the list for the year following.

Mr. Bernath: That's right.

President Davidson: Dr. Crane may have something.

Dr. Crane: Mr. President and members of the Association, we'd like to have the Association meeting at Beltsville again. However, we have had four years of May freezes in Beltsville Station, and I am going to tell you all is not in any too good condition. A lot of it has been pulled, and we have had to replant an awful lot of the stuff that is now just planted this year. We lost a lot of the plantings that were made last year because of injury. As you folks probably know that have been there before, we labored under very great difficulties on soil conditions in that we have mostly sands and gravel.

So we are kind of in a mess there right now. We'd be glad to have the Association meet at Beltsville, and we have right good facilities there for meetings, but as far as any plantings in the area, a lot of the work we are doing, we are kind of going through a period of change right now and getting re-established, and I want you to know the situation.

President Davidson: Well, we have been forewarned. It's a case, I judge, of not being unwilling to see us, but you are not so anxious, for us to see you, is that it?

Dr. Crane: I wouldn't want you to come there under false hopes that you would see a lot.

Mr. Gravatt: I would like to say we have done quite a lot of work in breeding chestnuts and also work with forest types, crossing American chestnuts and Chinese. But I agree quite with Dr. Crane, that we haven't so much to show you there. Of course, it's a dog-gone good thing to get familiar with these diseases and see what you are up against, because all through the history of nut culture, and so forth, one of the basic defects has been the failure to appreciate the importance of insect and disease factors. And we are very much in need of more basic research along those lines, but I agree with Dr. Crane that at present we have a limited amount to show you there.

Of course, there is the Plant Industry Station there with a lot of experimental work, greenhouse work and all sorts of basic research work, fertilization work, and so forth, going on there. A lot of people like to come to Washington. Our plantings are pretty much the same condition as Dr. Crane's and not a display proposition such as you have here at TVA.

President Davidson: Suppose we regard this report, then, as temporary and hear more from you later.

I think that concludes the reports.

The Board of Directors, unless there is some other order of business to be taken up, have some recommendations to make to the Association. One is the recommendation that the Association place the annual membership fee at $3, the supporting membership fee at $10 and the life membership fee at $75. They didn't wish to take the responsibility of doing anything more than referring that matter to this Association.

Dr. MacDaniels: That could be handled in the by-laws under the constitution.

President Davidson: We still also have another rather important matter that's been referred to the Association, and that is the matter of a sufficient amount of remuneration to permit our Secretary to hire a stenographer to do the extra amount of work that is gradually accumulating in that office. The resolution that is referred to you calls for a payment of 50 cents per member to the Secretary for this purpose.... We have no right to be set up so that the work of the Association would encroach upon a person's job as it is set up at the present time. That recommendation was that it was contingent, of course, upon raising the dues to $3.00 and take 50 cents of that to offset the stenographic help and try to re-organize our affairs between the Secretary and Treasurer so that as much as possible of the routine mailing, and routine stenographic work would be carried in this way.

(Discussion on the above recommendation.)

Mr. Weber: I move that the additional remuneration be granted, 50 cents per member, to the Secretary.

Mr. Smith: I will second the motion.

Mr. Fisher: I'd like to make an amendment to that, that the dues be raised to $3.00 in order to make this possible.

Mr. Weber: I will accept the amendment.

Mr Smith: And I will second the motion contingent, of course, to the raising of the dues.

(Vote taken, motion carried unanimously.)

President Davidson: We will appoint a Resolutions Committee.

+Resolutions Committee+

Sterling Smith, H. L. Crane, Raymond E. Silvis, H. F. Stoke.

President Davidson: I think so far as I know that's everything except the report of the Committee on the Constitution. Unless I hear otherwise we will proceed with that report.

(Discussion on Constitution.)

(Constitution and by-laws approved as set out in another part of this report, the Constitution having first been read at 1947 meeting)

President Davidson: As I understand it, then, this constitution, unless we make some other provision, is in effect as of now.

Mr. Weber: Now with these by-laws in effect there will have to be a fresh nominating committee elected for the next year.

Mr. Smith: Mr. President, I make a motion, if it's in order, that the Nominating Committee as elected previously for this meeting also continue and serve for next year.

Mr. Clarke: Second the motion.

(Vote taken, motion carried unanimously.)

President Davidson: There is one other matter that was brought up at the directors' meeting, and inasmuch as the directors did not have a quorum, it should be voted through here, I think, and that is that a motion is in order to pay Mrs. Gibbs $25 for her services as stenographer at our meeting. That was done, I believe, at Guelph, and it involves a lot of important work.

Mr. Korn: I second the motion.

(Vote taken, motion carried unanimously.)

President Davidson: Shall we adjourn, with a continuance of the business meeting at the banquet?

(Recess taken until 1:00 o'clock p. m.)

+Monday Afternoon Session+

President Davidson: Shall we come to order?

We now come to the interesting part of our program, and we will listen first to Mr. Quick of West Virginia, who will take the place of Mr. Sayers, the State Forester at Charleston, West Virginia. Mr. Quick.

The Development and Propagation of Blight Resistant Chestnut in West Virginia

RALPH H. QUICK, Conservation Commission, Charleston, West Virginia

Mr. Quick: Ladies and gentlemen of the Association, your guests and friends: In substituting for the State Forester of West Virginia I realize that I am undertaking a big job. A few of you know Mr. Wilson Sayers, who is the State Forester, and those of you who do may assure the rest of the group what a big job I am undertaking, because I feel that I am in pretty good-sized shoes.

The subject that has been assigned is The Development and Propagation of Blight Resistant Chestnut in West Virginia. Now, being a forester, I am perhaps interested in blight resistant chestnut from a little different standpoint than the majority of this group. As representing the Conservation Commission of that state I might say that we are interested primarily from the game-food viewpoint. Now, that's a little bit different, I expect, than most of you have been thinking about, or some of you, at least. But that is the standpoint from which we are interested.

So I would like to go along with you this afternoon and discuss some of the things that we have done and some of the things that we are learning--there are a few yet--that lead us along that line to believe that we can do something with blight-resistant chestnuts in West Virginia as a game food. We are just at the beginning, so to speak--that is, the Conservation Commission of that state is just at the beginning of our study. We have been fooling with it a little off and on since back in the middle '30's, but interest has lagged and then has picked up again two or three times.

I am sure that as far as the production of good strains of blight-resistant chestnut, better strains of Chinese, and so on, that there are people in West Virginia who are more capable of telling you what has been done from a private viewpoint than anyone with the Conservation Commission, but we are interested in learning about it and producing it in large numbers for a game food, and, of course, if we are interested in distributing from our nursery over the state for that purpose, we are interested in producing better strains of blight-resisting chestnut as we go.

Along back in the 1920's a few plantations, or a few trees were planted in the state by what was then the old Fish and Game Commission, and the records have been lost, as has been true in many other states. But then, apparently, the beginning was made. In going over some of those early plantings I will only have time to hit the high spots and the ones in which we are particularly interested in our line, but the first ones were back there somewhere in the '20's.

One of the best plantations, the one that we are particularly interested in at the present time, is in Jackson County, West Virginia, and it is of the University of Nanking strain, and there were 34 trees planted there back in 1926, and we are told that they were planted from 2-0[1] stock, from nuts that came from China in 1924. Twenty-six of those trees survived, and we think they are pretty good nuts. You may be interested to know that that plantation now averages 22 feet in height and has an average diameter at breast height of 8 inches. The spacing in that plantation was 26 by 26 feet.

Now, we can't take credit, nor do we want to take credit, for that plantation. The state agency had nothing to do with it. It was put in there through the cooperation of the gentlemen from Beltsville, but we are very much interested in that plantation; so interested that we have gone to the owner, along with the permission of the fellows from Beltsville, and sewed the thing up for a five year period, during which time we hope to get the seed and to improve our own strains and establish blocks of our own on state-owned land under different conditions and on different sites where we expect in the future to be able to secure seed for our use and production at the nursery.

In the first few years that this plantation that we are speaking of in Jackson County produced, not many people paid much attention to it or attached much significance to it. The man who had charge of it gave the nuts away for experimental purposes or for any reason that anybody happened to ask for them, and shipped a lot of them free. But along in the early 1940's he began to find out what he had, and he started selling seed and made a pretty good thing out of it.

Last year was the first year that we had gotten seed from that plantation. We got 75 pounds of good nuts taken in the fall of 1947.

We have another orchard, another plantation that led us to become interested, I guess, in producing blight-resistant chestnut as a game food and along forestry lines, and that is the orchard that we have on nursery property. It was one of the early ones, and I expect one of the earliest in the state, but it was planted along back in 1936, fifty-one trees.

When we started in this we didn't know anything about it at all, so we have built up our small knowledge in the last few years. But it didn't take us long to realize that our orchard on our nursery property was of badly crossed material, and it had some very undesirable trees. If we succeeded in doing anything with them as a game food we would have to eliminate, and only last year did we get around to the place where we could secure authority to eliminate the undesirable species. We have about half of the stand left now, but we are pretty sure that the trees that we do have are of good strain.

It might be interesting for you to note--maybe some of you can top it--we were interested when this orchard was planted, in what would happen if the trees were planted and allowed to grow as a forest stand. So they were planted in six-by-six spacing. Of course, we got a lot of self-pruning and a lot of competition, as we would in forests by the trees growing up and competing with each other and reaching for height and light. Some of them died and some were so badly suppressed that they failed to make any growth at all. But there is one tree that we still have in that orchard that we are proud of, not from the standpoint of nut production, nor does it produce a very good nut as far as the human taste is concerned. But it has made a single stick that far surpasses any other tree we have in the orchard. It looks like a forest tree. In 1945--it might be hard for you to believe--it grew nine feet. That isn't an exaggeration. It was measured. We thought that was a lot better than fair growth. Of course, it hasn't made any growth like that since, and I don't think it ever did before, but it just had the push to go and went nine feet in one growing season.

Leaving that orchard for a few minutes, there were 38 plantings of from 10 to 50 trees each made by the Soil Conservation Service and the Division of Forest Pathology of the Bureau of Plant Industry in the spring of 1939. These were examined by Dr. Diller of that Bureau in the spring of 1940 and in 1947. He has told us that he graded those plantings as he found them, 10 being good, and he said the next 15 were only fair and he put 13 down as total failures.

Of those 13 that failed--from the forestry standpoint now, remember--he said that 7 of the failures were due to poor site selection, three were suppressed by surrounding hardwoods and other competing growth, and three had been destroyed by cattle.

[Footnote 1: Meaning, two years old, not transplanted in the nursery.--Ed.]

+A Commercial Chestnut Nurseryman+