Northern Nut Growers Association, Report Of The Proceedings At The Tenth Annual Meeting.: Battle Creek, Michigan, December 9 and 10, 1919
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association, Report Of The Proceedings At The Tenth Annual Meeting.: Battle Creek, Michigan, December 9 and 10, 1919
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
First I made a thorough canvas of Staten Island, doing the work on foot,
aided by the trolley and the Staten Island R. R., and often guided by
that genial naturalist and lover of Staten Island, Dr. Arthur Hollick of
the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, I made a careful
survey of the whole 64 square miles of which the island is composed.
After two weeks of this kind of work, I began to get fairly well
discouraged, not so much because of lack of results which, it is true,
were entirely negative, but more on account of the appearance of the
dead chestnuts. For where it was not entirely cut out, the bare,
weathered poles showed that they had been dead for many years. The only
encouraging feature was the finding of large quantities of healthy
seedlings, from 7 years of age upward, to which I will refer later.
The Palisade region along the Hudson has been notable in the past for
its chestnut forests. I next attacked this, making as thorough a search
as possible from Hoboken to a little north of Alpine, N. J., which is a
small place on the Hudson opposite Yonkers. Here also the vast forests
of dead poles weathered gray with time, bore silent witness to the
completeness of the destruction.
About the middle of July while ferrying across the Hudson, I noticed
north of the landing at Dyckman St., what appeared to be chestnut trees
in bloom. On investigation, I found these to be living native chestnuts,
of the peculiar strip type I shall describe later, and proceeding
further north from this, where the Harlem enters the Hudson. I was led
into a forest where I found at least 40 living chestnuts, some of which
were in good condition, and one particularly was leafy nearly to the
top. (Fig. 1) Naturally, one would immediately suspect that somehow
these trees had escaped infection, but this could not possibly be the
case, for mixed in with them on all sides were bare, weathered trunks
showing signs of old worn cankers, proving incontestibly that the fungus
had been present here also for a long period. Shortly afterward, Dr.
Olive, of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, informed me that he had seen
living chestnuts near Hollis, L. I., and at Valley Stream, L. I., and at
each of these places I found a group similar to that near the Harlem.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account