antities 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.
These, in brief, are the high spots of the survey from the point of view
of the scientist. In addition, I covered adjacent region of New Jersey
to the west, including the Watchung Mt. range about Plainfield and the
Oranges; the Bronx and Van Cortland Park and the country to Yonkers and
the north, and to the northeast of New Rochelle. Long Island, as far as
Hempstead, was also included. Altogether I travelled about 1200 miles on
foot, not counting the distance traversed on trolleys and railroads.
Always armed with opera glasses, I was careful not to use them when
anyone was looking, for on the second day of the survey I had been
arrested on the charge of being a German spy! I was also arrested on
board a train in New Jersey for looking earnestly at a topographic map,
then sharply out of the car window and noting what I had seen (dead
chestnut trees) on said map. The carrying of a botanist's tin can
(containing fungi, no
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