he disease will ultimately
kill the 988,000 acres of coppice growth, which produces few nuts, and
the 1,111,500 acres of grafted orchards. The time of death of isolated
stands like the two islands and many other areas can be materially
decreased by careful inspection and removal of the earliest infections,
just as we have held the disease under control in the European chestnut
orchards in California. It is doubtful if this will be done however, in
spite of their large unemployment problem.

As the blight continues its rapid spread over Italy, the production of
nuts will steadily decrease. The Italian exports to this country will
decrease, and the market for the rapidly expanding production of Chinese
chestnuts in the eastern United States will improve. The Italian
foresters are growing large quantities of Chinese chestnuts which they
purchased in this country, but the difficulties of quickly
reestablishing a large nut industry are very great. This Bureau,
including Dr. Graves, has been sending pollen, scions, and plants of our
selections to help with this work. It is of vital importance to have a
sound economy in Italy to help prevent the Communists from taking over,
and loss of their forest and nut orchards and part of their oaks from
the blight will be a sad blow to their economy.

The chestnut blight fungus in Italy is attacking three important
European oaks, ~Quercus ilex~, ~Q. Pubescens~, and ~Q. sessiliflora~. These
are more important in some countries than chestnuts. For instance, Spain
has 3,705,000 acres of ~Q. ilex~ orchards, grown largely for acorn hog
feed. This will interest Dr. Smith. Possibly the disease may be less
destructive to oaks in other countries than I fear, my opinion being
based on the examination of only a limited number of diseased oaks in
Italy.

I assume you have heard that Mr. Bretz of our Division has found that
the oak wilt fungus has attacked some of our Chinese chestnuts in
Missouri. What it will amount to, no one knows. The oak wilt continues
to spread southward and eastward, and this year one infection was
reported by the State authorities on oaks in your own Pennsylvania.

In Switzerland, in Tessin province, which is along the Italian border,
the blight is spreading rapidly. The disease undoubtedly is in
Yugoslavia, as there is so much infection in nearby Italy, but I was not
in Yugoslavia. In Spain, there are several infections of blight that
came in on the original importation