Sound'^  and  its  contributory  rivers,  and  was  soon  followed  in
all  these  r^ons  by  the  outbreak  of  chestnut  blight

Merkel  (32),  just  about  a  year  after  the  blight  was  first  noticed
by  him,  states  that  98  per  cent  of  the  trees  were  then  a£Fected,
and  adds:  'The  disease  was  noticed  with  equal  frequency
upon  young  specimens  in  the  nursery,  upon  sprouts  that  had
sprung  from  stumps  of  trees  cut  down  the  previous  year,  on
young  vigorous  trees  thirty  to  forty  feet  high  standing  in  deep,
rich  soil,  and  also  upon  the  few  survivors  of  the  primeval
forest  with  trunks  twelve  to  fourteen  feet  in  drcumferenoe."
Such  a  destructive  and  indiscriminate  attack  in  a  single  year  b
not  the  history  of  the  blight  in  the  later  infected  r^ons.  To
the  writer  it  leads  to  but  one  conclusion,  namely,  that  in  those
regions  where  the  blight  first  appeared  and  was  most  severe
the  trees  had  suffered  severely  from  winter  injury,  as  this  is
the  only  agent  we  know  of  that  acts  in  such  a  quick  and  diorougli
manner.
