I've made a little list of names of these men, some of whom are gone, and the rest of whom we seldom see. Dr. Morris, Prof. Craig, Henry Hales, Prof. Close, Prof. Hutt, W. N. Roper, W. C. Reed, Prof. Collins, E. A. Riehl, Dr. Van Fleet, Prof. Van Deman, J. G. Rush, Mr. Jones, Mr. Littlepage, Mr. Bixby, Dr. Smith, Prof. E. R. Lake, S. W. Snyder, Mrs. Erlanger, Col. Sober, Prof. Drake and many others. I think it will pay you all to look back through those annual reports and see what the pioneer nut growers of this country have recorded.
Mr. Reed, I was saying that Mr. Bixby's collection of nut trees had been sold to the Government and that it was through your help that this sale was made. Now I'd like to ask you if there is any information that you could properly release to the meeting about the sale of those trees. I am sure everyone of us would be interested to know where they are going.
The trees have been bought by the Interior Department with funds placed at their disposal for the purpose of planting trees for the national forests. Their attitude has been rather liberal in this case. They have felt that if they could get trees planted, regardless of whether they were planted on Interior Department land or not, it would be justified expense. When the matter was laid before them, they at once thought of the arboretum which is now being developed within the District of Columbia. The final purchase was made largely in order that the arboretum might be able to start off with the Bixby collection as a nucleus. A complete list of all varieties that are in the collection will go there. Another part of the purchase comes to the branch of the Agricultural Department which I represent, and practically all of the varieties in the Bixby collection which are not now in the plant at Beltsville will be sent there.
It was the original plan of the Interior Department that all of the trees which neither the arboretum nor the branch of the department which I represent needed, should go to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, and it was with that understanding that the deal was closed. After the deal was closed and a notice was sent to the authorities in charge at the park that a certain number of seedlings of different species and a certain number of grafted trees would be delivered there sometime this fall, the Shenandoah authorities took the strange attitude that they couldn't use grafted trees. In other words, they preferred mongrels to thoroughbreds. We chuckled in our sleeves. But nevertheless they threw back upon us several grafted trees to find some place for. We immediately took it up with the Forest Service. They have land in North Carolina where all of the trees can be planted fifty feet apart, not cultivated, but nursed and cared for, and available for study by our own department and the state of North Carolina and any individuals.