In 1940, I crossed the pistillate blossoms of this tree with pollen from a Chinese variety called Carr, resulting in half a dozen nuts which I planted.
Since the chestnuts in these parts do not bloom usually until early July we can expect chestnuts to be a more reliable crop than butternuts, for instance, which bloom very early in the spring about May 1 to 15th.
Having had this reward for my efforts I took much more interest in chestnut growing and ordered trees of the Chinese varieties, Castanea mollissma from J. Russell Smith, H. F. Stoke, and John Hershey. Some of these were seedlings and some were grafted trees, not over a dozen of them alive today and none have produced mature nuts. Seemingly they have not been hardy although they have grown large enough to produce both staminate and pistillate blooms; they have never winter killed back to the ground, however.
Also, I have been planting nuts from all sources from which I could obtain them, mostly of the Chinese chestnut type. Some of these nuts were results of crosses, and showed their hybridity in the young seedlings that resulted there from. Today I have perhaps 150 of such young seedlings which I am pampering with the hope of getting something worthwhile from them. One of the big thrills of chestnut growing was the result of a chestnut that I picked up from a plant that was no higher than 2 feet, growing at Beltsville, Maryland in the government testing ground there, in 1937. My records show that this plant began to bear nuts in 1943 and have subsequently borne several crops in between the times that it was frozen to the ground and grew up again, which happened at least three times. Like most chestnuts this one has to be pollinated by taking the staminate bloom from a dwarfed chestnut nearby whose bloom coincides with the blossoming of the female flowers of this Chinese hybrid. Chestnuts rarely set any nuts that produce mature seed from their own pollen but depend on cross-pollination. The nut from this hybrid is also the largest of any that I have grown and to my taste is a palatable one. It may not rank among the best ones of known varieties today, but for our climate I would consider it unusually large and good. Experimentally, I have been able to produce new plants from this tree by layering young shoots coming from the roots. This generally requires two years to make a well-rooted plant before they are cut off and transplanted. This alternative of propagating by grafting or budding is considered a better method if it can be practiced, as it gives a plant on its own roots instead of the roots of some unknown seedling stock.
Hybrid Chestnut; natural size, one of the two survivors of several dozen trees sent by the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture for testing this far north. Fair size nut and it resembles the American Sweet Chestnut. Photo by C. Weschcke.
Another tree that surprised me when it came into bearing proved to bear one nut in a burr which led me to believe that it was a chinquapin hybrid. Later on, the habit of this tree changed somewhat and some of the burrs had more than one nut. I have found this to be the experience of others who have observed so-called chinquapin trees of a hybrid nature. It is my belief that the kind of pollen with which these blossoms are fertilized directly influences the number of nuts in a burr and sometimes the size of the nuts, again showing the importance of the cross-pollinating varieties when setting out an orchard of trees. This particular chinquapin type chestnut has upright growing habits different from a tree bearing similar nuts but having a very dwarfed habit. All of the nuts of the latter after six years of bearing can be picked off this tree by standing on the ground. There are several other trees bearing chestnuts, some large and some small nuts, all of which are interesting to me and may be important in the future of the chestnuts this far north since they indicate without doubt that the chestnut can accommodate itself to our climate, providing it has the right type of soil to grow in. In 1952 I acquired a 20-acre adjoining piece of land which has a much better chestnut growing site, being deep sandy soil, well drained, and yet not ever being dry. New varieties will be tested on this piece and should give much better results than the old trees which already were good enough to indicate success in chestnuts.
A hybrid chestnut presumed to be a cross between European Chestnut (Castanea Sativa) and its American cousin (Castanea Americana). Actual size. Photo by C. Weschcke.
