Chestnut stocks are grown from seeds. Difficulty is sometimes experienced in keeping the seeds, as they lose their vitality if dried too hard, and are likely to become mouldy if allowed to remain moist. The surest way is to allow the nuts to become well dried off or “seasoned” in the fall, and then stratify them in a box with three or four times as much sand as chestnuts, and bury the box a foot or two deep in a warm soil until spring. They do not always keep well if stored or stratified in a cellar. Fall planting exposes the nuts to squirrels and mice. American stocks are probably better than European.
The stocks are worked by whip-grafting above ground, the wound being well tied and protected by waxed cloth. Care should be taken to have the stock and cion about the same size, in order to secure a good union. Crown-grafting, root-grafting and budding have not been very successful in this country upon the chestnut. The cions should be cut early, before they begin to swell, and kept dormant until the stock begins to push into leaf. Only vigorous stocks should be grafted. The best results are obtained when the stocks have recovered from transplanting, or when they are from three to five years old. The working of chestnut stocks is far from satisfactory in a commercial way. The union is imperfect in many varieties, and usually no more than half the grafts take well.
Chicory (Cichorium Intybus). Compositæ.
Seeds, sown in spring where the plants are to grow.
Chilopsis (Desert Willow). Bignoniaceæ.
Increased by seeds, or by cuttings of half-ripened shoots in sand under a bell-glass, in a gentle bottom heat.
Chimonanthus. Calycanthaceæ.
Propagated by layering in the autumn.
China Aster. See [Callistephus].
Chiococca (Snowberry). Rubiaceæ.