Therefore, when I received your improved bulletin, "The Nutshell," I felt that I and others like me should write and tell you how wonderful it is.
There is much that I just want to "get off my chest." My past criticism was that the organization was a bit lethargic. But nut trees are slow in showing results, despite the nurserymen's attractive visions of quick, big harvests of nuts and even timber!!! This slow patience of the black walnut has determined the tempo of much of the membership.
+Chestnut Breeding Efforts+
My main work is to attempt to breed two types of chestnuts: (1) One that is very productive with a low head and will bear nuts like the old American chestnut. (2) Another that will make a good timber stick. It is my theory that present chestnut breeders are crossing inferior material, using any specimens that happen to be in flower at the right time as long as they represent the species to be crossed.
Suppose they intend to cross C. crenata x C. dentata. An average Japanese chestnut is usually pollinated with flowers from a poor struggling sprout on the edge of the woods that has only one thing to recommend it. That is an early bearing characteristic which is inherent, but which, according to experiments and observations I have tediously carried out, is not totally due to ringing by the blight.
The experiment takes place and a few hybrid nuts are produced. They are termed (C. crenata x C. dentata). It is expected that the characteristics of the offspring will be somewhere between those of the two parents in blight resistance and nut size and quality. But what of the grandparents, the many ancestors of the American chestnut sprout that have not even the slight resistance of the sprout? Can they not express their characteristics and hand them, down to their grandchildren? And some individuals of C. crenata are not reputed to be so highly blight resistant.
Of course the scientists engaged in this work are men of the highest calibre and no doubt are aware of this, but it is extremely difficult to obtain, propagate, and care for named varieties of the finest individuals of each chestnut species.
Apple, cherry, and other fruit breeders would not dream of crossing common scrub cull fruit trees and expect any degree of success.
My first task when I began, three years ago, on my coppice growth 35 to 40 year old hardwood forest, was to clear a little land and to begin planting different world species of Castanea.
You would be astonished to find that it was impossible for me to obtain seed or trees, at the time, of C. crenata, C. seguinii, C. pumila, C. henryi and C. alnifolia. I obtained some 24 seeds of C. mollisima from Dr. A. H. Graves, for which I was grateful. At the time he didn't have a good crop, I think. Institutions and government agencies would not or did not like to release their newly developed hybrids for fear that I was a nurseryman or perhaps would sell them for "blight resistant" chestnuts, although they were not yet proven.