Rev. Taylor (Alpine, Tenn.): Mr. Gravatt was about to answer a question about our seed trees, wasn't he?
Mr. Gravatt: Would you repeat that question?
Rev. Taylor: Are some seed trees better than others in the high per cent of good seedlings they produce?
Mr. Gravatt: Well, McKay has done some work and published it to show that on seedlings of certain trees you get higher percentage of bud takes than on others.
Mr. Chase: I think the question is a little confused. I think what you are after is, are there parent seed trees from which seed can be planted that would produce a good quality of seedlings.
Rev. Taylor: Yes, of good productive seedlings. No grafting to it.
Mr. Chase: I think that was answered. Apparently there are.
Rev. Taylor: Apparently there are in China, as Dr. Crane brought up.
Mr. Chase: He further brought up that those things are in the process of being tested here now, and he hopes for some information in—what was that?
Mr. Gravatt: We had Professor Beattie over in Japan, China, and Korea for two or three years, and he found in Japan that there were certain selections there, certain grafted varieties that they used for seed stock. We imported those into this country. We were getting ready to go ahead with the Japs. We also brought in a hundred varieties of Japanese chestnuts. But the Japanese varieties didn't do well here. What would produce well over in Japan didn't produce well here. But a number of those scions that we grafted in 1932 and 1933 are still living. We have had very good success with top-working chestnuts in our orchards. We have some grafts there of pure Chinese chestnuts top-worked on some worthless Japanese. Some of those have been there for 12 and 14 years, with perfect unions. But we do receive a number of reports of trees dying from blight and various other and sundry other causes and when we examine them quite frequently these have died back to where the trees had been grafted.