MR. KEPLINGER: Dr. Meader sent me some stock from seed that he brought from near Seoul, Korea in 1947. They are very productive up there at Durham, New Hampshire. I have two trees from seed from these trees. They have much more narrow leaves, than any Chinese chestnuts I have seen so far.
DR. CRANE: Are you sure they are pure Chinese?
DR. MACDANIEL: I am sure they are not. I have seen pictures and had some correspondence with Dr. Meader on them. They seem to be the Japanese species, C. crenata type, or possibly hybrid, not strictly Japanese.
MR. PEASE: I want to throw in something a little bit aside. I think we kid ourselves and the public in assuming, tacitly, that Chinese chestnuts, no matter how narrow the strain, are going to breed true or anywhere near true. Any one lot of seedlings are likely to show great variation in hardiness, disease resistance and other characters. There is a great difference between resistance and immunity. I speak this way because I have seen plenty of people selling Chinese chestnuts who actually believe they are immune, and I have seen customers mad enough to shoot them when they have seen half of them die of blight.
MR. MILLER: When considering hardiness, climate is one thing and air drainage is another. In any climatic zone the exact location or site, particularly air drainage is important. I have my orchard on a southwest slope with perfect air drainage. I have 250-some trees that are six or seven years old growing very nicely, and I have not had any loss, even with English walnut, the Carpathian or any of the other trees. I think that many of us are overlooking the fact that air drainage and location of the orchard is one of the main things. I don't think this has anything to do with the particular seed or the varieties, but I think that is one thing that we must consider.
DR. CRANE: No question about that. Chinese chestnuts are like peaches, and they start pretty early in the spring.
MR. GIBBS: Chinese chestnuts are hardy from Maine to Florida. I think they winter kill because of unhealthy condition of the tree. The place that I did live, at McLean, Virginia, was low in a frosty place, and the first spring they killed back three times before they took off. Where I live now in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which is orchard country, the Chinese chestnut killed back in the spring, but there is nothing the matter with their winter hardiness. They stand winter cold as good as a walnut tree.
DR. GRAVES: I want to make the point that it is in part a question of age, to my mind, as to whether these trees get winter killed. I know we had some trees from the Department of Agriculture, Division of Forest Pathology, back in 1925, and in the very cold winter, 1933-34, they killed back almost to the ground. Again in the severe winter of 1943 Chinese chestnuts were killed. But I feel that when a tree is of good size with its roots down in the ground, it's not so liable to winter kill as are the small seedlings.
DR. CRANE: We have spent enough time on this matter. The question of growing seedlings as compared to grafted trees is up for discussion. Mr. Wilson is a big operator growing chestnuts in Georgia. I would like to have him tell what he thinks of this matter of seedlings versus varieties for nut production.
MR. WILSON: Dr. Crane, I am fully convinced if we ever make an industry out of this chestnut business it's going to have to be based on grafted trees of good varieties. I have one block of approximately 200 grafted trees of Meiling and Kuling. Those trees have a nice crop on this year. They have different age tops, but we have a nice crop of nuts on them. I have another block of some 260 seedlings that were planted in 1948. The crop on these trees, with the same fertilization and cultivation ranges from no nuts to a heavy crop of nuts. You can't have an industry on that kind of yield. There are probably only 30 trees out of 260 that have a paying crop of nuts. That won't go as a paying proposition. You have got to have nuts on all the trees, and I am fully convinced if we ever make an industry out of it, the grower has got to produce nuts. Trees are not enough, he can't sell the tree; he wants to keep his tree. He wants nuts to sell, and you can't get them on the seedling trees. I am fully convinced you can't do it.