Now, with Chinese chestnuts, we planted seedlings that were grown from the seed of a parent tree at Beltsville. We planted a thousand trees. There were seedlings grown from seed produced by different parent trees. Out of those thousand there wasn't a single one outstanding. Yet in one lot of seedlings which was planted in Georgia, every one of the seedlings grown from the seeds of that selected tree produced such high quality nuts that we haven't cut out a single tree. There just hasn't been any off types. Now we have gone a step further. We had one called selection 7932 which came into bearing very early. We have had those trees grown from seed. The seedling at three years of age produced a pound of nuts, the seedling having the characteristic of its mother. We have hopes that before many years we shall be able to produce parent trees or clonal lines in which the seed taken from those line and planted will give us uniform seedlings.
I don't want you folks to get the idea we have these parent trees or seed from them that are available. I mention it because a lot of you are growing chestnut trees and planting them from seed. You could make a great contribution if you would take the nuts from each individual tree and plant separately, so that you will know in the future the origin of every one of those seedling trees you have. Some of these days someone is going to find one that is going to give us seedling trees that are good and free from variation.
Elberta peach seed will come practically true to variety from seed, except minor variations of size, shape, color and season. In a peach you are facing a very highly specialized market. But with the Chinese chestnut, color is not so important. What we are interested in is trees that bear and have enough uniformity so that we don't have pee-wees by one and jumbos by another.
We need very badly this sort of thing. We need chestnut varieties planted in pairs in isolated places. Any of you folks could do a great service if you will let us know wherever trees occur in pairs, or just two varieties and no others, and then we know that one variety pollinates the other. When you have a mixed planting of a half dozen varieties the male is promiscuous. Therefore you have a much greater mixing of genetic factors. If we have a pair of trees, we get a much more uniform breeding group of seedlings.
MEMBER: How far removed from other varieties do they have to be?
DR. McKAY: Half a mile or a mile.
MR. O'ROURKE: I think we can go to vegetative propagation of cuttings. I think that we have any amount of evidence that Chinese chestnuts can be rooted from cuttings, but can trees grow on from rooting cuttings?
DR. CRANE: You have summed up the situation perfectly.
MEMBER: Just by accident, in our storage house a couple of chestnuts fell over into a pile of peat moss and they did make roots.
MR. CORSAN: Would you call the Chinese chestnut a second?