Mr. Reed: Do you thin them out after they get that size?
Mr. Sober: Yes, sir, they should be thinned out more, but I hesitated on account of the blight; I have thousands that I could spare, but for fear the blight will take them out.
A Member: Do you cultivate the ground?
Mr. Sober: I don't cultivate it, I just pasture it. The land is fertilized, but not cultivated.
Mr. Reed: That is a photograph of a large chestnut orchard in this county. It is not many miles from here. I understand that owing to the blight and to the weevil, that orchard has not been satisfactory, and I was told two or three days ago that it was being cleared away.
Mr. Reed: Paragon and native stock.
A Member: Was that the old Furness Grove?
Mr. Reed: Yes, sir. That slide shows the congeniality, ordinarily, between the stock of the native chestnut and the paragon. The next slide shows a typical instance of malformation between the Japanese and native chestnut. I understand that this is not unusual at all. The Japanese, ordinarily, does not make a good union with the American sweet chestnut. That slide was taken in Indiana. It is a twenty-five acre paragon orchard owned by Mr. Littlepage and Senator Bourne of Oregon, planted in the spring of 1910. The next slide shows one of the trees in the orchard during its first season. Mr. Littlepage had to have them all gone over and the burs removed. They were so inclined to fruit during the first season that they would have exhausted themselves if the burs had not been removed. They made a very promising start, but I understand from Mr. Littlepage that a number of the trees have since died. Is there anything you'd like to add to that, Mr. Littlepage?
Mr. Littlepage: I haven't yet quite determined the cause of the trouble. Last winter I lost perhaps one-third of the trees with a peculiar condition. The wood under the bark was darkened. I sent some of them to Washington the year before to see if there was any blight or fungus and they reported there was none on any of the trees, but this winter perhaps one-third of the trees died down to the graft. A few, however, would sprout from the scion, giving me, of course, the grafted top again. It seemed to indicate, perhaps, a winter killing and yet I would not undertake to assert that that was the cause, but it was very serious.