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Mr. Stoke: Would you consider chestnut hybrids worth while?
Mr. Slate: If you can get everything you need from the Chinese chestnut
I see no reason for hybrids with any other.
Mr. Stoke: Dr. Arthur S. Colby has made a number of hybrids between Fuller and Chinese. I consider his hybrid No. 2 as promising; the nut is large, beautiful and of good quality. So far I have found no weevils in this hybrid. The bur is very thick and fleshy, with close-set spines. Possibly the curculio is not able to penetrate the thick husk in laying its eggs. Colby No. 2 is the most rapid grower of all my chestnuts.
PECANS WITH COMPANION EVERGREENS[15]
Twenty years of experimenting with pecan trees at the Iowa Park station have revealed that pecans in the Wichita irrigated valley of Texas do very poorly in buffalo grass or Bermuda sod, much better when given clean cultivation, but best of all when planted with or near evergreens, particularly conifers.
[Footnote 15: Forty-Eighth Annual Report, Texas Agricultural Experiment
Station. P. 42. 1945.]
In 1926 some pecan trees were set along the west line of the farmstead. Most of these died soon after setting and the few that survived did not grow satisfactorily. Later, a general farmstead improvement program called for Arizona cypress along this line. In 1933, when these pecan trees were seven years old, they had made little growth and were in such poor condition that it was decided to ignore them and set the cypress on equal spacings. Some of the cypress trees were placed very near pecan trees while others were farther away. None of the pecans were removed, however.
As the cypress trees grew, the pecan trees near them began to take on new life, while the isolated pecan trees continued in their unthrifty state. As the years passed the pecans with companion cypress trees continued to increase in health and vigor until there was no doubt about the favorable influence of this companionship. At the time the cypress trees were set close to the older pecans, other pecan trees were being set in various locations on the farmstead; some in open sod and others with or near evergreens of various types. The behavior of these trees also confirms the value of companion evergreens for pecans in the Wichita irrigated valley.
At the age of seven years the pecan trees were about the same size and in equally poor condition. The treatment as far as cultivation and irrigation is concerned has been the same. Hence, the great contrast in size of the pecan trees is attributed to the favorable influence of the companion conifers.