Part 10

As long as the situation is that way I would say to recommend seedling trees because of their low price, but--and every grower who has trees can fall in line with this--the seeds should be from properly culled-out orchards of the highest type, leaving nothing in there producing nuts or pollen but what is the highest type. I think all of you who have more than one type of chestnut in your plantings should cull them all down to the pure _Castanea mollissima_. I don't mean by cutting out the whole tree, but go ahead and top-work them. If they won't take the top, _then_ cut them out. But if you can top-work them and the grafting is good, you can increase your planting of good trees in that manner.

The improved quality of the seed will improve the quality of seedlings going to the buyer, and the chances of a higher percentage of good seedlings showing up will be greater. I think it will improve the industry through a period of years.

Dr. MacDaniels: I think I agree with his position. In fact, that's exactly what we are telling the inquiries that come in: At the present state of our knowledge, better try seedling trees.

But I didn't hear anybody get up and say they had an orchard of 20-year-old grafted chestnut trees. I have tried to get them, I have grafted successfully, I suppose, 7 or 8 different varieties on many different Chinese stocks that I have bought, or had given to me, and numbers of grafted trees. I have nothing left. They grow fine, 7 or 8 feet the first year, 3 or 4 feet the next year, then they go along for a while and then they die. In other words, there is an unsolved problem there, so that it seems to me at the present state of our knowledge we had better admit it and say, "If you are an amateur, you better get the best seedling trees that you can and wait awhile."

Mr. J. C. Moore: I just want to give some data on some of the class work at Auburn with Chinese chestnuts. We were studying Chinese seedlings, and we attempted to bud those Chinese chestnut seedlings, and on some of the larger seedlings we top-worked. We had some 3-year-old seedlings, and we top-worked the limbs. We put in patch buds, and we put in T-buds or shield buds, and in practically every case on some of the trees the buds stuck beautifully.

In June and again in August, with another class, we had the same results, either with T-bud or shield bud or patch bud. Some of the seedlings wouldn't take the buds at all. I can't think why one seedling would take 100 per cent of the buds and another seedling growing right by it wouldn't take any buds.

Mr. Weber: The oldsters here will remember Colonel C. K. Sober, one of our former members who propagated what he later named the Sober's Paragon chestnut. It was a grafted tree and apparently it was grafted successfully on native stocks, and it grew until the blight got it.

Dr. MacDaniels: I am not talking about European or American, I am talking about Chinese chestnuts.

Mr. O'Rourke: It may affect the nursery industry. The nurserymen are looking to the Northern Nut Growers Association, Federal bureaus and State experiment stations to guide them in the propagation of desirable trees. We know now that the Chinese chestnut is becoming quite prominent, is becoming quite popular in many sections of the country, and many nurserymen are now getting requests to supply the public in their states with Chinese chestnuts. They, in turn, would like to know what they should do. If they sell Chinese chestnut trees which have been propagated vegetatively and they only grow five, eight, 10 or 15 years and then die, it's going to come back on the nurserymen. They should like to know whether they should do that or whether they should rely upon seedlings which they can develop into pure lines as best they may.

Now, that really is a serious question. I am wondering from what Mr. Hardy has told us today if it may not be an understock problem, and if it is an understock problem--if there are certain strains of understock which are compatible with certain scions, possibly we should ask for some investigations, some more research to be done in this direction.

Then possibly, on the other hand, we should also ask that certain investigations be carried out so that we will have some idea of the inheritable characters that may be "fixed" through seed selection. I really think that this seed selection should be very seriously considered, and that nurserymen in particular and the public in general would benefit greatly by such consideration.

Mr. Hardy: Mr. Chase, may I make this suggestion: I think it is something that a number of individuals could try, perhaps they should be backed up by agricultural institutions, either Federal or State. We are all interested and concerned with stocks, and I think a large part of our trouble with grafting chestnuts is a stock-scion relationship.

We have some top-worked trees 13 years old that are just as healthy, just as normal as they can be. We have some top-worked trees of various ages below that. The graft-union is good; they are just as healthy and continue to be as productive and vigorous as the parent tree. Where there is incompatibility we run into difficulties very shortly. To a large extent I think we are involved with two problems in the trouble with incompatibility, or perhaps I should say the dying, of grafted trees. One is a stock-scion relationship, the other a mechanical problem.

I think there are these two types of incompatibilities. Now, as to the mechanical part--that can be improved through developing the art of grafting or budding, whichever works out best. The other will require quite a lot of study, perhaps the development of certain strains of the root stocks for certain scion varieties.

I have made this suggestion to two or three. I have started the work myself by putting out with friends two or three or four trees. After they get up to a size where I can top-work them, I will top-work with two varieties. Perhaps I will put Nanking and Kuling on two trees at one particular place. Two or three miles away I will put Kuling and Meiling on two others. At another place I will put Nanking and Meiling. I will get reciprocal pollination, because the chestnut is necessarily cross-pollinating.[15] I can then plant seedlings from both parents, each pollinated by the other. Then by grafting those varieties onto those seedlings stocks I can find out whether there is any reason to go into the work of developing seed orchards of two varieties whereby Meiling pollinated by Kuling may produce the best, most vigorous, most uniform seedlings on which Kuling can be propagated. And by propagating Kuling on such seedlings--the seedlings of such inheritance--we may get 100 per cent of good grafts.

The industry needs a lot of help, and I think it is a matter of time until those things are worked out, but it is going to take time and money and plenty of good effort to work out that problem. I think it probably should be worked out.

Mr. Bush: I don't like the word "incompatibility", and I hardly believe in it, and I presume most of you know that. I have Chinese on European stock, and it has been there for 20 years or more, _grafted high_. I have Chinese on Japanese grafted _under the ground_. I think a good deal of our damage is done from wind, from cold, and from sun on the graft _just above the ground_. I suspect that grafting at that point is what is the matter with many trees in the TVA plantings and others that had low survival. Of late years when I did the grafting (in the last five or six years) I cut the stock underneath the ground and stuck the graft under the ground and seemingly I got far better results. Some of those graft failures showed up. I laid that largely to mechanical damage, and again with the Japanese, particularly, I laid it on the time when the sap comes up. Call it what you will, but the timing of the growth of the two trees is different and we had trouble there. I have grafted some very widely different kinds of chestnuts on the tops of other chestnuts, and am getting them to grow. When we see the break start, we take a twig from below and break and put it above, cut through the cambium and nail it on and they will heal over and the defect disappears. So, again, it seems to be mechanical.

Mr. McDaniel: I believe from observations on a number of trees, particularly Dr. Richards' in West Tennessee, that a large part of our so-called incompatibility in this State is due to winter injury _to the stock_. So what Dr. Richards meant, evidently, was that he was rather successful in getting a "take" from last summer's propagation but the stock then failed below the union this spring. I saw his trees, and they had the typical discoloration of bark and the dying of various bark areas--these girdling the whole tree in a number of instances. [See Richards' paper in this report.] I would agree in general with what Mr. Bush has just said, but there are certain other instances in which we think the only word for what we see is "incompatibility."

Mr. Slate: What are the prospects of planting those low-grafted trees rather deep?

Mr. Bush: I think that if the roots started to die the grafted tree would start a root above the graft. The sap is going up from the root. It will go down and the root will start above the graft and go out above the graft, thus getting the tree on its own root.

Mr. Stoke: Since we got onto grafting, do you mind if I say a word? Here is a four-branch, top-worked specimen that I chopped off and brought with me. This first tree limb was still alive and had nuts on it, the second was dying and a third dead. This fourth union was still alive, but it was badly damaged, too. That's Illinois 31 -4 on Japanese. Here is another graft of Illinois 31 -4 on Japanese in a small tree, and if that's poor union, I am no grafter!

Mr. Hardy: Mr. Stoke, may I ask you this: Is this [small graft] on the same tree as this? [Indicating larger tree first referred to.]

Mr. Stoke: No. Those four grafts, you see, all went bad. This one is in perfect condition. But I am having a hard time keeping that Illinois 31 -4 alive. I had a union on _mollissima_ three inches in diameter and as perfect as this, two years ago. Last year it began to bulge at the point of union. The top wasn't feeding back to the root, and this year it is in bad condition,--foliage very small and it put on a very full crop of burs which will never mature, and it's going to pass out. It is about four inches in diameter now.

Last year to try to beat this thing I cut out the crown of a small _mollissima_ at the below-ground level and put in several grafts of this same Illinois 31 -4, and I got a nice growth, at least four feet high. When I dug it up to transplant it--it was right in my garden--I found I had a large callus more than an inch and a half in diameter at the union but no roots. I reset it, and I haven't ventured to see whether it was all right or not. This spring I tried again.

I have four little trees, one as high as my head, the others smaller. I grafted each one on branch roots just as they lay in the ground. Didn't dig them up and they grew nicely, and along in July I went around and spaded them deeply and thought perhaps that would produce roots. About a week ago I examined one. I have a magnificent callus but no roots yet above the union. What the ultimate results will be I don't know.

With that particular hybrid I want to try one more thing. I want to grow seedlings of the European chestnut, cut them below the ground, graft Illinois 31 -4 on the root and it may make a union that will not fail, because the European is a very robust grower, and by being grafted under the ground the stock will be away from blight organisms.

[Editor's Note: Mr. C. A. Reed is naming this variety (Ill. 31-4) "Colby" in honor of the originator, Dr. Arthur S. Colby.]

Mr. Hirschi: I would like to say I put on hybrids similar to that Illinois 31 -4 and they grew the first year, and just made a bulky knot right at the point of union and died the second year.

Mr. McDaniel: What was that combination?

Mr. Hirschi: That was _mollissima_ stock.

Now, speaking about the varieties--this is in Oklahoma--I have tried practically all the older varieties and I have tried some Abundance grafts this last year. I have some Abundance grafts that are two years old that are producing. They have the most vigorous growth of anything, and in our climate we have to have vigor.

I grafted a lot of the Abundance scions on Hobson seedlings. I started out to grow an orchard from Hobson seedlings, and I found out that out of 50 splice grafts of Abundance that I put in Hobson seedlings in 1948, forty-eight grew, and they were put on rather late, in April. That's a little late for us. I have the idea--I don't know whether I am right or not--that if the Abundance proves out as our best variety, we can grow seed for stock of the Abundance and then graft the Abundance back on the seedling from Abundance. If there is so much to this incompatibility, I should overcome it by doing that very thing.

Personally I think it is a crime that thousands of trees--almost millions--are being put out by nurserymen as seedling trees, and if you will note in their price lists they have "6 to 12 inches" and "12 to 18 inches", "2 to 3 feet" and "3 to 4 feet." I venture to say that those are probably all the same age. How would you like to plant some of those 12-inch trees? Somebody is going to get hurt!

Mr. Bush: I'd like to say that you can propagate the Chinese chestnut by layering if you want to, and that will put it on its own. Put a wedge on it or girdle it and keep it damp through the summer.

Pres. Davidson: I think Dr. MacDaniels' question is still not answered. I do think that if a nurseryman sells a seedling he ought to definitely _say that it is a seedling_ and not merely that it is a "blight-resistant chestnut," or something of that sort. He should actually tell the public what he is selling.

Now, then, there seem to be reasons why in some instances a man is justified in planting seedlings when it comes to Chinese chestnuts, but when it comes to the black walnut or filbert or some of these other things, they are still selling seedlings without labelling them as such. I think we should be on record against that practice, because it takes us five or six years, or ten years sometimes, to find out that we have been gypped, and it is so easy to gyp the public when you can't find out about it any sooner than that.

Mr. O'Rourke: I quite agree with Mr. Davidson that the nurserymen should state that a seedling is a seedling when it is a seedling. And I am sure Mr. Hirschi will corroborate that the American Association of Nurserymen is exerting all the influence they can to that end. Is that right, Mr. Hirschi?

Mr. Hirschi: Yes.

Mr. Bregger: I would like to ask, if planters for some years yet will have to rely on seedlings, is there a chance that from certain parents or certain varieties we can get a larger percentage of good seedlings than from others? How much has it been studied and is there a known result from the parent trees in the percent of what their seedlings can do?

Dr. Crane: I wish I could answer that one. It is a matter of time, to find out the seedling characteristics reproduced by a certain descendant. But we know that there is a difference in _uniformity_ of trees in the way they grow, but as far as bearing is concerned, and the type of nut produced, we haven't had enough time yet.

It's just like this: We have made selections for rootstocks in which we have selected trees that were good, strong and vigorous--the most vigorously growing trees that we have known about, and yet at the same time produced a small nut or medium-sized nut that we could use for the production of rootstocks. And we have made progress on that, and we have demonstrated that there is a very marked difference between the graftability or budability of seedlings from certain parent trees. We have demonstrated that some varieties are much easier to propagate than are others. But as for the proper combinations of stock and scion, we still haven't got enough data to recommend any. We know that there are differences, but it is going to take quite a long while, at least four or five years or more, before we know.

Now, there is just one other thing that comes up on propagation. We have found that if you bench-graft and make the graft into the transition zone between root and top just like the old method that the apple propagator used when he piece-root grafted and then plant deep, you can get a hundred per cent of the grafts to grow. In such cases the scion may root and the top will be on its own roots.

Well, there are a lot of these tricks to learn as time goes on. I don't think that we should worry too much about this graft union problem. We know that this Carr variety is a bear-cat. It is the one that gave us so much trouble. When we tried to propagate that one we had a real, nasty cat by the tail. But on the other hand, in answer to Dr. MacDaniels' question if we go out to Dr. J. Russell Smith's plantings up at Round Hill (Virginia), we can see a lot of the oldest grafted trees that I know of anywhere in the country, and the unions are just as smooth and just as slick as anyone would want to see. They are not 20 years old; I don't think there was ever a _mollissima_ chestnut grafted 20 years ago. The first grafting that I know of was about 15 years ago, maybe 18.

Mr. Stoke: In 1932.

Mr. R. C. Moore: Thomas Jefferson grafted European chestnuts.

Dr. Crane: No, I am talking about Chinese chestnuts. We didn't get in any Chinese chestnuts until 1906. We have this problem of incompatibility or graft union trouble, in apples, but do you hear anybody hollering about it? We have it in peaches, plums and cherries. One of the most important diseases they have out in the Pacific Northwest and California on Persian walnuts, is what is called "black line disease." We mustn't get excited about graft union failure. That has been used, in my opinion, by a lot of people, to discourage the propagating of grafted chestnuts. There are thousands of people in the United States who are spending good money for seedling trees, and some of them are going to get stung. We in the Northern Nut Growers Association are going to have this thing backfire on us, just as true as I tell you. I know there are some nurserymen today that are planting unknown chestnut seeds, and they are selling the trees as Chinese chestnut. They are planting seed out of mixed orchards, too, that have _C. seguinii_ and _C. henryi_ and _C. crenata_ trees in them. The _C. crenata_ Japanese has been introduced in the United States for over 70 years and it has never made the grade.

You know, there has been many a thing that has been promoted in the United States--big for a few days and then she backfired, and then it took the industry 50 or a hundred years to recover. You can sell people gold bricks once, but you can't sell them gold bricks _all_ the time!

Mr. McCollum: Last year after Mr. Hemming's speech--you know, he is the nurseryman who sells seedlings over on the Eastern Shore--I asked him if he had been selling those long enough to have heard from customers. "Yes," he said he had, "all satisfied." Now, I don't know anything about that.

Dr. Moss: I am not an expert. They say an expert is someone who, the more he studies, knows less about practically nothing at all. That's a good deal my shape. I planted before the war Chinese seed in Kentucky and a good many of those put on burs in the nursery row. I gave them away in the community. Out of the whole bunch, some of them 20 feet tall, I know of one outstanding nut in that bunch and it's off by itself, apparently a self-pollinizer[16], and puts out a crop of good nuts.

Dr. Cross: I should like to ask Dr. Crane if it would not be possible to investigate the situation in China rather than wait to work this out. Certainly, the Chinese have sufficient knowledge of grafting and propagation to have been working on this long ago, and since these came from there, let's look into that phase of it.

Dr. Crane: I did investigate the situation in China when I was there. Unfortunately in China, although it is one of our oldest countries and longest civilizations, they don't do much grafting. They grow their trees from seed, but they have certain seed trees that they select their seed from, and within a community, within a valley, you will have a certain type of chestnut. They call them varieties. They are not varieties. That's the situation. Most all of them are different, but they have accomplished the fixing of certain characteristics.

Now, in South China the nuts are larger in size, they are stronger growing trees than they are in the North. I think that we will find that that's the situation in this country. The Chinese chestnut is one that does have a high heat requirement, just like pecan, and grown under conditions where they have high heat they are bigger in size and make more growth and probably they come into bearing sooner.

But I didn't see anything grafted in China, and I was all over the country from the most northern parts to the most southern parts where chestnuts are produced. I could make a lot of observations myself, but I had to talk through interpreters, and sometimes you couldn't tell what the interpreter meant. But as near as I could tell, they were all seedlings. When he would tell me there was such-and-such a variety, I would ask him what it meant in English. He didn't know. When I found how they were propagated I found they planted the seed. When I found where they got the seed it was from a certain seed tree.