Part 4

I don't know whether any of you know of--I expect you do--the Gold Chestnut Nursery in West Virginia near Cowen, and it is owned and operated by Mr. Arthur A. Gold. He has been interested in blight-resistant chestnuts from a commercial standpoint, selling from his nursery for a good many years. He has worked with us some in the Conservation Commission and has given us the benefit of his experience. And if any of you have the opportunity I think you would be interested in seeing Mr. Gold's nursery. He was an old-time nurseryman that handled most of the conifers found in a commercial nursery, but in the last few years he has gone into chestnut production almost entirely, and if you have an opportunity, I am sure Mr. Gold would welcome you to his nursery in Webster County.

The Game Division of the Conservation Commission of West Virginia established three or four small plantings on the state forests in 1938 and 1939, but they had low survival. Dr. Diller in going around with some of us and checking on those has found that we were back there where all of us were trying to find something and trying to learn something and that we made many mistakes and that we picked poor stock, for one thing, and poor sites for another thing, but the great disadvantage and the biggest limiting factor was our poor selection of sites there in the beginning.

In handling chestnuts that you people handle maybe in small or large quantities where all of your time can be devoted to that particular thing, you probably have a lot of things that you do that we don't have time to do because at the nursery in West Virginia we are interested primarily in producing conifers and other forest trees for the reforestation of abandoned land. So in handling this Chinese chestnut as a game food we are working on a sideline. We have to pick it up as fast as we can do the job and do as much as we can and learn about as much as we can. And, of course, we learn slower than people who have the time to spend and perhaps the money to spend at it. But we are limited in those two respects.

But seed collections are made, and we find it necessary in collecting from two of the orchards that we are now using for seed to collect twice a day in the season that the nuts are ripening, because both of those orchards which we prize are close to forest lands and squirrel country, and they really give us a race for it. The fact of the matter is the orchard at the nursery has attracted the squirrels on that particular side of the mountain. I have hunted on opening day and killed my limit of squirrels without going outside of the residence and been back at work time at eight o'clock. It really attracts them on that side of the hill. We are going to compete with the squirrels, but as you will see, we have just about given up that orchard as a seed source.

We find it necessary to treat the seed, of course, before we plant it. Many of you people, of course, go into the spraying end of it before the nut ever develops. We haven't the time or the money right now to go into it that way, so we try to take care of the nut after we collect it and bring it in.

I expect it is not necessary for me to go into any of the details on any of the methods that may be used to get rid of the weevil, because you are all familiar with that. Maybe it suffices to say that we at the nursery now are using the hot water treatment. The little weevil is found in there and not always apparent. In fact, most of the time it isn't apparent that the nut is infested, but they are, and if we take measures to kill the weevil we haven't any germination of the weevil. We used gas once, but we are limited in that at present. It is a lot more expensive.

We have, in the first few years that we tried to produce chestnuts at the nursery, stratified them. We got along pretty well with that in damp sand, we got along fairly well in sawdust, and we got along especially well with damp sphagnum moss. But in the end we determined that we are getting better results if we plant the nuts as they are collected. In other words, the seed was taken from the orchard, treated to kill the weevil and put in the ground in the fall.

Now, you can't get away with that everywhere. Our orchard is far enough away from the nursery that we don't have any rodent damage. We have had some trouble from skunks, and they finally find out that the nuts are in there in a row where we have planted them, and they go right down and get them. But we have no trouble from mice or rats. We are far away from woodland and buildings.

We find that some people have trouble with wind or water erosion. We don't have that. So we can get by and do a better job and produce better trees by sowing nuts in the fall, and we sow them in the fall, just as if we were sowing black walnuts for production and distribution over the state.

By the next fall when we are ready to distribute those seedlings as 1-0 stock we find that we have produced seedlings of about 14 inches in height as 1-0 stock. From what I have seen that isn't a bad size to produce as 1-0 stock, though it is better in some places. We find, too, in the spring before germination, that in our particular section of the state along the Ohio River valley we sometimes get a dry spring and find it necessary to irrigate that land where we planted the chestnuts, just as the seed beds where we planted pine, in order to keep the ground moist and keep it in a condition where seeds will germinate freely.

We weed our chestnuts just as we do every row planted in the nursery, cultivate with the tractor about three times in a season, which is all the time we have to give to it, and hand weed it once. Perhaps it ought to have a little more than that. Some seasons I am sure it should, but that's about the time we are allowed or the time that we can allot to that.

I hope, Mr. Davidson, you will check me here on this time. I don't want to get too far out and upset the schedule.

President Davidson: All right, if necessary.

Mr. Quick: In distributing, the seedlings or blight-resistant chestnut seed in West Virginia we began back in 1943 putting them out in quantity. We had to limit them, the only thing in the nursery we had to limit the amount as to seed. That was because everybody in the state became very much interested, and the Conservation Commission makes those available to any land owner in the state free of charge if he will plant them as a game food but not under other circumstances. He can't use them for ornamentals, and he can't use them for shade purposes in his yard. But he can receive a limited number if he is willing to use them for game. So in scattering them over the state, so many people wanted so many of them that if we didn't watch we'd have all of our chestnuts planted in three or four, or half a dozen spots in the state, and we are interested in learning as much as we can by having them put out at different elevations, different sites and under different conditions, so we had to limit it to ten to an individual in 1943. We have gradually upped that as our production has gone up, from 15 to 20, then 40, and this year we are offering 50 to any land owner in the State of West Virginia.

Now you can see why we are interested in trying to improve the nut. If we are going to distribute them all over the state, let's distribute a good nut, a nut that is not only a heavy bearer for the game, but a nut, too, that is fit for human consumption.

In our site recommendations we have been trying to follow pretty well the ideas of the boys from Beltsville, and we found out that what they have been telling us is just about right. In other words, we are setting our chestnuts in the cove types, moist with gentle slope, preferably on the north, and we are getting better growth there. It doesn't mean as far as we are concerned that it doesn't grow well on drier land and on rich hill-tops but the growth is so much greater when it's put in good ground and under those conditions. In other words, it needs a tulip poplar site; where tulip poplar is growing or has recently grown might be one way to select a site for our chestnuts.

In these five year now that we have been distributing these chestnuts we have distributed something like 200,000. Now, we know that all of those seedlings haven't been good strains, but they have been the best we could do at that time as we were going along. We hope to learn from you people, and we hope you can give us help in improving our strains so that we can distribute better chestnuts over the state.

We haven't had a good system of checking up, until the present time, on plantings that have been made in the past, but we are initiating a system just now wherein all plantations that have been made from forest stock will have regular examination all over the state of West Virginia, and we are including chestnuts in that. We have made some checks in the state on certain selected sites and have found out, strange enough, that these little plantations that are spotted around on the farms, if they were put in correctly and handled properly according to our instructions, have given us a survival of about 80 to 85 per cent, which is, as you will remember, about the percentage in the Nanking strain planting in Jackson County, 26 out of the 34 original trees. That seems strange, but it has proved true all over the state in the few checks that we have made. But we are going into it and checking these plantations and by so doing I believe we can eliminate a good many of our own troubles, along with your help.

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President Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Quick for a very interesting paper.

Is Professor Moore, present? Our next talk will be on The Present Status of the Chestnut in Virginia, by Professor R. C. Moore of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute of Blacksburg, Virginia. Professor Moore.

The Present Status of the Chestnut in Virginia

R.C. MOORE, Department of Horticulture Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station

Briefly reviewing the past, Virginia has been in the same position as many other states in regard to the large number of native American chestnuts that once grew wild before the blight epidemic occurred. Most of the chestnuts were found on loose, open type soils rather than on heavy limestone soil. In mountainous parts of the state, considerable income was obtained from the sale of wild chestnuts. Men, women, and children gathered these nuts and traded them at the stores for merchandise. One small country store, in Floyd County, southwest Virginia, assembled and shipped between sixty and eighty thousand pounds annually. A small town, Stuart, in Patrick County, shipped three carloads daily during the peak of the season. These nuts found their way to city markets, where chestnut roasters were as commonly seen as popcorn poppers. Since many of these native chestnut trees grew in forests or on wasteland, there was little expense involved except in the time required to gather them. The demand was good but frequently the sale price was rather low, especially during years when the crop was heavy.

After blight destroyed the wild trees, a considerable amount of timber was cut from the dead trees. At present this wood has largely decayed beyond usefulness except for firewood, although in some areas it is being gathered for pulpwood. Sprouts have arisen from the bases of the trunks and have borne nuts, but blight sooner or later destroys those sprouts.

Chinkapins are found in many counties of Virginia, especially on shale or sandy loam soils. Blight affects chinkapins to a considerable extent; but because of their bushy type of growth, new shoots arise to replace blighted shoots, thus perpetuating the plants so that they have not died out. Chinkapins are gathered by children for eating and for sale along the roadside, but at present they have little total economic value.

+The Asiatic Chestnuts+

Since the native American chestnuts passed out of existence, there has been a gradually accumulating interest in the Asiatic species, especially Chinese chestnuts, which appear superior, in blight resistance and nut quality to the Japanese species. The growing of these Chinese chestnuts is such a new enterprise that its problems are not fully solved nor its opportunities fully explored.

The earlier plantings of seedling Chinese chestnut trees were made by cooperating growers and nurserymen. They were interested in a forest type chestnut that might replace the dead native trees. A few of these plantings were made under semi-forest conditions, on cut-over timber land or on dry ridges. The first lesson that was learned was that the Chinese chestnut is an orchard type tree requiring rather fertile soil and ample moisture. It would not compete favorably with most native forest trees, but rather was a slow growing, shallow rooted type of tree. Under these unfavorable growing conditions the trees tended to be small and to sprout from the bases of the trunks. The weakest seedlings died.

In other cases the trees were planted in yards, back lots, along the sides of ravines, or in other locations where the soil was fertile and moist. Under these favorable conditions most seedlings have grown and produced crops of nuts, especially when the trees were pruned and competing weeds and brush were mowed. Very few of these first seedlings of the Chinese chestnuts showed much promise although a few of them were fairly satisfactory.

Several old Japanese chestnut trees have been observed. One of these is estimated to be 50 years of age with a trunk diameter of 18 inches and a height of about 50 feet. It is growing in a very fertile spot and heavy crops in the past have broken its limbs. Chinkapins growing nearby appeared to have supplied pollen. Recently the nearest chinkapins were cleared away and hence at present the nuts fail to fill well. Another large tree in eastern Virginia produces many burs but the nuts fail to develop, indicating self-sterility. The nuts of both trees are rather coarse and of poor quality.

More recent plantings have been rather widely scattered over the state, although the total number of trees is not large and no one person has planted many trees. One large general nursery, serving this area, reported sales last spring of 196 Chinese seedling trees to thirty-five different customers. The largest single sale was for fifty trees. Several customers purchased only one tree each.

+Problems Encountered+

In visiting and corresponding with individuals who are growing Chinese chestnuts, I have made a few observations, as to problems that have arisen.

+1. Site and Soil.+ The most successful trees from the standpoint of growth and production were those growing on fertile, well drained soil in which moisture was plentiful. The Chinese chestnut tree appears to be shallow rooted and to require good growing conditions. Dry ridges were unfavorable for growth, and in bottom land the trees frequently were subjected to late spring freezing of tender shoots.

2. Blight injury to the trees and weevil damage to the nuts seemed to be the most serious enemies of chestnuts. Seedlings varied considerably in their resistance to blight. Some of them showed no indications of blight; others were damaged but outgrew the injury; and a few trees were weakened and died.

Weevils appeared to be quite prevalent. One grower reported almost 100% wormy nuts. It is my understanding that a spray program has been developed for control of the weevil. Mr. H. F. Stoke of Roanoke believes that the Illinois No. 31-4 chestnut (a hybrid) is resistant to weevil, probably because of its thick burs and closely set spines.

+3. Cultural Care.+ Chinese chestnuts benefited from pruning; it being especially important to cut away the sprouts at the bases of the trunks. Mowing weeds and brush around the trees seemed helpful. Applications of nitrate of soda stimulated more rapid growth of young trees, and in limited amounts benefited the older trees. It appears, however, that there may be a danger of overstimulation which increases the hazard of limb breakage by snow and ice, especially in the case of younger trees. The largest crops of nuts, however, were frequently produced on trees of only moderate vigor.

+4. Freezing damage to the bark of the trunks and large limbs.+ This occurred in the VPI Horticultural Department planting in 1945, when a temperature of about 17°F. occurred after the trees had started growth in the spring. This injury appeared as a darkening of the outer bark and cambium. Trees that were severely damaged became weakened and tended to sprout vigorously from the bases of their trunks. Other trees overcame a slight injury with little apparent ill-effect.

+5. Seedlings or Varieties.+ The question is whether to grow seedlings or grafted varieties. Seedlings are more easily propagated, the nursery plants less expensive, and the trees longer lived on the average; but seedling trees and nuts are quite variable. Named varieties are difficult to propagate, the nursery plants expensive, and stock-scion incompatability may occur; but the trees and nuts are uniform. Seedlings serve a useful purpose in developing new varieties; but with more planting of superior varieties and a fuller understanding of propagation methods, and of cultural care, chestnut growing on a commercial scale may be more likely to become a reality.

+Future Prospects+

For the present, at least, it appears that growing Chinese chestnuts may be limited to small specialty plantings rather than any large commercial enterprise. The trees seem well adapted to yard and back lot planting as ornamentals and to furnish the family with nuts. Also hobbyists and specialists find them to be interesting plants with which to work.

The industry is new and involves uncertainties and risks, which a commercial grower should not be expected to assume. Further study is needed to clear up the uncertainties, especially as to production costs, markets, and profits to be expected. As additional trees come into bearing over a wider area, a better understanding may be had of the economic value of these chestnuts in the various sections of the state. There is a market for high quality chestnuts, but it remains to be seen whether there will be sufficient profit with the risks involved to attract commercial growers.

+Summary+

In conclusion, the following points are to be stressed in regard to growing chestnuts in Virginia:

(1) Chinese chestnuts are adapted for home planting or for planting by hobbyists and specialists; but their commercial prospects as yet are uncertain.

(2) The trees require fertile soil with ample moisture but should not be planted in frost pockets.

(3) Weevils and blight have been the most serious pests.

(4) Seedlings serve a useful purpose in developing new varieties; but greater progress should be expected from growing superior named varieties.

(5) Additional study is needed to determine the profit prospects, to evaluate varieties, and to work out details of cultural practices, harvesting, and storage of nuts on a variety basis.

Although the chestnut blight has destroyed the native _Castanea dentata_ trees, it is hoped that breeding programs may produce a blight resistant, hardy tree, of a size that will lend itself to orchard planting and cultural practices, and which will be regularly productive of high quality nuts.

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President Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Moore.

The next thing on the program is the talk by Mr. G. S. Jones of Phenix City, Alabama, on Growing Chestnuts in Lee County, Alabama.

Growing Chinese Chestnuts in Lee County, Alabama

G. S. JONES, R.F.D. 1, Phenix City, Alabama

Ever since childhood, chestnuts have held a fascination for me. How well I remember the delightful Sunday afternoon trips we used to make in the fall up on Earkett's Hill to gather a few small nuts from some native trees which often had been burned by woods fires. I occasionally revisit this area to see these trees, which are in better condition now than then. Native chestnuts were never, to my knowledge, very abundant in our area and are now indeed scarce, but I still hear of a few living trees, some of which grow as far south as North Florida.

I first became interested in Chinese chestnuts from an article I read in the early '30's in a Department of Agriculture yearbook which I think had been written by Mr. Gravatt. This article told about these trees being introduced into this country because of their high resistance to blight. Until this time I had heard little about chestnut blight. In order to find out more about these trees I wrote Mr. Gravatt, who in reply said seedling trees were available for distribution on an experimental basis. I applied for some of these, more, I must admit, to get them to grow on our place just to have some chestnuts than with any thought of disease resistance. When these trees came in the spring of 1934 I even had some trouble in getting permission to set them in an open field near the house, for chestnuts were considered as a tree of minor importance, to be grown in some out of the way place.

These trees were set in sandy loam soil with a porous yellow subsoil in a field of medium elevation which has excellent air drainage so I have had little damage from cold injury. The soil is of fair fertility for the Upper Costal Plain area. Of the trees sent me, fourteen of the ML selection, originating, I am informed by Mr. Gravatt, from seed obtained in Anhwei Province of China, and 10 MO selection originating in Chekiang Province were set in my orchard. Only two of these failed to survive, leaving a total of twenty-two. These were cultivated with the field crops, mostly cotton and corn, and I must admit didn't have much individual attention for several years. I even left the side branches to minimize injury from the mule and plow used in cultivation. Some leaves and trash were put around them at times and they received some benefit from the fertilizer of the row crops. I mention this to show that my chestnuts grew quite well though only moderately fertilized, but receiving good cultivation while young. I might mention that I set two trees in stiff Piedmont clay soil a few miles above here, to try them under woodland conditions. These have never done well, although one had burs but I found no nuts. Other trees which I observe have not been given cultivation grow very slowly, although I have not seen any tried on what I would consider _good_ woodland areas.