MONDAY AFTERNOON SESSION (continued 2)

Ten miles east of my home, east of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the granitic, very heavy clay soil of what we call the Piedmont down there, I have a planting that was made 15 years ago of filberts, some on their own roots and some that I grew on the Turkish tree hazel stocks. Those grew well, and the main advantage was they put up no suckers. You had a nice clean trunk, and you didn't have that problem of getting rid of the sprouts all the time. And it looked very good for a while.

I find where you graft that way, the stocks get old and do not renew themselves, and eventually the life will be shorter than if you had a shrub that might last for a century, when you are renewing your stalks when they reach maturity and cease to grow enough to be productive.

Two years ago I had most of the standard varieties you mentioned here in that planting, about three-quarters or perhaps an acre planted in between chestnut trees. Planted the chestnut trees 40 feet apart and then interplanted with the filberts at 20 feet. Two years ago we had an unusually wet season, and the blight, of which I had had some before, hit hard and virtually ruined the whole planting. And in addition to that, we have leaf miner. It's an insect that lays a tiny egg in the leaf and develops a little larva or worm that eats out the chlorophyll between the two membranes of the leaf, just hollows it out and makes unsightly spots in there and, of course, kills that portion of the leaf. But the blight, known as the eastern filbert blight, according to Mr. Gravatt, has just ruined that planting. Some of the trees have been killed outright, and most of the tops are either dead or dying. This year the blight wasn't apparently active on the living part, because it was very dry up until the first of August, and since then it's been very wet. That's what happened to my filberts there.

Now, in that same location I have some younger, second-generation or third-generation plantings that I grew from scions from the Jones hybrids and so far those have not been attacked by the blight and not much by the leaf miner. I used them to replace some of the others that had died several years ago, so they are right in there together. About the best I have of those are also on exhibit out there and marked as the Jones Hybrid.

At the same time I put out some seedling Colurna or the Turkish tree hazel in that same plot. They were attacked somewhat but not badly by the blight. Today you'd never know they had any blight. They look healthy, and as has already been said, they make a beautiful tree. And if you want an avenue of trees on a drive that don't spread too wide and run up like Lombardi poplar, they'll beat Lombardi poplar all to pieces. And if you crowd them a little, they will grow up like a spire and retain their branches, so you really have a tree.

There was one in the J. F. Jones yard at Lancaster that I think was at least 14 inches in trunk diameter 20 years ago when I saw it. Do you know whether that is still there at the Jones place, that Turkish tree hazel, Mrs. Weber?

MRS. WEBER: Where is it located?

MR. STOKE: It's right near the house, it seems to me between the house and the side near the barn.

DR. MCKAY: Mr. Stoke, that tree is gone. We were there last fall.

MR. STOKE: But it was a very nice tree, and for shade it's very nice. The Manchurian hazel has been spoken of, and I might mention that, because I have dabbled in everything, I guess. I got seed from the University of Nanking along with some other things, and those seedlings were quite variable. The nuts compared rather favorably with the American hazel. Some were thick-shelled, but they will average almost as good as the American hazel, and they bore quite freely for me until I let the bushes get right thick. They will send out suckers and make a very spreading growth. If you dig them out and leave a piece of root in the ground, it will come up just like sassafras or persimmon will on that piece of root. But it is an attractive bush, and mine has a reddish-brown little spot in the middle of the leaf in most cases. It seems to be characteristic of that strain that I have. The nuts were quite variable and, as I say, they bore right well until I let them get too thick. I believe that's all.

MR. SLATE: I neglected to answer your question, Dr. Colby, but the squirrels have not been much of a problem with our filberts at Geneva, strange as it may seem. They have never taken a very high percentage of the crop. We have a Lancaster heartnut, and they clean up every nut on that tree every year before the end of August.

I'd like to comment on this matter of the name of Halle's Giant, I think you called it. I think the name is Halle, the German town where the variety originated. I prefer the name Halle, because calling it Hall's Giant is more or less a sign its origin is a man named Hall.

MR. STOKE: In some catalogs it is one way and some the other.

MR. SLATE: We have other items on the program tonight, and as the Latin student said, "Tempus is fugiting very fast," so I think we had better turn the meeting back to Dr. MacDaniels.

PRESIDENT MACDANIELS: The next two talks have slides to be shown, and it is suggested that you take about ten minutes, take a stretch and then come back when the slide projector is set up.

My Experiences With Chinese Chestnuts

W. J. WILSON, Fort Valley, Ga.

When I was asked to appear on this program to tell my experiences as a grower of chestnuts, I felt like a child, appearing before a group of grown-ups to tell them how to make marriage succeed. When I see the sages of chestnut knowledge seated before me I realize that I can only relate my experiences and ask your advice.

My father was a pioneer peach and pecan grower; he loved trees and has told me time after time that if I ever made more than just a living, farming, it would have to come from trees, not row crops. He was what I would call a self-educated man. He had small chance of formal education, being the sickly son, one of eight sons and three daughters, of a couple who eked out an existence on the poor, unproductive, sandy, soils of Crawford County, Georgia, growing the one and only cash crop of those days, cotton. The combined wages of these boys often amounted to more cash money than their own cotton crop returned because the supplier got most of the money from their own crop. They helped neighbors pick out their cotton crops after finishing their own. Grandfather must have liked to experiment in his limited way. Each spring as Grandfather would plant his small patch of Spanish peanuts and yellow corn, Grandmother would tongue-lash him, saying, 'so long as you fool away your time with Spanish peanuts and yellow corn you will remain a poor man. Time has proven Grandfather right and Grandmother wrong. Spanish peanuts is a huge industry; most of our hybrid corns, which have added millions of bushels to our yields are yellow.

My father wasted his time back at the turn of the century planting a peach orchard on his best cotton land. He planted pecans each winter, beginning about 1912, often to the ribbing of friends who still worshipped at the feet of King Cotton. One told him that he had a pecan tree or two about his home and the damn flying squirrels ate all of the nuts. Another told him that if he wanted a load of stove wood he would just as soon cut down a pecan tree as any other kind. At his death in 1942, my father had planted six hundred acres of pecan orchards, each acre having been interplanted with peaches, to produce income while the pecans were reaching bearing age.

I give you this background so that you may better understand my attitude toward chestnut growing. The scale on which I have set out on chestnut growing I know to some of you will seem rather bold or foolhardy.

About ten years ago I found that the U. S. D. A. Pecan Experiment Station at Albany, Georgia had a small chestnut orchard. Max Hardy, was doing the chestnut work and was so much interested in them that I caught fire and have been burning ever since. When I found that the harvest came between the peach harvest and the pecan harvest it fitted right into my kind of farming. The fact, that it was a possible tree crop made chestnut growing still more attractive to me. Max suggested that I join the N. N. G. A. when I complained that I couldn't find much information on chestnuts. I attended my first convention at Norris. I have tried to make most of them since that time. Of all the discussions at the Norris meeting, the one that stuck in my mind was whether nurseries should recommend seedlings or grafted trees. I thought then, and still think, that for commercial production one must have varieties, because seedlings are so variable. I believe, that when, chestnut growing comes of age, the major part of the production will go through processing plants. It will be a great advantage to have nuts of uniform quality and size, which is and will be impossible with seedlings.

Of the fifteen trees that I planted in 1946, only one fruited in 1951. It bore only 3-1/4 pounds of nuts. The other fourteen did not fruit. This year there are a few scattering burs at seven years of age, on those that I did not graft this spring. I am now too old to wait seven or eight years for a chestnut tree to begin bearing. These trees came from a Virginia nursery. The trees I planted in 1947, I started grafting in 1950, to Nanking, Meiling, and Kuling, and finished this spring, except for a few replants. I also grafted ten trees in 1950 to Abundance. These tops bore the second year, several bearing good burs the same year the scions were set. These grafted trees are anxious to go to work, because they bloom in the spring and again in late July and early August. I have used the in-lay bark, modified cleft, the cleft, and what I call a saddle graft, bevelling two sides of the stock and splitting the scion, thus slipping the split scion down over the prepared stock. I have had equally good take on all types of grafts used. In 1948 I planted two hundred seedlings bought from Max Hardy, grown from seed from the Experiment Station orchard. I believe the production record of this orchard has been given to this convention at previous meetings. You will recall that the off-type trees were rogued, leaving the parent trees of Nanking, Kuling and Meiling and others of good bearing habits. In 1951 four trees out of this lot, were outstanding in precocity. The earliest started dropping nuts the fifteenth of August and bore 7-1/4 pounds. The next matured September 5th and produced 8-1/2 pounds. The third tree is unusual. I noticed it the 4th of October. The ground was covered with nuts, but only an occasional bur. All of the burs were wide open and still on the tree. The crop weighed 6-1/2 pounds. The fourth tree I found on the 5th of October with all of its nuts on the ground, the tree retaining the burs. The yield of this tree was 4-1/2 pounds. Mind you, this was the fourth summer after planting. These trees have repeated this year with another good heavy crop. The other trees in this block bore from none to one or two pounds of nuts in 1951. This year less than ten trees in the block are not bearing. Next spring these ten will be growing new tops, because their present tops are not satisfactory. I noticed that one tree in this block bloomed long after the rest this spring, several weeks in fact. It might have possibilities in northern areas because of its late blooming.

Of the eleven hundred trees planted in 1950, one bore nuts in 1951. I didn't know it until this spring, when I was pruning the trees in this block, and found nuts on the ground under this tree. It is bearing a good crop this year for its size and age. There are a number of these trees bearing this year. Dr. Crane in a hurried inspection of these trees this summer thought those trees bearing were offspring of a certain tree in the Philema orchard.

I do not give my chestnut trees special care. They are fertilized and cultivated the same as young peach orchards. We try to bring in a peach orchard the third summer, with enough fruit to make it worth spraying. I see no reason to wait seven or eight years to get a chestnut orchard into bearing. If you will keep down competition from weeds, cultivate frequently, and give the tree plenty of nitrogen you will be surprised at the growth it will make. I set the trees twenty-four feet each way, with the idea of thinning later when they begin to crowd. In this way I will get higher acre yields in the early years. When they reach maturity I will have them thinned down to forty-eight feet each way. As they reach heavy bearing the rate of growth will slow down and I will adjust the nitrogen to keep them from becoming too vegetative.

So far the only insects that have bothered me are caterpillars that ordinarily feed on wild maypops, or passion flowers. These caterpillars will defoliate a tree. The only tree that I have lost from winter-killing was one defoliated by the caterpillars early last fall. It may become necessary for me to spray for these worms if they become too plentiful.

I do not come before you as an authority on chestnut growing. I feel that to force myself to do my best I should plant enough trees to make me find out how to handle them. In the rush and bustle of peach and pecan growing if I had only a few chestnut trees I might decide that not much was involved, and neglect the chestnuts. I know that with two thousand trees already planted and some of them bearing I am going to make a great effort to make the project profitable. I have decided that chestnut growing has possibilities as a tree crop in my section, and is worth my time and effort. I know there are many problems ahead, but so did my father when he planted peaches and pecans many years ago. I am still meeting new problems with them each year. Problems go hand in hand with the fruit and nut business. It is the fellow who is willing to try to work them out who has a chance to profit. If I wait until all the problems are solved I will never grow chestnuts. The day that I decide that I know all the answers about growing peaches, pecans or chestnuts, is the day I start going broke. I have been badly bent several times while I was struggling to find an answer. Each year starts full of hope, with visions of a nice fat bank balance when the jobs are all done. Then the problems start and if I can lick enough of them, I come through with the right to see if I can't do a still better job next year, despite the risks of too much rain, not enough rain, hail, insects and diseases.

I have found that each year from 15 to 50 million pounds of chestnuts are imported from Europe. The same blight that destroyed our native chestnuts, is going full tilt in Italy and other European countries. If the blight runs its course as it did in this country, it will not be many years until we will not have chestnuts from Europe. I am going to grow some to fill this gap. In 1950 Dr. McKay sent me eight trees, four Meiling, two Nanking, two Kuling. Two Meiling and two Nanking to be planted together, two Meiling and two Kuling together. Each combination to be isolated so that the nuts produced would be of known crosses. These trees bloomed this spring and two of them set a few burs. Next year I hope to turn over to Dr. McKay nuts from these trees to be planted, and grown to fruiting age. I now have about one hundred and sixty grafted trees. I intend to fruit my seedlings with the hope that among them I will find trees superior enough to be given variety status. I will then top-work the rest to varieties. At present I intend to plant more trees each winter until I have at least one hundred acres of orchards. If and when the weevil moves in I will have the equipment on hand to spray, using the same equipment on peaches or pecans.

I would like to see this Association ask that more research on chestnut production be done by the U. S. D. A. It will not be done until we ask for it. The men in the department are not in position to do much asking for additional funds. It is the responsibility of groups like the N. N. G. A. and the Southeastern Chestnut Grower's Association. We are in need of more breeding and selection of new, and better adapted varieties. We need processing research, marketing research, and research in the field of production. We are not going to get it done until we insist on it good and strong.

This spring, at Fort Valley, Georgia, the Southeastern Chestnut Grower's Association was formed. We hold our convention in March and will be glad to have everyone interested in chestnut growing, marketing, processing or research, attend our convention. I think in time this organization will want to become affiliated with the N. N. G. A., to the mutual benefit of both. I will be glad to have any of you visit my orchards and show me how to grow chestnuts, I am constantly searching for information.

PRESIDENT MACDANIELS: We thank Mr. Wilson very much for his talk, and we think it does take a lot of courage to embark on an experiment of that kind.

In view of the lateness of the hour, unless somebody objects, we will adjourn until tomorrow morning at 8:30.

At 9:40 o'clock, p.m., the meeting adjourned.