Dr. Walter Van Fleet, Glendale, Maryland

Our breeding work with chestnuts began as far back as 1894 when pistillate blooms of the Paragon variety, then a novelty just coming into use, were dusted with pollen from a native sweet chestnut bearing good-sized nuts. The Paragon stigma were protected from the influence of other pollen by bagging and gave a good set of fruits. The idea was to improve the quality of the Paragon nuts even at the expense of size. The resulting seedlings were grown at Little Silver, New Jersey, and rapidly ran up into good-sized trees, coming into bearing twelve years later. In fruit and tree characters they proved a complete blend of the parent species, the nuts being double the size of the wild parent and of sweet, rich quality. The trees were very shapely and bid fair to become extremely productive but a year or two later were all attacked by the dreaded blight or bark disease, then spreading from its original starting point in Long Island. The work of destruction was very rapid and by the third year all were hopelessly crippled, but a few individuals continued to send up suckers as late as 1916.

The success of this pollination experiment encouraged the writer to attempt breeding the dwarf early-bearing chinquapin with the large-fruited foreign varieties in the hope of securing hybrids with nuts of fair size and good quality that might come quickly into bearing. As the chinquapin does not naturally grow in Northern New Jersey, and plants were rarely offered by nurserymen, recourse was had to growing them from seed and a quantity of newly collected nuts were furnished by a friend in Washington in 1899. It required three years time to bring the seedlings into fruit and it was not until 1903 that a start was actually made in the work of hybridization. A selection was made of a compact dwarf bush that bore very sweet nuts of a good size for the species and gave promise, which was later fulfilled, of becoming very prolific. The male, or staminate tassels were carefully removed each day before maturity and, to ward off undesired foreign pollen, a cloth tent was used to cover the bush in addition to bagging many of the flowering branches. Pollen for crossing was secured from Paragon and Numbo, of the European species, and of several named varieties of Japan chestnut including Parry's Giant, Killen and Hale, and in addition a few blooms were intentionally fertilized with pollen from local sweet chestnut trees. Nearly one hundred hybrid seedlings resulted from the work in two succeeding seasons, some of which came into bearing in 1908, just as the Endothia blight began to invade New Jersey. The hybrids between the chinquapins and native and European chestnuts were quickly infected, but those with Japan varieties appeared far more resistant. All work with the susceptible native and Europeans ceased, but crosses with Japans and the Chinese chestnut, Castanea Molissima, have been continued until now there are over eight hundred in existence. In late years we have used the Southern creeping chinquapin, C. alnifolia, as a seed parent to some extent, as it appears more resistant than the common species, C. pumila, though it cannot be considered immune. The southern chinquapin is hardy in the North, bears good-sized, sweet nuts for its type, but is very late in ripening.

The Rush chinquapin, and other large-fruited, tall growing varieties have also been used to some extent. The resulting hybrids make handsome trees of rapid growth and bear profuse crops of very attractive nuts, but are greatly injured by blight. As experience accumulated it was found that the extreme caution used in the earlier trials to keep out foreign pollen were scarcely needed and that merely covering the pistillate blooms as soon as they could be distinguished with cotton batting is all that is necessary, and also that hybrids may be produced with considerable certainty in open pollination if the tree or branch is kept entirely free from staminate tassels and the selected pollen is promptly applied as soon as the stigmas become receptive.

Quite a number of chance or self-pollinated seedlings from choice hybrids have been raised in the hope that their good qualities might be perpetuated and the trouble and expense of grafting largely obviated but, as with most other hybrids between distinct species, the seedlings lacked sufficient uniformity to be of especial value. A few individuals turned out superior to the parent but on the whole degeneracy, from the nut-producers standpoint, appears among seedlings of hybrid chestnuts.

In 1909 the unfruited chinquapin hybrids, 68 in number, were transferred to Arlington Farm, Virginia, and two years later Bell Experiment Plot was established near Glendale, Maryland, largely for the purpose of developing blight-resistant varieties of chestnuts as far as this can be done by breeding and testing of wild forms. There are now over 2000 hybrids and seedlings of species at Bell ranging from one to ten years of age. Of the original trees planted at Arlington about 20 remain. They have formed handsome trees twenty feet high with tops almost as wide in diameter and have borne many profuse crops of nuts mostly of good quality and from three to six times as large and heavy as those of the parent chinquapin. All have been attacked by blight, the most promising one only this spring, after thirteen years of resistance to this virulent disease. All the hybrids carrying blood of native or European chestnuts were quickly killed, but those with the Japanese species as a pollen parent are still growing vigorously and bearing well, though considerably disfigured by blight.

Of the various species used the native sweet chestnut, Castanea Americana, and the European, C. vesca, appear entirely useless in breeding for disease resistance, as the hybrids are destroyed by the blight fungus as soon as, or even before, they reach bearing age. The tall, or tree, forms of native chinquapin, sometimes grouped under the botanical name of Castanea arborea but which appear to be only natural hybrids between the sweet chestnut and the bush chinquapin, may also be regarded as useless for the purpose. The hybrid progeny show slight powers of recuperation but, in our plantings, do not sufficiently recover to make useful trees. The Rush chinquapin sometimes resists infection under natural conditions for several years but quickly succumbs when attacked, but its hybrid seedlings develop practically no resistance. The common bush or dwarf chinquapin, Castanea pumila, widely distributed over the Atlantic States, is not as readily infected by blight as the chestnut, many individuals under cultivation and in the wild resisting attack for an indefinite time, while the creeping species of Florida and South Georgia, C. alnifolia, appear practically immune in nature but succumb to artificial inoculation with the blight virus The smooth bark and shrubby forms of these dwarf chinquapins probably account to a very great extent for the limited damage caused by blight under natural conditions.

Next in degree of resistance comes the wooly-twigged Chinese chestnut, C. molissima. There are established at Bell Experiment Plot over nine hundred Molissima trees grown from nuts collected near Tien-Tsin, China, in 1911. These trees in their eighth year of growth have borne excellent nuts, rather larger than those of our native species, in some quantity for three successive years though, owing to extensive locust injury last season, there is practically no crop this year. The trees average twelve or more feet high and are thrifty growers when not too greatly afflicted by blight. No summary of disease injury has been taken, but probably over 80 per cent of the trees show infection many of which are making attempts to heal which are often very successful. This species is native to Eastern China and has long been accustomed to the Endothia fungus, developing in the course of time a very considerable degree of resistance to it. From present appearances the Chinese chestnut may be grown in orchard form with no greater loss from disease than the pear from its particular form of blight. It hybridizes well with the Japan chestnut and both of the dwarf chinquapins, but this progeny is not yet sufficiently developed to warrant judgment.

Castanea crenata, the familiar Japan chestnut, appears everywhere to show greater blight resistance than any other species that has been tried out and is therefore the most hopeful parent to be used for developing a useful race of disease-resistant hybrids and cross-breeds. It has the further merit of bearing very profuse crops of large nuts at an early age, but they are often lacking in quality, being usually harsh to the taste in the raw state though palatable when cooked. A few varieties bear well-flavored nuts, but these appear to be hybrids with our native species and are notably less resistant to blight. Pure Japan varieties grown from imported nuts are rarely injured by blight, and by many are regarded as immune, but those grown from nuts produced in situations exposed to the effects of native pollen are occasionally attacked and even killed outright by the Endothia fungus. It has considerable power to transmit its resisting qualities to its hybrids with the chinquapins, and a few individuals among the latter appear to retain resistance to such a degree that we may yet find among them some of the best nut-producing chestnut varieties of the future.

From the purely horticultural standpoint these hybrids between chinquapins and chestnut species must be considered as most striking successes. If this terribly destructive disease, probably the most virulent that afflicts any tree in the temperate climate, could be controlled there would be little need to look further for varieties suited for commercial and home culture, some of which can be as readily grown as peach trees and come into bearing as young. As the situation stands we must search further for individuals that combine good cropping capacity with practical disease-resistance.

At this writing the most promising outlook appears among selected seedlings of pure Crenata blood, or hybrids of this species that have again been pollinated with resistant Japan varieties. There are at Bell many seedlings of both these types of great attractiveness and promise.

Five successive generations of selected Crenata seedlings have been grown since 1904, quite a number producing their first nuts the year succeeding germination. This unusual precocity is no indication of merit, as it tends to stunt the trees. The most promising individuals seldom bear until three or four years old by which time the trees have attained fair size. No high quality has yet been attained among the nuts of the pure strains, but it is quite evident where there is a dash of chinquapin blood. The nuts are, however, large, attractive and excellent for cooking or roasting, and moreover, ripen uniformly in September and early October, practically without the aid of frost. As opportunities for natural infection lessen from the dying out of our stands of native chestnut the Oriental chestnuts and their hybrids will be more extensively planted and may experience little difficulty in combating disease. Owing to the readiness with which seedlings can be grown abundant new varieties will arise in time, even though they do not now exist, that will meet all reasonable requirements of the planter and it is to be anticipated that the production of edible chestnuts will at no distant day be placed on a stable basis.

Aside from its usefulness as a nut tree the value of our stand of native chestnuts, though already half destroyed, can scarcely be estimated. Every one knows the ease with which a healthy chestnut woodland reproduces itself by sprouts and the extreme value of its timber for posts, telegraph and telephone poles, for furniture and for tanning extracts, now made from both bark and wood. We scarcely have a forest tree as useful, but if some natural handicap, not yet in sight, does not stay the spread of the blight fungus, our much valued chestnuts appear to be doomed. A few small colonies of diseased, but living sweet chestnut trees, numbering scarcely fifty, have been located in New York City parks and neighboring localities in Long Island, carrying infection at least eighteen years old, where the accompanying stands have completely vanished. This affords the single ray of hope amid the otherwise complete destruction marking the spread of blight. In the hope that the marked resistance shown by these scarred veterans can be transmitted seedlings have been raised and scions established at Bell from the most promising individuals, and on this slender chance for perpetuating this prized species in its native habitat we must, for the present, rest content.

Recently there has been brought to light in the interior of China a chestnut species that may restore our timber production of this most desirable wood if it should prove immune to disease. Unlike other Old World chestnuts, which form relatively small trees, this species, known as Castanea Vilmoriniana, grows eighty to one hundred feet high with a straight, symmetrical trunk well adapted for all timber uses. The nuts, according to the scant herbarium material that has reached this country, are of little consequence, except for propagation as they are only slightly larger than those of our wild chinquapins. This species is now established at the Arnold Arboretum near Boston, Massachusetts, and scions worked on C. Molissima stocks are now vigorously growing at Bell Experiment Plot, making fine upright shoots. The reaction of C. Vilmoriniana to blight has not been tested owing to the scarcity of material in this country, but it is fervently to be hoped that the species will resist the disease. No infections have occurred in several years exposure either at Boston or at Bell. Should the much desired resistance be established rapid propagation of the species by seed and scions, and an extended test for forestry purposes, would be in order.

The breeding experiments at Bell must be regarded as about the only constructive attempt in existence to replace a most highly prized nut and timber that is being swept from the face of the earth. Unless unforseen natural conditions should stay the ravages of blight our chestnut stands will vanish, most likely within the view of the present generation. Although our progress in finding and developing blight-resistants is not as striking as might be hoped something has been accomplished, and the idea of salvaging useful nut and timber chestnuts from available material and developing better ones than now exist should not be abandoned.

The President: Unless other action is desired this interesting paper will be received and recorded in the proceedings.

Mr. T. P. Littlepage: Mr. President, Members of the Association. I will attempt in a few words to give you some suggestions about your afternoon rambles. There will be a special car assigned exclusively to the nut growers on the tracks at 14th St. and New York Avenue at 12:45, which will take you to Bell Station where you will see Dr. Van Fleet's roses and chestnut orchard. A short walk from there is the old place of Judge Gabriel Duvall, a former Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, member of Congress and a great friend of Thomas Jefferson. The unpublished manuscripts of Jefferson show that he took to Judge Duvall a bundle of "paccan" trees, as he called them. Jefferson was one of our great horticulturists and gave the first complete botanical classification of the pecan. Those three big trees that Jefferson gave Judge Duvall are growing out there today and from them are scores of other small trees. I was very much surprised when I read these notes of Jefferson and in looking through Washington's dairy about the same time I read where he said that Thomas Jefferson gave him a bundle of "paccan" trees. Now those of you who are to visit Mount Vernon on this trip look and you will find that three of the most beautiful trees there are pecan trees. Two of them this year have nuts on them one with a rather full crop and one with a light crop. They are undoubtedly the western or northern pecan. They show that in the character of the nuts and bark. When Jefferson was over in Paris he wrote to his friend Hopkins to send him a box of pecans and told him to send them in sand. Those of you who are going to Paris next summer look around and you may find some of Thomas Jefferson's pecan trees. It was perfectly apparent that he wanted those nuts for planting.

After visiting at Bell Station we will take the car up to my place where there really is not much to see. I have thirty acres there of northern pecan trees, twelve acres two years old and they run all the way up to six years of age. Most of the six-year old trees this year set pecans which dropped off about the middle of the summer. They were all full of catkins. One Busseron tree had fifty pecans on it and a number of Major and Butterick trees had pecans but I do not believe they stuck. I had a Stuart which had a sprinkling of pecans on it and they also fell off. I can show you how not to grow trees. Some of them had no care whatever and some had pretty fair care. You can see dead chestnut trees up there showing that the blight is as bad as Dr. Van Fleet says. We find where they stand in the woods for ten years surrounded by trees with the blight and do not blight and the next year die. So the fact that a tree stands in a nursery row and does not blight does not indicate anything. The only hope we have is the work Dr. Van Fleet is doing.

The President: Upon the same subject we will be glad to hear from Professor Close.

Professor Close: I will just take a few minutes in telling some of the things I have been trying to do at home. My work is necessarily on a very small scale. I am away from home so much of the time that some things I start I cannot follow through properly. In grafting, for instance, I get the grafting done as I can do it from time to time in the spring and then I have to leave on a Government trip and am not at home to take care of the growing grafts as I would like to be. While my extension work for the Government is primarily connected with fruit I look into nut work as much as possible. Dr. Van Fleet has given me a number of hybrid chinkapins and this year three of them have fruited for the first time, one being of fairly good size. I have a couple of Japan walnut trees and the surprising thing is that although they were planted in 1910 they are fruiting this year for the first time. Usually those trees begin bearing very early. They have grown rapidly, are probably twenty feet high and have a breadth of equal distance but have been disappointing in that they have been so late in fruiting.

Mr. Littlepage. Do they winter-kill any?

Professor Close: No, they have not winter-killed at all. One was supposed to be a heart nut but both are Sieboldianas. I think the most satisfactory and interesting thing I have is one of these large filberts or hazel nuts. It is a pretty good size for an eastern-grown nut. This is a seedling from New Jersey. I received the scions four years ago and was successful in having three or four of them live and last year they produced for the first time, three years from the graft. They are well filled and of pretty good quality. I have them grafted on some bushes of European type secured from a nursery about 1910, and which until grafted did not fruit at all. After the grafts began blooming last year these bushes have been producing nuts of small size. While the nuts are small they are right interesting.

In connection with the blight resistant chestnuts I will say that last Friday I visited Mr. John Killen of Felton, Delaware. Some of you know that Mr. Killen has been working with nuts for a good many years and has many very interesting things there. He finds that the blight has taken everything except his Japanese seedlings and here (showing specimens) are specimens of two of the Japanese seedlings. This you see is a very large nut. I presume the tree must be twenty years old or more. It is productive and he says it is commercially successful, which means that it blights a little but not very seriously. He has another seedling, a smaller one, that is up to the present time absolutely blight proof. He has planted twenty-five or thirty pounds of these nuts for growing trees for sale and he believes that the seedling from this parent tree will be absolutely free from blight. You will be interested to know that up to the time I was there last Friday he had shipped seven hundred pounds of chestnuts and was receiving twenty-five cents a pound wholesale.

Mr. Littlepage: What is the variety?

Professor Close: They are all seedlings. In fact all of his varieties are dead. He has nothing but seedlings.

Mr. Littlepage: Has that been called to Dr. Van Fleet's attention?

Professor Close: Not that I know of. I doubt if Dr. Van Fleet has seen this blight proof one. I will be glad to tell him about them when I have an opportunity. Mr. Killen has one Japan walnut tree that is interesting. It must be 25 or 30 years old. I do not know where he got it. One limb we measured extends out 36 feet. The limbs on the other side of the tree are not quite so long but the tree is nearly 70 feet in diameter. Two years ago he sold the crop for $54.00, and he thinks he will get more this year. He has contracted the crop to a nurseryman. Mr. Killen has quite a number of seedling Persian walnuts and some of them, perhaps all, blight more or less. He is very much exercised over the blight. He worries more over this than he does over the chestnut blight.

Mr. Littlepage: Does the blight attack the nuts or the twigs?

Professor Close: Both but mostly it attacks the nuts. At Beltsville 4 miles north of College Park there is one of the best seedling walnuts I have run across. It fruits every year and sometimes a part of the crop is injured by blight.

Mr. Pomeroy: The husks turn black?

Professor Close: Yes.

Mr. Pomeroy: That is not blight; that is a fly injury

Professor Close: Mr. Killen thinks that this year he partially controlled walnut blight with Bordeaux spray. One particular tree stands near where the spray tank was filled and one side of it was sprayed every time the spray rig passed it. The nuts from the sprayed side were really better than those from the other side.

Just below Dover, Delaware, at Woodside, I was at Mr. Sam Derby's place last Saturday and found something very valuable in the line of Persian walnuts, I think one of the best I have seen at all in the East. One particular tree was purchased for a Franquette but it is not. It probably is a Mayette seedling. Some of the men who tested the samples think this was one of the most desirable they had seen in the East. Mr. Derby bought about a dozen trees eight or nine years ago from some nurseryman. The trees are not alike in shape and size of nuts. They evidently are from the same bunch of seedlings but were sold for Franquette and Mayette. They are probably all Mayette seedlings.

Now, coming back to College Park, four years ago Mr. Littlepage was good enough to give me some pecan scions which I grafted into a seedling tree in a neighbor's chicken yard. The grafts practically all lived and last year, three years from the graft, about a dozen Major nuts were produced. These are probably the first Major pecans produced in Maryland. This year the Busseron and Major grafts bloomed but we had so many late frosts that the blossoms were killed and now there are only two Major nuts on the tree. My own trees are not old enough to bloom except one Mantura which bloomed this year but did not set fruit. I presume it was largely due to the late frosts.

In the fall of 1910 Professor Lake gave me some buds of Persian walnut and I put three buds into a young black walnut tree. During the following February we had a drop in temperature to 25 below zero, something almost unknown in this section of the country, but two of the buds lived through it. After growth started in the spring I cut one out and the other grew into a tree which produced three nuts in 1915. My area for nut trees is small so I am planting pecans, black and Persian walnuts, and hickory twenty feet apart with the idea of keeping them pruned. I have ten varieties of pecans and several of walnuts. Between these I have chinkapins and hazelnuts. There are eight or ten varieties of hazels and about sixty seedlings for grafting later on.

Mr. Littlepage: Did the young pecan trees bloom.

Professor Close: Only the Mantura and it must be about ten years old.

Mr. Littlepage: What kind of bloom?

Professor Close: Both kinds.

Dr. Morris: Which hazels are these?

Professor Close: They were undoubtedly European.

Dr. Morris: I think that is a very important point. Some time ago I said that our wild hazel drove the cows out of the pasture. It is a worthless weed with us in Connecticut and it is an important thing for us to transform our hazel pasture lands that are full of thickets of this weed over into good bearing propositions. I grafted a lot of hazelnut bushes with European scions. There are Chinese hazelnut trees that grow to be more than a hundred feet in height and six feet in trunk diameter. The Jacquemont goes to one hundred feet, and the Colurna frequently grows to fifty feet. I believe it is going to be a very important matter to top work these large kinds of hazel trees which do not send runners out from the root and which are not inclined to send large suckers up from the stock. So the kind of stock upon which hazels are to be grafted is a very important matter for nurserymen. But we can also use the worthless pasture bushes profitably.

The President: In order that we may keep the business of our program up to the minute we should complete the naming of the Nominating Committee. In order to quickly bring it about and in order that all may have a voice in the matter I would suggest that five be nominated from the floor for the positions, that the nominations then close and that the Secretary cast the ballot for the members of the nominating committee.

The names suggested were: Mr. Olcott, Mr. Littlepage, Dr. Morris, Mr. Reed and Professor Close.

The nominations closed and the Secretary cast the ballot for the above named persons.

The President: We still have a few minutes and might take up the proposed changes in the constitution that were suggested at the Battle Creek meeting almost one year ago. I will request Mr. Bixby to state to you what the proposed changes are.

The Secretary: At the meeting at Battle Creek last November notice was given for proposed changes in the constitution, as follows.

At this meeting it was voted that Article IV, OFFICERS, be presented to the members at the next meeting for the purpose of voting on a change to read:

There shall be a President, a Vice-President, a Treasurer and a Secretary, who shall be elected at the annual meeting; an Executive Committee of six persons of which the President, the last two retiring Presidents, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary shall be members. There shall be a state Vice-President from each state, dependency or country represented in the membership of the Association who shall be appointed by the President.

Article VII. QUORUM, to be changed to read:

Ten members shall constitute a quorum but must include two of the four elected officers.

By Laws:

Article III. MEMBERSHIP—All annual memberships shall begin either with the first day of the calendar quarter following the date of joining the Association, or with the first day of the calendar quarter preceding that date as may be arranged between the new member and the Treasurer.

The Secretary: I make a motion that the changes in the constitution as read be acted upon now.

Professor Close: I second the motion.

Mr. Foster: May I offer a suggestion in connection with the proposed change. It is relatively an immaterial one and I presume will be included. As a member here from the District of Columbia I think the District of Columbia should be included with the states.

The Secretary: I think that has been done. Grouped among the states appears the District of Columbia.

The Acting Secretary: That is, you would have the words "District of Columbia" inserted in connection with state, dependency or country?

The Secretary: I accept that.

The change in the constitution, as recommended, was carried.

Mr. Littlepage: As we have another minute or two there is one matter that we might dispose of. There was a committee appointed once upon a time on incorporation. It was thought by some of the members that if this association were incorporated, making it thereby a perpetual, tangible organization, it might be to its advantage. There might be some man who would be good enough to bequeath some funds to the Association for investigational work. As we are just a voluntary organization without any particular responsibility, it was thought by some that an incorporation would be desirable. I was appointed as a member of the corporative committee. The committee consisted of Mr. Webber of Ohio, and I do not recall the other member but Mr. Webber and I had several conferences. It seems to me that perhaps the best and most feasible way would be to incorporate under the laws of the District of Columbia. The code of the District of Columbia provides for incorporations of this kind for educational, scientific and benevolent purposes at a very nominal expense. For commercial corporations they must, of course, have a capital stock and ten per cent of it must be paid in in cash, but there is no such requirement under the code of the District of Columbia for scientific and benevolent corporations. There is a provision in the code for an incorporation of this kind by having the proper articles drawn up, setting forth the purpose of the organization, its line of work and its membership, naming for the time being three trustees, two of which at that particular time must be residents of the District of Columbia, and filing those articles with the Recorder of Deeds. It is approved and that becomes the charter. The Association is then a body corporate with all of the rights and privileges of any other organization of that kind.

A great many organizations have been formed in the District of Columbia under that provision of the code. It seems to me about as simple and as comprehensive as any of the laws of any of the states, and about as free from any burdens or obligations of reports or matters of that kind. If it is the sense of this meeting, and I think you have quite a representative membership here, that this organization be so incorporated I shall take pleasure, after this meeting, in drafting proper papers, presenting them to some of the members for signature and perfecting a corporation.

The President: That seems to be an excellent suggestion.

Dr. Morris: I move that this recommendation be adopted.

Mr. Foster: I second the motion.

The motion was carried.

The convention adjourned at 12 o'clock.