talian red,
Barcelona x purple aveline, Barcelona x Cosford, Barcelona x Italian
red, Rush x Kentish Cob, and Barcelona x various other types. The better
sorts of hazelnuts have been used in this project to familiarize the
farmers with them so that they will have an incentive to grow something
valuable in fencerows. We have found that most farmers will not listen
to the argument of growing anything in fencerows purely for the benefit
of wildlife. By using a more subtle, convincing, and practical approach,
we are convinced that success will be attained and that wildlife will be
benefitted in the end.

In addition to these projects which are of a statewide nature, the
Division of Conservation owns some 14,000 acres of game lands on which
experimental plantings of nut trees have been made. From plantings of
Chinese chestnuts established in 1941, we are now beginning to realize
definite returns. On the Zaleski State forest game area, one of these
trees, now about 6 feet high, is bearing 21 burs this year. In
connection with a squirrel research problem, one of our field men,
Robert Butterfield, is carrying on some experiments in fertilizing nut
and other trees which should yield some very valuable information. I
recently saw a plot of Castanea mollissima which had been treated with a
33-1/2% nitrogen fertilizer. Planted on poor, acid, eroded soils in the
hill country, these have barely survived. After treatment, the yellow,
stunted foliage changed miraculously to a striking dark green, the
leaves grew larger, and the entire plants showed every evidence of
healthy growth. It has been suggested that interplanting chestnuts with
black locust might have the same beneficial effect and we intend to try
it.

None of us has ceased to hope that some day the blight which has
stricken our native chestnuts can be conquered. We can be assured that
whenever a resistant variety of chestnut does originate in the wild,
squirrels will find it and give it widespread distribution. In Ohio,
squirrels are still proficient in locating the few sprouts that are
fruiting, burying the nuts and forgetting them in the woods each year,
with the result that we always have a few seedling trees coming on. Last
spring, I found several bushels of chestnut burs cached in a sandstone
cave in southern Ohio by woodrats.

The States which are most interested in the nut trees from the
standpoint of wildlife are usually those in which squirrels or wild
turkeys a