ually the case in the initial plantings. Clean cultivation will also
do away with many of the curculios, since they depend on unbroken soil
in the fall for their metamorphosis.
The presence of blight makes it unwise to depend on a single-trunked
tree and I find that great productivity can be maintained when the plant
is allowed to grow in stools having from three to five trunks. The
management of such plants is like that of raspberry bushes, except that
instead of thousands of plants per acre to be cared for, with hazilberts
there are only 145, 15 x 20 feet apart.
Judging by the number of nuts on small plants, one may reasonably expect
crops to average one-half ton of nuts per acre. The hybrids I have grown
so far have been self-husking. The size of their nuts is good, some
measuring an inch in diameter. For commercial purposes, however, the
large size is not particularly desirable nor necessary.
In conclusion, I want to say that there is a very promising situation
developing for these nuts commercially. Not only are these hazel-filbert
hybrids easily planted, but they are easy to propagate, since they are
one of very few species of nut trees which are easily propagated by
layers and root sprouts. Out of more than 600 hazilberts which I planted
in the fall of 1945, only about a dozen were dead in June of 1946, which
gives you a practical idea of the ease and safety of transplanting them.
The 1946 Status of Chinese Chestnut Growing In the Eastern United States
By Clarence A. Reed U. S. Plant Industry Station, Beltsville, Maryland
Introduction
The Chinese chestnut, Castanea mollissima, now dominates interest among
well-informed chestnut planters of the eastern United States almost to
the exclusion of other species. Since its introduction in 1906, it has
had but one important competitor, the Japanese chestnut, C. crenata.
Among the world's most important producers of tree chestnuts, only these
two species are effectively resistant to blight. However, the Japanese
chestnut lacks the palatability to which Americans are accustomed and
for all practical purposes it has been rejected in this country. Many
small plantings still survive; but this species serves better for shade
and ornamentation than for food production.
Description of the Chinese Chestnut
The nut of this species is usually of good size, roundish in form, not
pointed at the apex, and with the basal scar smaller than the lower end
of th
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