evil eggs.

Oak trees are generally prolific and are regular bearers, but of course,
what they are widely known and loved for is the beauty of their leaves
in the autumn. No one doubts their esthetic value, which will keep them
forever popular whether they come into demand as a grafted nut tree or
not.

Chestnuts

Another of our ornamental nut trees is the chestnut, also of the oak
family, classified under the genus Castanea, which grows into a large,
beautiful tree with wide-spread branches. Chestnuts do not grow well on
limestone soil and always fail in the heavy blue clay so common on farm
lands in this part of the country. It is best for their growth that the
soil be gravelly and slightly acid.

The chestnut has always been a good timber tree. Its wood, although not
as hard as the red oak, resembles it in grain. The beams of many old
pioneer homes are found to be chestnut. It is said that this is one of
few woods to give a warning groan under too heavy a burden before it
cracks or breaks. Chestnut wood is very durable in contact with the
soil, outlasting all others except possibly black walnut and cedar. It
contains so much siliceous matter in its pores that it quickly dulls
chisels and saws used in working it.

The chestnut trees at my nursery were grown from mixed hybrid seeds
which I obtained from Miss Amelia Riehl of Godfrey, Illinois. Almost all
of the seeds she first sent me, in 1926, spoiled while they were stored
during the winter. But Miss Riehl sent me more the following spring,
many of which proved hardy. In 1937, the oldest of these trees produced
staminate bloom for the first time. I naturally expected a crop of nuts
from it that year, but none developed. The same thing happened in 1938.
I then wrote to Miss Riehl about it, also asking her where to look for
the pistillate blossoms. Her reply was a very encouraging one in which
she wrote that the pistillate blossoms appear at the base of the catkins
or staminate blooms, but that it is quite a common thing for chestnut
trees to carry the latter for several years before producing pistillate
blossoms. She also explained that it was very unlikely that the tree
would fertilize its own blooms, so that I should not expect one tree to
bear until other nearby chestnuts were also shedding pollen. This
occurred the next year and another chestnut close to the first one set a
few nuts. It was not until 1940 that the tree which had blossomed first,
actually bo