Yes, but, Dr. Caldwell, we in the United States haven't time
to wait. We haven't time to wait.

MR. CALDWELL: You are going to have to take it.

DR. CRANE: It's just like Mr. Wilson said. He planted seedlings in 1948,
and he is telling me that most of them haven't come into bearing, so he
is going to ply the axe or top work them. He hasn't time to wait. He's
got to make his bread and butter out of that, and when it comes to
growing nuts, we can't wait 40 or 50 years for a tree to come in. That
might be all right for posterity, but we have got to be sure of it, or
our posterity is not going to be able to pay the national debt.

DR. MACDANIELS: According to the experience I have had, the chestnut is
only a little more hardy than the peach, and behaves pretty much the
same as regards wood injury. At 30 deg. below zero the trees have been
killed outright or to the ground. At about 25 deg. below they will black
heart with killing of sapwood and serious injury to the bark. At 20 they
will survive. This experience involves perhaps 125 seedling trees from
various sources, but mostly from the U.S.D.A. It is quite likely that
there may be more hardier strains that will withstand these low
temperatures. The other point is the matter of grafted trees. It is my
opinion that the failure of the graft is a form of cold injury related
to delayed maturity of the tissues at the graft union. Certainly failure
of grafts is much more persistent in the north than in the south.

My experience has been that I haven't been able to keep grafted trees.
They appear to thrive for three or four years and then die. I have tried
it over and over again. It appears that the grafted tree in Georgia and
Virginia is one thing. In New York it's another.

MR. WALLICK: I have never bought a grafted chestnut tree that grew. They
all die. And seedlings mostly do not have the kind of nuts you want.
Also they may be susceptible to disease.

DR. MCKAY: I want to make one observation about our experience at
Beltsville on the question of seedlings versus varieties as regards
bearing. We topworked scions of some of our good varieties, like Nanking
and Meiling, onto large seedlings we have at Beltsville that are poor
bearers. These grafted portions in the top of these trees under poor
conditions--our soil is poor at Beltsville--set tremendously heavy
crops, but the nuts are smaller in size than normal, and therefore the
crop is not as desirable as it would be if