is a bear-cat. It is the one that gave us so
much trouble. When we tried to propagate that one we had a real, nasty
cat by the tail. But on the other hand, in answer to Dr. MacDaniels'
question if we go out to Dr. J. Russell Smith's plantings up at Round
Hill (Virginia), we can see a lot of the oldest grafted trees that I
know of anywhere in the country, and the unions are just as smooth and
just as slick as anyone would want to see. They are not 20 years old; I
don't think there was ever a _mollissima_ chestnut grafted 20 years ago.
The first grafting that I know of was about 15 years ago, maybe 18.

Mr. Stoke: In 1932.

Mr. R. C. Moore: Thomas Jefferson grafted European chestnuts.

Dr. Crane: No, I am talking about Chinese chestnuts. We didn't get in
any Chinese chestnuts until 1906. We have this problem of
incompatibility or graft union trouble, in apples, but do you hear
anybody hollering about it? We have it in peaches, plums and cherries.
One of the most important diseases they have out in the Pacific
Northwest and California on Persian walnuts, is what is called "black
line disease." We mustn't get excited about graft union failure. That
has been used, in my opinion, by a lot of people, to discourage the
propagating of grafted chestnuts. There are thousands of people in the
United States who are spending good money for seedling trees, and some
of them are going to get stung. We in the Northern Nut Growers
Association are going to have this thing backfire on us, just as true as
I tell you. I know there are some nurserymen today that are planting
unknown chestnut seeds, and they are selling the trees as Chinese
chestnut. They are planting seed out of mixed orchards, too, that have
_C. seguinii_ and _C. henryi_ and _C. crenata_ trees in them. The _C.
crenata_ Japanese has been introduced in the United States for over 70
years and it has never made the grade.

You know, there has been many a thing that has been promoted in the
United States--big for a few days and then she backfired, and then it
took the industry 50 or a hundred years to recover. You can sell people
gold bricks once, but you can't sell them gold bricks _all_ the time!

Mr. McCollum: Last year after Mr. Hemming's speech--you know, he is the
nurseryman who sells seedlings over on the Eastern Shore--I asked him if
he had been selling those long enough to have heard from customers.
"Yes," he said he had, "all satisfied." Now, I don't know anything ab