imarily in producing conifers and other forest trees for the
reforestation of abandoned land. So in handling this Chinese chestnut as
a game food we are working on a sideline. We have to pick it up as fast
as we can do the job and do as much as we can and learn about as much as
we can. And, of course, we learn slower than people who have the time to
spend and perhaps the money to spend at it. But we are limited in those
two respects.

But seed collections are made, and we find it necessary in collecting
from two of the orchards that we are now using for seed to collect twice
a day in the season that the nuts are ripening, because both of those
orchards which we prize are close to forest lands and squirrel country,
and they really give us a race for it. The fact of the matter is the
orchard at the nursery has attracted the squirrels on that particular
side of the mountain. I have hunted on opening day and killed my limit
of squirrels without going outside of the residence and been back at
work time at eight o'clock. It really attracts them on that side of the
hill. We are going to compete with the squirrels, but as you will see,
we have just about given up that orchard as a seed source.

We find it necessary to treat the seed, of course, before we plant it.
Many of you people, of course, go into the spraying end of it before the
nut ever develops. We haven't the time or the money right now to go into
it that way, so we try to take care of the nut after we collect it and
bring it in.

I expect it is not necessary for me to go into any of the details on any
of the methods that may be used to get rid of the weevil, because you
are all familiar with that. Maybe it suffices to say that we at the
nursery now are using the hot water treatment. The little weevil is
found in there and not always apparent. In fact, most of the time it
isn't apparent that the nut is infested, but they are, and if we take
measures to kill the weevil we haven't any germination of the weevil. We
used gas once, but we are limited in that at present. It is a lot more
expensive.

We have, in the first few years that we tried to produce chestnuts at
the nursery, stratified them. We got along pretty well with that in damp
sand, we got along fairly well in sawdust, and we got along especially
well with damp sphagnum moss. But in the end we determined that we are
getting better results if we plant the nuts as they are collected. In
other words, the seed