hing that I might feel like changing my mind about a
little later, but, in the present state of our knowledge I would
hesitate to recommend planting within the disease infested area. So far
as the second question is concerned, the planting of non-immune
varieties outside the chestnut growing area, I think there are some
pretty good prospects in sight, provided the stock which is obtained is
carefully inspected to see that it is free from the blight to begin
with, and is watched carefully for at least the first year. The third
question, in regard to immune varieties,--if there are any the immunity
of which has been demonstrated sufficiently to warrant their being
planted,--the Japanese, which are highly resistant, and what some people
might consider immune, are the only possibilities so far in sight. The
great trouble with the Japanese trees which have been grown in the
orchards in parts of the country that have come under my observation,
is that they have been grafted on stock which is very susceptible to the
disease, and I think it is safe to say that 80 per cent at least,
possibly 90 per cent, of the trees that have been killed under these
conditions have been killed by the disease girdling below the graft on
the susceptible American stock. If we can grow Japanese seedlings under
the same conditions, perhaps, that Colonel Sober is raising his
Paragons--two years from the seed and then grafting--I don't see why we
can't have a tree that is going to be reasonably resistant to the
disease; now if we can find some Japanese nuts which are really
palatable, really good and sweet, as these three or four that I have
mentioned appear to be, I don't see why we cannot have a tree which will
be reasonably immune to the disease and at the same time producing an
edible nut. The Japanese stock seems to be able to fight off the disease
to a certain extent in much the same way that the apple tree can fight
off the apple canker, each year the lesion increases a little but each
year the growth of the tree overcomes it to a certain extent, and there
is a fight between the disease and the tree all the time. Very likely
the disease once on the tree will remain on the tree, as far as we can
tell at present, for quite a time, but perhaps not kill the tree
outright.

PROFESSOR VAN DEMAN: Dr. Van Fleet of the Department of Agriculture is
working on what seems to be a very fine prospect for raising chestnuts
that will be immune and that will ha