attentively you
encouraged me, so it's your fault. I am happy to be here. Show me an
organization like the Northern Nut Growers Association, as full of vim
and vigor and vinegar and going ahead, and I will show you a successful
organization.

Thank you.

MR. CHASE: Thank you, Professor Talbert, for a very nice message.

I am still a little angry at Professor Talbert because I realize now
that if he had accepted my invitation to come to another good southern
state two years ago our meeting would have been a much better one at
Norris.

Now, we have several papers here which deal with chestnuts, and there
seems to be a good deal of interest among the membership concerning
chestnuts this year, and perhaps before we get into chestnuts for nut
production we might hear a short resume of Dr. Graves' breeding work for
timber type chestnut. This problem of chestnut for timber purposes, of
course, accounts for the presence of Chinese and Japanese chestnuts in
the country today, and yet most of our efforts to establish chestnut
plantings for timber purposes have been unsuccessful. You heard from Dr.
Diller last year concerning these efforts.

This paper will deal with the breeding work which is now under way by
Dr. Graves in Connecticut, and I have asked Dr. McKay to give us a brief
digest of this paper.

Chestnut Breeding Work: Report for 1950

ARTHUR HARMOUNT GRAVES
Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, Conn.
and
Division of Forest Pathology, U.S.D.A. Plant Industry Station,
Beltsville, Maryland

In southern Connecticut the 1950 season for vegetative growth and
development was excellent except for the dry period in September. The
chief fault lay in much more cloudy weather than usual,[31] and the
deficiency in sunlight coupled with a slightly lower average temperature
in the spring, and cool nights, combined to delay the chestnut flowering
season for as much as ten days. The main body of our cross pollination
experiments did not begin until July 4, whereas last year it began on
June 23 and 24, and was nearly completed by July 4.

[31] For example, the report of the U. S. Weather Bureau at New Haven,
Conn., for May, 1950, says, "The feature of the month was the lack of
sunshine which retarded the growth of crops in this area." See also
report of the New York City Station for April, 1950.

This year 103 crosses were made, not all different combinations, but
each one with eithe