annot tell to a certainty until they bear fruit.

(38) A hillside set out with a large number of common bush chinkapins
from the East, tree chinkapins from Missouri and a number of hybrids.
The chinkapins and the alder-leaved chestnuts on this side hill have
been so blight resistant as to require almost no attention, and for that
reason I am making hybrids between the chinkapin and the alder-leaved
chestnut and the Chinese chestnut in the hope of making an excellent
combination of chinkapin quality and Chinese size. Up to the present
time none of my hybrids have been as valuable as either parent, with the
exception of two. Two of the hybrids bear nuts about the size of the
average American sweet chestnut and of first rate quality. These two
hybrid trees have shown no sign of blight as yet.

(40) A hybrid between an American chestnut and a chinkapin. It blights
freely like its American parent. Some of the hybrids do that while
others show the resistance of the chinkapin parent. This particular tree
grows lustily, and I have taken the trouble to cut out the blight every
year. The leaves and general appearance are very closely like the common
American chestnut. When it first began to bear, the nuts were of the
chinkapin type, a single nut to the bur and hardly to be distinguished
from other chinkapins. A year or two later the nuts changed in
appearance, becoming distinctly lighter in color and with peculiar
longitudinal corrugations of the shell. A year or so later still the
tree made another change, and it now bears two or three nuts to the bur
like the American chestnut, the nuts retain their light color and
peculiar corrugation.

(41) A group of European hazels (_Corylus avellana_). Several years ago
the Prince of Colloredo-Mannsfeld was visiting Merribrooke. His Highness
was much interested in the experimental work in nut trees and later sent
me a number of hazel nuts from one of his estates in Bohemia. Among the
hazel bushes which grew from these nuts there was one which bore large,
long, thin-shelled nuts of high quality. This bush, as you observe, has
rather small dark leaves and stout, crooked branches. At one of the
meetings of the Association I spoke of the bush as having a bony look,
and Prof. J. Russell Smith referred to it in discussion as the "Bony
Bush" hazel, and that name has been retained. I have grafted a number of
other American and European hazels from this bush and I have sent scions
to friends.