94 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



and winterkill. More potent than extremes of heat and cold as sources of injury to 

 the chestnut are hot dry winds, and in its susceptibility to them is found, perhaps, 

 the principal reason why it will not thrive on the western plains and prairies. 



In New York the region of growth can be e.xtended northward towards the 

 St. Lawrence Valley between the western edge of the Adirondack Mountains and 

 Lake Ontario, and westward to the boundary of the State. The region of most 

 favorable growth is from the southern boundaries of Herkimer, Hamilton and 

 Warren counties in the Southern Adirondacks, southward to Pennsylvania and 

 New Jersey. In the southeastern corner of the State the chestnut is decidedly at 

 home and can be grown successfully in almost any part. The western half of the 

 State, because of its lower elevation and less favorable soil, does not offer such a 

 promising field for planting or grafting operations; yet even here the rough hillsides 

 offer opportunities which should not be slighted. 



The chestnut is reported as growing well under cultivation as far north as Saco, 

 Maine; in Central Vermont; westward to Michigan, where plantations have been 

 made by the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad along its right of way; 

 and at several points in Wisconsin. In most of the Central and Southern States 

 attempts to grow the chestnut have proved unsuccessful. 



Despite the fact that our native chestnut does not possess the qualities which 

 make it pre-eminently desirable from a pomological standpoint, it should not be 

 overlooked that as a forest timber tree, to be grown as such, it takes high rank. 

 The wood for railroad ties is considered almost the equal of white oak, and about 

 five per cent of the ties used are of chestnut, while for fence posts and telegraph 

 poles it has no eastern rival except the white cedar. Its rapid growth and tendency 

 to reproduce by coppice makes it an exceptionally valuable tree for these uses. It 

 reproduces readily from seed as well as coppices. The seeds, immediately after 

 they ripen in the fall, may be planted in the jjlaces where the trees are to grow 

 permanently, or they may be layered in damp sand during the winter for nur.sery 

 planting in the spring. If planted in a nursery the trees should be transplanted at 

 the end of the first year to the permanent plantation. Planted in mixtures with the 

 white pine and red pine the chestnut is a most excellent species to use in reforest- 

 ing the waste lands of Southern New England and New York. 



To summarize, under the head of the " American Chestnut " it may be said that 

 on the whole the attempt to improve its quality by cultivation, and its range by 

 planting or transplanting, have proved unprofitable. The nuts produced are too 

 small, and the time required for a tree to come into bearing too long to induce a 

 hustling American to grow it for the nuts alone. Its greatest value for nut culture 



