6d 



tablished to indicate a decided blight resistance and other desirable 

 qualities. The largest group of the Chinese hairy chestnut of the early 

 plantings is at Bell Station^ Maryland, where is also located one of 

 our plant introduction gardens. The plantings at Bell were put out 

 by the late Dr. Walter Van Fleet. Originally about 900 trees were 

 planted. The trees were set out in 1912 and most of them are still 

 living. 



During the past three or four years a special effort has been made 

 to grow seedlings in quantity from introduced nuts and to place these 

 seedlings in the hands of co-operators willing to put out and care for 

 half-an-acre to as many as three acres of the trees. We have en- 

 couraged the planting of the trees in orchard form for the reason that 

 it is our desire to make sure of home-grown sources of seed. The 

 seed supply in China has become quite precarious and it is highly im- 

 portant thfit we endeavor to produce our own seed' as early as prac- 

 ticable. All the trees distributed during the past three or four years 

 have been grown at our Plant Introduction Garden, Bell, Maryland. 

 Tlie distribution of seedlings has been confined to the eastern United 

 States as it was deemed inadvisable to send the trees outside of the 

 range where blight is known to occur. A somewhat extensive distri- 

 bution was made in the spring of 1926, when something over 8,000 

 three-year-old seedling trees were distributed in the region indicated 

 above. These trees have all been planted in orchard form and are being 

 cared for in a careful way by our co-operators. In order to assure the 

 production of trees outside of the blight territory, a large introduc- 

 tion of niits was made last year frpm China and after very careful 

 treatments at San Francisco, where the seed landed, it was sent to our 

 Chico Garden for growing. This shipment was not very successful 

 but we expect in another year or two to have trees from it for distri- 

 bution on the Pacific Coast and points in the Mississippi Valley, where 

 the blight does not occur. Other shipments of seed from various 

 sources are arriving from time to time and we now have growing at 

 our Bell Plant Introduction Garden collections of seedlings which we 

 plan to distribute in the spring of 1927. We hope to have larger 

 shipments of seed this year so that by 1928 or 1929 we can make ad'- 

 ditional distributions of this interesting introduction. 



We had planned for an intensive study of the chestnut in China 

 and especially in the northern provinces of China, this year, in the 



