30 



I will not try to go into det.iils about the work we are carrying on, 

 because it is better to tell of what we have accomplishd than to tell 

 wJiat we hope to do. We have a man on the Pacific Coast giving his 

 whole time and attention to the study of breed'ing and' of the cultural 

 problems of almonds. Besides this, we have two men giving all of 

 their time to pecans; and during the last year, there has been es- 

 tablished near Albany, Georgia, a station devoted to the cultural 

 problems of pecans. One gentleman is continuously on tlie ground 

 with the work, and two others devote more or less of their time to it. 



Now, while these problems connected with the industries are the 

 ones occupying most attention, the workers in the Department of Agri- 

 culture have not been unmindful of other native nut-bearing plants, 

 such as the native black walnuts, the hickories and the chestnut up to 

 the time of the very destructive attack of blight. The chestnut, how- 

 ever, has not passed' out of our sphere of activity, because at the present 

 time, (and I think yon will see tomorrow at the Bell Station, some in- 

 teresting possibilities in the future of chestnut culture in this country), 

 the Chinese forms, which are much more resistant to blight, bid fair to 

 give us a progeny to make it possible for us also to have a chestnut 

 industry from the horticultural standpoint. 



Probably the day of timber supjjly from our native chestnut is at 

 an end. We hope not, 'but it looks that way at the present time. The 

 possibilities of growing trees from China, the mollissima, or hybrids 

 of them, bids fair to place the chestnut industry so that we can con- 

 tend with the blight. We pro^baibly will not have immune varieties, 

 l)ut those which are able to live witli the blight. That, it seems to me, 

 is a very important consideration, because chestnuts have always been 

 an important nut in our eastern markets, and are important in the 

 European markets as well. While the larger forms of southern 

 Europe will probably not be of value to us here, if we can establisli 

 a nut industry with nuts of fair quality, as large as our native sweet 

 chestnuts, based' on the Chinese species, the mollissima, then we will 

 he making ]>rogress. You may see some of these trees at Bell Station 

 which are eight or ten years old; they are bearing quite abundantly, 

 and some of the chestnuts are really very palatable and of satisfactory 

 size. 



In addition to this breeding work with chestnuts, there is under 

 way intensive breeding work with almonds which has for its oibject 

 the development of those more hardy than those now in cultivation in 

 California. This almond industry, though large, is handicapped be- 



