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fall of 1921, and J have now several hundred seedlings of what I 

 suppose are Castanea mollissinia, of which I plan to grow a nuniber to 

 rather large size, set them out where the next planting of chestnut 

 trees is to stand, and graft the branches to fine varieties. It will 

 take at least two or three years, however, 'before this can be done. 



Hazels- — For some four years I have been assembling, for hybri- 

 dizing purposes, selected American hazels from various sections of the 

 United States as well as the various European cultivated varieties that 

 gave promise of being hardy. This year .both blossomed rather freelj^, 

 but the only variety of which I had enough pollen to work with was 

 the Itilian Red. The staminate flowers were picked from some six or 

 eight American hazels which were blooming well and the pistillate 

 flowers were pollinated with Italian Red pollen, in the hope that some 

 hybrid nuts would result. Although the pollination was repeated twice 

 I was much disappointed to find only an occasional nut as a result. 



It is to be said in this coniu'ction, however, that there were prac- 

 tically no nuts on these American hazels which had not been pollinated 

 with strange pollen; so the lack of nuts could not be laid to the arti- 

 fici.d treatment given the flowers of those plants where it had been 

 ])lanncd to make hybrids. Apj^arently it was due to climatic conditions 

 th/it nuts were almost lacking on all hazels here this year; but 1 do not 

 recall any severe cold s])ells when the hazels were in flower. Still, on 

 one or two branches which I had tagged, as being particularly full of 

 pistillate flowers, there were noticed an almost equal number of dead 

 pistillate flowers a little later. It is seemingly going to be well to 

 carefulh' studv the dtvelojjmeiil of the hazel flowers into nuts. They 

 grow difl'erently from the walnuts and the hickories. Tlii' liaztl flow- 

 ers apparently, after being fertilized, develop into stems on which the 

 existence of nuts escapes llu* attention, at least of the casual ob 

 server, until about August, while the nuts on tlit- walmits and the 

 hickories even though small ;it flrst, are plainly visible from the time 

 they are formed by fertilized flowers until they are matured. 



HiCKOHiKs— The bearing age of the transplajited hickory so far 

 has been almost an unknown quantity, and what we did know has been 

 such th.it till' association has hesitated to say much about planting hick- 

 ories, its recommendations on the hickorj^ being confined to that of 

 topworking existing hickories. These are known to begin bearing soon 

 after topworking, records of bearing in two or three years not being 

 unusual. 



