ae 
Planting of Nuts from Open Pollinations.—With the help of 
young men from the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station at 
New Haven, we planted about 750 nuts, mostly of Chinese or 
Japanese parents, in the open ground, about six feet apart. 
More than 1000 others were planted in cold frames and will be 
set out in the spring, when they germinate. These plantings 
are being made in order to determine whether we can establish a 
forest by this method, and also because some of these nuts may 
represent valuable chance crosses. 
Vegetative Propagation.._WWe._ continued the layering experi- 
ments, but, 1t would be a long process to obtain by such a method 
a good supply of young trees for reforestation. If it is possible, 
we must propagate the disease-resistant stock from cuttings. 
For this purpose we placed in a cold frame a mixture of equal 
parts of clean sand and peat moss. Cuttings of chestnut treated 
with hormodin of the 20-unit strength were placed in this mixture 
during the first week of August and again in the first week of 
September. No rooting occurred, although cuttings of tomato 
and Jerusalem cherry put in at the same time rooted well. In 
1938 we shall try to root cuttings taken earlier in the season. 
This problem of vegetative propagation is now the greatest 
obstacle to be overcome. There is every indication that we can 
develop by continued breeding not only one, but several types of 
chestnut that will be blight resistant and superior in other re- 
spects to the American species. But, as we said in our last 
report, in all probability such types 
— 
being hybrids) will not 
breed true from seed any more than our cultivated apples, pears, 
peaches, etc. can be depended upon to breed true from seed. 
Therefore the stock must be propagated vegetatively. 
Somatic or Bud Variation.—Last summer we found on one of 
our Chinese chestnuts a ‘bud sport’’—a small branch bearing 
variegated leaves. The explanation of this is that the cells giv- 
ing rise to that branch (or to the leaves) had undergone changes 
in their protoplasmic material such that these variegated leaves 
were produced. In the Eastern United Sates, where the chestnut 
once reigned as a forest monarch, we find occasional young 
shoots from old stumps. In recent years these seem to live 
longer than formerly before they finally succumb to the blight. 
