THE CHESTNUT 59 



this was shown by many of the seedlings in the 

 third and subsequent generations. 



Moreover, if the grafts were taken from the 

 seedlings and placed on older trees, they would 

 produce nuts within six months after grafting. 

 During the past ten years, many of these seed- 

 lings have produced nuts, like annual plants, 

 the first year of planting, while growing on 

 their own roots, and when not over twelve to 

 eighteen inches in height. 



The value of such habits of early bearing, 

 from the standpoint of the plant developer, will 

 be obvious. Ordinarily one must expect, in deal- 

 ing with nut-bearing trees, to wait for a long 

 term of years between generations. In the case 

 of the hickory, for example, after one has planted 

 the nut, it cannot be expected that the seedlings 

 will bear flowers and thus give opportunity for 

 a second hybridizing for at least ten years, and 

 no large crop of nuts may be produced till the 

 tree is forty or fifty years old. So even two or 

 three generations of the hickory compass a large 

 part of a century. 



But with these new hybrid chestnuts, genera- 

 tion may succeed generation at intervals of a 

 single year, just as if we were dealing with an 

 annual plant instead of a tree that may live for 

 a century. And of course to this fact very 



