Korean chestnuts from trees four years 

 old from seed. These chestnuts are 

 resistant to blight, live through the 

 winter without injury, and ripen their 

 crop in southern New Hampshire most 

 years. 



can hardly be ruled out. Most all 

 chestnut trees tend to be self-unfruit- 

 ful and require cross pollination. 



The chestnuts from Korea, while 

 not immune to blight, have been high- 

 ly tolerant of the disease under con- 

 ditions of a severe test. American 

 chestnuts that have blighted repeat- 

 edly have been allowed to grow along 

 with and in among the seedlings from 

 the Orient. A small twig on a branch 

 of the chestnuts from Korea may take 

 the blight, but only a small lesion or 

 canker is formed near the point of 

 infection and seldom is the branch 

 greatly injured as the lesion tends to 

 heal over in subsequent years. When 

 left unpruned under the conditions 

 of this severe testing, only a few small branches have died from blight. Ten- 

 year-old American chestnuts of the same age have been killed to the ground 

 level repeatedly. They have sprouted several times during this interval of 

 time to serve continually as a source of blight infection in the planting. 



The trees from Korea have matured well-filled nuts of good sweet edible 

 quality in the average summer season at Durham. This particular planting 

 happens to be in a low place subject to late spring frosts, and frost injury 

 to the flowers when in blossom has caused a crop failure two different sea- 

 sons. Thus a relatively frost-free site should be chosen for the Oriental chest- 

 nuts, even as for fruit tree crops commonly grown commercially in orchards. 

 The chestnuts from Korea have a tree of a spreading growth habit and they 

 thrive when either clean cultivated or maintained under a mulch system of 

 management similar to the apple. 



The chestnuts from Korea seem equal in winter hardiness to the Chinese 

 chestnut, but they are not fully equal to the American chestnut in this regard. 

 The nuts from the Korean chestnuts surpass those of the American in size 

 though neither equals the European chestnut in this respect. The nuts harvest- 

 ed at Durham from the original seedling trees from Korea have been used 

 primarily to grow seedlings for distribution to persons interested in testing 

 further the possibilities of this Oriental chestnut. 



NH No. 3 Chestnut 



A chestnut tree planted many years ago on the Gowen Brothers Farm, 

 Stratham, New Hampshire, has continued to live and bear occasional crops 

 through the years, although blight has damaged the tree considerably. Ten 

 seedlings were planted at Durham from nuts harvested from the tree growing 

 m Stratham. Only one of the seedlings lived to fruiting age. It has unusually 

 large, good-quality nuts and has been designated NH 4^3 chestnut for 

 limited propagation. Similar to the chestnuts from Korea, NH ^3 chestnut 

 resists blight, but is not immune. In fact, even though the Stratham tree 

 had been called a "Turkish*' chestnut, it so closely resembles the trees from 

 Korea, that it seems that it must be an early importation of the Oriental 



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