■hestnuts. How readily NH #3 chestnut can he propagated has not been 

 determined, but it has been top-grafted successfully into another chestnut 



tree in West Virginia. 



American Chestnut Seedlings 



Chestnut blight ravaged the native chestnut forty to fifty years ago. Since 

 tliat time, American chestnut seedlings have volunteered in the woods of 

 New Hampshire and along stone fences. Most of these seedlings have been 

 killed back by blight but persist due to sprouts that form near the ground. 

 Occasionally, a seedling becomes large enough to bear some ch°stnut-. Due 

 to the authors' continued interest in the American chestnut, some of these 

 fruiting trees have been called to our attention. 



In 1947, a large tree more than a foot in diameter growing on the John 

 L. Hay estate, Newbury, New Hampshire, was visited and found to be 

 bearing nuts and without visible blight at the time. Nearby were manv 

 chestnut trees that had blighted to the ground repeatedly. From nuts sent 

 to Durham. 20 seedlings have been grown. Most of them have blighted, 

 some repeatedly, but a single tree has reached fruiting age and has produced 

 several nuts. The tree is now 15 feet tall and has a diameter breast high of 

 4 inches. Sister seedlings 12 feet either side of this particular seedling have 

 blighted badly. Now in 1957, after a period of ten years, this seemingly- 

 lesistant seedling has taken the disease. With further reference to the parent 

 tree in Newbury, it has been learned that in 1948 blight injured the tree. 

 Thus it takes many years to test adequately any chestnut seedlings. 



Nuts of American chestnut have been received for planting also from H. 

 Clifton Dyke. Grasmere. New Hampshire, and Carl Valyou. Mason, New 

 Hampshire. Any seedlings that continue to remain free of blight will be 

 watched with much interest. 



Hybrid Chestnuts 



While the chestnut does produce both ma'e and female flowers, a sing'e 

 tree is self-unfruitful and it matures no viable nuts unless cross-pollinated 

 by another tree. Some years ago, some American chestnuts that had grown 

 in Pennsylvania were planted at Durham. All of the trees succumbed to the 

 blight except one which in 1952 was a rather upright, yet spreading tree 

 about 15 feet tall. The tree had shown some winter injury during the years. 

 When it blossomed profusely in 1952. this isolated tree proved pollen-sterile. 

 The leaves indicated that it was a hybrid tree, and it seems that there must 

 have been natural cross-pollination with introduced oriental chestnuts in 

 Pennsylvania to produce the nut from which this hybrid tree grew at Durham. 



Taking advantage of this fortuitous circumstance, this isolated and pollen- 

 sterile hybrid tree was pollinated with pollen from selected trees of the 

 chestnuts from Korea. Thus a backcross between the American and Oriental 

 chestnuts was readily accomplished. In the meantime, the tree used as female 

 parent has been badly injured by blight and winter injury and can hardly 

 be expected to bear nuts again. 



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