NINTH ANNUAL MEETING. 107 



first leaves, and I was quite encouraged, but these finally- 

 withered and died. The following season, 1897, the work 

 was repeated, and about the same number of cions set, but 

 none of them grew. The seedlings were allowed to 

 remain in nursery rows and during the past season about 

 fifty cions were set in ^tliem. These also failed to grow. 

 In making these grafts, the greatest care was exercised 

 and the incisions and cuts were smooth and the cions made 

 to fit the stocks. I had previously been informed that if 

 the grafts were made below the surface of the ground 

 there would be little trouble about making them "take," 

 but whether above or below the surface it seemed to make 

 little difference. 



Chestnuts are much easier to graft than the hickories, 

 and chestnut-grafting has been practiced quite extensively. 

 During the seasons of 1895 and 1896 the late Judge A. J. Coe 

 had considerable grafting done upon some chestnut sprout- 

 land in Meriden. Most of the sprouts of convenient size 

 growing on eighteen acres of land were cleft-grafted. A 

 portion of the cions grew and many of these were after- 

 ward destroyed by fire. The writer made several visits to 

 the orchard in 1897, and while no accurate census was 

 taken, the proportion of grafts which lived and grew was 

 probably not over thirty or thirty-five per cent. Messrs. 

 Hale and Piatt have grafted chestnuts in Connecticut, and in 

 New Jersey and Pennsylvania the practice is quite an 

 extensive one. 



During the spring of 1898 over 200 cions were set in 

 five localities in and about New Haven. The work was 

 commenced April 20, and cions were set each week until 

 June 20, to determine the best season for grafting the 

 chestnut. Chestnut trees did not begin to grow until 

 about IMay 15 and the early set cions made no growth for 

 a month, and many did not grow at all. Those that did 

 live, however, made a large growth during the season. 

 The late set cions "took" fairly well, but some were after- 

 ward killed by drought; they grew only five or six inches 

 each. Of the cions set between May i and June 15, 

 nearly fifty per cent grew, while only ten per cent of the 



