ON THE CHESTNUT 



In point of fact, all these methods were utilized, 

 and in addition, of course, my usual method of 

 rigorous selection was employed, so that I soon 

 had a colony of chestnuts not only of the most 

 complicated ancestry, but also a carefully selected 

 colony in which none that did not show excep- 

 tional traits of one kind or another had been 

 permitted to remain. 



PRECOCIOUS TRAITS 



Of the many rather striking peculiarities of the 

 new hybrids, doubtless the one that attracts most 

 general attention is the habit of precocious bear- 

 ing. 



From the outset my hybrids were urged to early 

 bearing, by the method of grafting and selection, 

 as already noted; and of course I saved for further 

 purposes of experiment only the individuals that 

 were the most precocious. But, even so, I was not 

 prepared to find my seedlings bearing large nuts 

 in abundance in eighteen months from the time of 

 planting the seed. Yet such extraordinary pre- 

 cocity as this was shown by many of the seedlings 

 in the third and subsequent generations. 



Moreover, if the grafts are taken from the seed- 

 lings and placed on older trees, they would pro- 

 duce, although not so abundantly, within six 

 months after grafting. During the past ten years, 

 seedlings have quite often produced nuts, like 



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