NUTS. 439 



kind of grafting. Chestnuts may be grafted, however, in 

 favorable seasons with a loss of not over twenty-five to fifty 

 per cent, by the "cleft" process (pages 33 and 438). Two or 

 three year old seedlings, or young sprouts, are most favora- 

 ble subjects; put the graft in high up, so that the native stock 

 shall form the trunk of the tree. 



As soon as specific varieties are demanded nurserymen will 

 have recourse to all these methods. 



Native walnuts, pecans, and hickories do not bear much be- 

 fore they are fifteen or twenty years old. Chestnuts usually 

 bear at about ten or twelve years; foreign varieties bear 

 earlier, as do all budded and grafted trees, but then they are 

 always shorter-lived. In the Southern States most nut trees 

 will produce crops in five or six years. 



CHESTNUTS. 

 NATIVE VARIETIES. 



THE American Sweet Chestnut is the only one really entitled 

 to be called sweet ; it is much superior in flavor to both the 

 European and Japanese kinds, though as yet it cannot approach 



FIG. 573. Murrell. FIG. 574. Native Chestnut. 



either in size. Nevertheless, in only the few years it has be- 

 gun to attract attention some wonderfully large nuts have 

 been discovered. Chestnuts are so much easier to propagate 

 than other nut trees, come into bearing so much earlier, and 

 command such highly remunerative prices that their cultiva- 

 tion is not likely to be neglected much longer. The tree is 

 indigenous all over the eastern United States, growing lux- 

 uriantly on rocky, gravelly hillsides. It does not do well on 



