IO2 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



not be allowed to mature burs while less than five or six years old ; but since the 

 original stand is to be thinned eventually, it is possible to mark, at an early date, 

 those intended for removal, and allow them to fruit while young, thus securing 

 early returns without working permanent injury to the grove. 



Financially the chestnut grove is to be preferred to the orchard for several 

 reasons. First, the cost of cutting off the old stand and grafting the sprouts does 

 not greatly exceed the expense of producing seedlings and grafting them in the 

 nursery, and, in addition, the chestnut timber removed is usually of considerable 

 value for fuel, poles or railroad ties. Secondly, the ground which produces the 

 sprouts is usually of little value for agricultural purposes, being mostly rough waste 

 land ; while in setting a chestnut orchard land is required which would be of con- 

 siderable value for general agricultural purposes. Thus the cost of the first invest- 

 ment is in favor of the chestnut grove rather than the orchard ; hence, from the 

 latter it would be necessary to realize a greater income in order to pay interest on 

 the large capital tied up in the more expensive land. As a third condition there is 

 an appreciable loss in time and, hence, in revenue in the chestnut orchard; 

 because seedlings, especially when retarded by an early graft, do not come into 

 bearing nearly as early as do the grafted sprouts. A vigorous stump sprout will be 

 a tree eight to twelve feet in height when five to seven years old, and will produce 

 several quarts of nuts annually. A grafted seedling does not attain this size, nor 

 bear to the same extent until eight to twelve years old. The seedling, however, has 

 the advantage of longer life and less liability of deterioration. 



With the rough, idle chestnut hillsides and flats of New York, as well as other 

 States, it is a question of raising chestnuts or waiting through a long period of years 

 for the timber to mature. Even then the most desirable timber trees will not grow 

 unless planted, so great is the power of worthless species to crowd out the more 

 valuable ones. On the fertile soil of the plains or uplands where most of the chest- 

 nut orchards are located, it is a question of raising chestnuts, pears, apples or other 

 common fruit ; hence the loss in case the chestnuts fail is much greater. In the 

 latter case chestnut culture becomes merely a branch of horticulture, to be governed 

 by much the same rules as apply to apple and pear orchards. When the sprouts on 

 a worthless old hillside are grafted and made to produce a valuable crop of nuts, as 

 well as timber, the work is surely entitled to a place as a branch of forestry, since the 

 essential elements of a tree forest are all present, and are preserved rather than 

 disturbed. In addition it is an important step towards the solution of the great 

 problem of reclaiming the worthless waste land? which at present are a menace to 

 the surrounding forests, and which show ? lack of the Yankee ingenuity that has 



