LUTHER BURBANK 
have been grafted on ordinary chestnut stocks to 
form the basis of many chestnut orchards of the 
southern states. 
In some cases the roots of the chinquapin have 
been used as the foundation for grafting, in regions 
where the ordinary chestnut does not occur. Chest- 
nut orchards have also been started by planting the 
seed. Reasonable success attends this method, but 
of course it lacks the certainty of grafting. Now-a- 
days no one attempts to start an orchard except 
by grafting. 
Unfortunately there has developed within very 
recent years a disease that attacks the chestnut 
tree.and invariably destroys it. The disease at 
first appeared in the neighborhood of New York 
City about the year 1904, and it has spread in all 
directions each year reaching out a little farther, 
until in 1914 there were very few chestnut trees 
unscathed within fifty or sixty miles of the original 
center of contagion. 
The cause of the disease is a fungus that is 
perpetuated by minute spores that are presumably 
carried through the air and that, when they find 
lodgment, develop in such a way as to destroy the 
cambium layer of the bark, presently causing the 
death of the tree. The small twigs of a single 
branch will often first show the influence of the 
fungus and the leaves may die and become brown 
[110] 
