“TW RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
1729 
Orcharding, with Blight Resistant Chestnut 
E FFORTS for IMPROVEMENT.—In 1(» years 
blight lias swept through most of the chestim* 
forests of the Kastern United States north of and 
including Virginia, it has left a trail of devastation 
in its wake. During the last 20 years the Office of 
Foreign Seed and Plant. Introduction of the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture lifts brought in more than 100 
different lots of chestnuts. These have been widely 
distributed and tested for blight resistance and for 
other qualities. For the last 12 or 14 years Dr 
Walter Van Fleet has been^ngaged in breeding ami 
selecting chestnuts in the hope of 
securing types resistant to blight. Dr. 
Van Fleet's work has been a part of 
the activities of the Offices of Forest 
Pathology and Pomology. 
THE CHINESE VARIETY.—Of the 
introduced chestnuts, the Chinese form 
known botanically as Castanea mollis- 
sima, seems to be the most promising 
as a blight-resistant, nut-hearing or¬ 
chard tree. The late Frank Meyer 
collected this chestnut a number of 
times in widely separated localities in 
China. Mr. Meyer discovered that the 
Might fungus, so destructive, here, 
occurred in China on wild trees. The 
mollissima chestnut, therefore, comes 
to us with a long ancestry of blight - 
lighting parents. Dr. Van Fleet has 
secured his most promising blight-re¬ 
sistant types by both hybridizing and 
straight selections. None of those 
types or selections is immune to hLiglit. 
hut they are resistant in various de¬ 
grees, as is evidenced by the tests con¬ 
ducted at Hell Station. Maryland, dur¬ 
ing the past six or eight, years. We 
believe there is a field for these ro- 
sistant types of chestnuts in the 
EasternlUnitod States as food-producing 
orchard crops. The Mollissima chestnut 
is especially to be commended for ils 
ability to resist blight, for its early 
fruiting habits, its medium-sized, sweet 
nuts, closely approaching our own 
native chestnut, and its adaptability to 
orchard culture. Another type worthy 
of consideration is a selection of Dr. 
Van Fleet’s, made from the da pa nose 
chestnut, Castanea creuata. While 
this chestnut is not so sweet as ('. 
niollissinia or our own native form, ii 
is a good nut. The tree is a clean 
grower, precocious, beginning to fruit the third or 
fourth year after planting, and is a prolific bearer. 
For orchard culture most of those new types might 
be planted 12x12 feet, tints giving them abobt .‘Mu 
trees to the acre. Such trees on good soil should 
yield after six or seven years from 14 to 10 bushels 
pei acre. 
TEST ORCHARDS NEEDED.—The problem now 
is to get some small test orchards established in the 
blight-infected areas. These orchards will serve as 
outposts to test the practicability of producing good 
nuts despite blight, and will also aid as nuclei or 
centers for the production of nuts for seed purposes. 
With this object in mind, ve have during the past 
three years been collecting and planting selected 
nuts from Dr. Van Fleet’s trees. These plantings 
have given us a limited number of trees which w<* 
propose to use in establishing a few collaborative 
test orchard plots in the territory where blight 
exists. 
UFI’ORTUNITIES IN THE WEST.—There would 
appear to be good opportunities for chestnut orchard¬ 
ing in certain parts of the Middle West and on the 
Pacific coast. Any attempts, however, to introduce 
seeds or plants from the Eastern United States or 
from China or Japan would he very dangerous on 
account of blight, li would la: desirable to produce 
outside-of rhe blight area, under careful pathological- 
.1 llaslcet of Moiliaxiom Chestnuts Groicn in Margin nd. Fift. 561 
long, hard larva? of the click beetles. Like the white 
grubs, they normally live in sod ground and feed on 
roots, and generally are not injurious to potatoes 
unless the ground has been in sod a year or two 
before. From three to five years are required for a 
mature beetle to grow. 
Since both grubs and wireworms require a num¬ 
ber of seasons to mature, a rotation of crops is the 
best method to prevent their increase, and the ground 
that has been in sod should bo followed for a year or 
two with buckwheat or other small grains not ser¬ 
iously injured by them. Potatoes 
should lie avoided the first year. In¬ 
fested ground should lie plowed in late 
Summer or early Fall and thoroughly 
harrowed in Fall and early Spring. 
Cutworms are also most abundant in 
old sod land, and attract most atten¬ 
tion from their injuries to crops imme¬ 
diately following old sod. The rota¬ 
tion of crops mentioned for wireworms 
and grubs is of assistance, and poi¬ 
soned bait, consisting of 20 pounds 
bran, 'one pound Paris green, two 
quarts molasses, orange or lemon peel, 
and four quarts water, spread evenly 
over the ground, will destroy all cater¬ 
pillars and grubs eating the same. 
It is not common practice to grow a 
grain crop after sod, but in this case a 
fair crop might lie realized after Fall 
plowing. Barley, oats and wheat must 
be sown so early in the Spring that 
little additional nourishment would be 
available for the grain crop from the 
old sod. T would suggest after Fall 
plowing a thorough tillage of the soil 
until July 1. Then sow buckwheat, 
and a good return can be secured in 
the average season. P.y sowing late 
the weed seeds would germinate and be 
destroyed, and the old sod would begin 
to decay and furnish plant food. 
t. n. t. 
W 1 
• 'hiiHxi cln stnut; Itvsti Form at Left: Pruned Trees at Fight. Fift. 562 
supervision, young trees which mighi safely In- 
planted anywhere. Dr. Van Fleet has found in Hi - 
work that the trees for orchard culture do best if 
left entirely alone so far as pruning is concerned 
Pruning of any kind by the production of wounds 
invites the blight fungus, so it is best to allow the 
young trees to have their own way in the orchard. 
Some of these points are made plain by the accom¬ 
panying illustrations. b. t. oaixoway. 
United States Department of Agriculture. 
E understand that tret* agents 
are planning to charge at least 
$1.50 each (and as much more as they 
can get) for fruit trees this season. 
Such prices are too high. We would 
not buy trees at any such figure. It is 
merely encouragement for a plan of 
distribution which we think expensive and usually 
unreliable. We feel sure that trees of equally good 
quality can be bought by mail for less money. At 
this time farmers and country people are suffering 
from an over-production of middlemen. Our entire 
business has come to a point where we seem to be 
crowding as many middlemen as possible in between 
buyer and seller, just for rhe pleasure of handing 
over a share of the price to useless go-betweens. 
One of the great reforms we must work out is along 
this line of doing it ourselves. The tree agent with 
his $1.50 tree does not seem to have much place in 
the world’s economy. It is time to begin cutting out 
useless service. 
Middleman in Tree Business 
Japanese Chestnut, Pedigre< d start:. Fiji. 56<> 
t Crops For Old Sod Land 
i have just taken charge of a dairy farm. It is in a 
valley, perfectly level, with no stones; sandy loam soil. 
The owner claims it is a good farm, but due to various 
reasons there was no plowing done last Spring. I want 
in my rotation 10 acres of grain. Can 1 put grain on 
sod laud with any chance of a reasonably clean piece? 
M ould you advise any special treatment of seed, oats 
and barley, wheat and buckwheat? The sod I am now* 
plowing up is full of thick white grubs, which I am told 
gro’v into “June hu°-s.” 
Delaware Co.. N. Y. x. c. w. 
HE white grubs are the large, soft-hndied larva 1 
of the May beetles or June bugs. They feed on 
tin roots of numerous plants, and sometimes ear 
into the tubers of the potato, especially in newly- 
plowed sod ground such as T. C. W. is plowing. The 
eggs are usually hr'd in sod ground (Timothy pre¬ 
ferred) in June, and they hatch in two weeks. The 
grubs* feed on the roots, and require two Summers 
in become full grown. They pass the first Winter 
deep in the ground. The second-year grubs are 
larger and more destructive than the first, so that 
land left in sod one year is apt to become badly 
infested the second year. Sometimes in June or 
July of the second year the grub transforms into 
an adult beetle, though it does not emerge from the 
ground until the following Spring. There is but 
one brood every three years, but all stages may be 
found in the ground each year. Wireworms are the 
Precocious Hybrid Hr tween Japanese Chestnut and 
Native Chinquapin. Fig. 563 
