THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
52 
GLEANINGS FROM THE NOTES OF AN OLD 
NURSERYMAN. 
Grafted Chestnuts.— Why are grafted chestnut 
trees always so scarce ? I have just looked over the 
wholesale price lists of fifty of the leading nurseries of 
the United States, and can find chestnuts mentioned in 
thirty of them, but grafted chestnuts in only four ; and 
only two of these firms offer them by the hundred ; and 
on application to them they state that they cannot spare 
one hundred trees of any size as they are short on all 
varieties. What is the cause of this scarcity Grafted 
chestnuts are in demand, and thousands of them could 
be sold every year at high prices if the trees could be 
found, and it seems strange that some of our energetic 
and intelligent nurserymen do not awaken to the fact 
and supply the public need. Experiments have shown 
that good productive chestnut trees are as profitable as 
any other fruits. Experience has also proved conclu¬ 
sively that it is just as necessary to graft chestnuts as it 
is apples, pears or cherries in order to secure valuable 
trees. Such being the case, the question very naturally 
arises, ‘ ‘ Why do not nurserymen supply this demand by 
producing the trees and offering them for sale ? ” An 
easy question to ask, but the only answer that I can find, 
is ‘ ‘ Because they cannot ! ” They don’t know how to 
do it profitably. It is doubtful if there can be found ten 
nurserymen in the United States who have followed the 
business for ten consecutive years of raising grafted 
chestnut trees for sale. The long time required to pro¬ 
duce the trees, the numerous failures and meager suc¬ 
cesses which attend the work and the very unsatisfactory 
condition of the profit and loss account of the operations 
do not offer very flattering encouragement to any one to 
engage in the business. As a result of a continued line 
of operations and experiments, commenced by my father 
about thirty years ago, I would submit the following 
suggestions ; 
There is always good demand in large cities for all 
the large chestnuts of good flavor that can be found, at 
twenty-five to thirty-five cents per quart at wholesale. 
At these prices for nuts, chestnut trees will pay as well 
or better than most other fruits. There is a wide and 
steadily growing demand for improved chestnut trees and 
there is not much probability that the supply of grafted 
trees will ever equal the demand, because they are so 
hard to produce. This difficulty arises from two sources ; 
fir^jt, that of grafting the trees and second, loss in trans¬ 
planting them. Neither of these difficulties is insur¬ 
mountable, but they necessitate the exercise of every 
possible care and precaution from the gathering of the 
nuts to the transplanting of the grafted trees into their 
permanent situation. If the roots are cut short or are 
exposed and get dry, the trees will die. For this reason 
they should be dug and transplanted in damp or drizzling 
weather with the least possible amount of exposure. 
When the nuts are gathered spread them out thinly 
in a cool dry place, for a week or ten days to sweat a 
little, stirring them occasionally so they will not heat ; 
then stratify the nuts with damp sand or moss and keep 
them in a cool cellar until Spring ; plant early in light, 
rich soil, covering not more than one inch deep with 
very fine earth or sand. The seedlings should be trans¬ 
planted when one, or at most two years old. It will be 
at least two years and sometimes three after transplant¬ 
ing before they will be in proper condition for grafting. 
I prefer grafting them at a height of from four to six feet, 
by inserting a tongue or cleft graft, in the ordinary way, 
and securing carefully with waxed muslin. The time for 
grafting is after the sap has started in the stocks and the 
terminal buds are well swollen or ready to burst. The 
scions should be cut early while entirely dormant and 
kept fresh in an ice-house or other cool place. 
Chestnut trees can only be kept in proper salable 
condition by transplanting them every four or five years. 
If allowed to stand longer than this the roots become 
very long and straggling and hard to dig and there is 
ruinous loss in transplanting them. I have on various 
occasions seen serious loss in each of the following oper¬ 
ations : Several times nearly all of the seed has rotted 
in the cellar during the winter from unknown causes, 
after it had been put down very carefully and supposed 
to be kept under favorable conditions. Once when the 
seed was stratified in moss it sprouted so early that at 
planting time it was impossible to get it out without 
breaking many of the sprouts. One crop was lost by 
being planted too deep and covered with soil that was 
a little lumpy, the sprouts being unable to push through. 
The natural covering for nuts in the forest is leaves. It 
is often difficult to protect the nuts and young trees from 
the ravages of mice, and they are never safe until they 
are two years old or more. The vermin will eat the en¬ 
tire root under ground, and will sometimes destroy a 
whole block during a winter if their ravages are not dis¬ 
covered and checked. Rough-on-Rats mixed with corn 
meal and placed about the field is the best remedy that 
I know. There is almost always from ten to twenty 
per cent, of loss of life in transplanting chestnut trees 
under the most favorable circumstances, no matter what 
their age or condition may be, and if the conditions or 
circumstances are unfavorable, the loss is more likely 
to amount to seventy-five or one hundred per cent. 
The objection to grafting one year seedlings is that 
they are generally too small above the ground and root 
grafts will not answer. The objection to grafting two 
year seedlings without transplanting is that their tap 
roots are already too deep and if they are not transplanted 
before they are three years old there is very heavy 
loss, when they are moved, and it will then be the loss 
of trees on which the care and cost of grafting has been 
