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 appealed to the first experimenters with grafted chestnut trees and chestnut orchards.

Thomas Jefferson grafted some European varieties of chestnut on his Monticello estate in 1775, but an extensive introduction by Irenée duPont de Nemours of Wilmington, Delaware, about the beginning of the 19th century, seems to have been responsible for the rather wide distribution of these nuts and their accidental hybrids, by the year 1900, over southeastern Pennsylvania and the adjacent parts of Delaware and New Jersey. As early as 1891 the late Edwin Satterthwaite at Jenkintown, Pa., ten miles north of Philadelphia, had the roadsides and fence rows of his truck farm lined with a great assortment of chestnut trees. He also had them in regular orchard form, probably several dozen varieties. They were grafted and produced nuts of many different sizes and shapes, some nearly two inches in their largest dimensions; these nuts were sold in Philadelphia markets.

This rich collection of trees seems to have escaped the attention of professional horticulturists. I saw them only with the undiscriminating eyes of a schoolboy. My most vivid memory of them is the delightful speed with which they filled my surreptitious pockets; but I am sure that they were of many sizes and shapes and mostly of European origin. Some, however, seemed to be natives of small size that ripened nearly a month before other natives in the same locality. It is possible that that chestnut planting (and stealing) is responsible for this book. Virtue is not the only thing that has rewards.

The Paragon variety, undoubtedly a hybrid American x European, became the favorite of a young and promising American industry in the Nineties of the last century. This Paragon was very vigorous. I have seen grafts make six feet the first year, when grafted on suckers from a stump. It was not uncommon for the grafts to yield good nuts the second year. Not unnaturally, there was quite a boom for orchards of grafted chestnuts in the Nineties. For example, Mr. John G. Reist, of Mt. Joy, Pennsylvania, together with some associates, had eight hundred acres