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 regularly bear excellent nuts, probably up to the physical limit of the tree to hold them up.

If we could just get a new idea into the minds of the American farmers and of the creative leaders of American agriculture! That new idea is this: The chestnut offers an opportunity for an American forage crop, especially pig feed, productively covering hundreds of thousands of acres in addition to the few tens of thousands of acres needed to supply the human food market. I can see no reason why the best Chinese varieties we now have should not replace corn on many an Appalachian hillside, and perhaps on level land.

There is no reason to think them inferior to the European in productiveness. Here is a record made with care on U. S. Department of Agriculture grounds:

The seed of the parent tree of Nanking variety was planted in 1936.

In 1943 it bore 2.3 pounds.

In 1944 it bore 34.4 pounds.

In 1945 it bore 37.8 pounds.

In 1946 it bore 1.0 pound (due to big freeze).

In 1947 it bore 87.7 pounds.

In these 5 years it bore 163.2 pounds.

If that tree is given room, air and food, and no freezes, it will probably bear somewhere between 500 and 750 pounds in the next 5 years. A row of such trees would almost support a family at the present price of 30¢ to 50¢ a pound.

For the forage crop, we probably need new varieties of chestnuts, and the attempt to get them may easily give us good new varieties for the table. Breeding possibilities appear to be very great. The Chinese chestnut, the Japanese chestnut, and the chinkapin all interbreed with ease, and they offer rich possibilities to the plant breeder.

Within these three species there is a great variety of quality.