ne bad?

MR. WILSON: I have had no incompatibility, except on one tree. My oldest
grafts are four and five years old, top grafted in place on two and
three year old seedlings.

DR. CRANE: Mr. Stoke, what is your experience?

MR. STOKE: I have two trees in my yard at home. Dr. Reed gave me credit
for doing the first grafting of Mollissima in this country. I don't know
whether it's true or not. Those were grafted in '31. They made perfect
union, and they are perfect today, and they will be perfect when I am
dead and gone. I find no incompatibility between Mollissima and
Mollissima. One acre of good, select varieties, grafted, will produce as
many nuts as three or four acres of seedlings.

DR. CRANE: Mr. Bernath, how about the situation up in the Hudson Valley?

MR. BERNATH: My trees are of small size. We have some in bearing, but as
far as having any difficulty with them or freezing back, we have none.

DR. CRANE: Mr. Snyder, how about the situation out in Iowa?

MR. SNYDER: I am not trying to grow Chinese chestnuts anymore. We have
had two different lots from U.S.D.A. and both of them have gone out in
the winters sooner or later. We have had nice seedling rows, and Dr.
Colby sent over a collection of scions, enough to graft each one. Every
one grew. This winter they are all gone. We can grow American chestnuts,
but we can't grow the Chinese.

DR. CRANE: Joe, you have had a lot of experience, made a lot of
observations of this matter of seedlings versus grafted varieties. What
do you think of the situation?

DR. MACDANIEL: I will follow Mr. Stokes' opinion on that. I think grafted
trees, if you have a compatible graft, are worth several times as much
as average seedling trees. At the University of Illinois most of our
trees are seedling trees. We are just getting started with grafted
Chinese chestnuts.

DR. CRANE: That's the way it is with us. Anybody in the audience that
has an opinion that they think seedlings are better than grafted trees?

MR. CALDWELL: I was going to say seedlings are better, but I think this
is one thing everybody should realize: The emphasis has been based on
early production. In many cases we have found in forest trees that early
seed production doesn't necessarily mean heavy late seed production.
Some of those that didn't produce early went ahead and 40 or 50 years
later produced heavily. So be a little bit careful when you start
swinging too heavily on early production.

DR. CRANE: