e
accompanying experiments in crossing and grafting various species and
varieties has been kept up ever since. Foreign explorers have constantly
been on the lookout, with more or less success, for chestnuts in other
countries that might be resistant to the blight. It has long been known
that most forms of the Japanese chestnut (_C. crenata_) were in general
highly resistant to the blight. Later it was found that the more
recently introduced Chinese chestnut (_C. mollissima_) was also quite
resistant, although both the Japanese and the Chinese were far from
being immune. Quite recently Mr. Rock, explorer for the U. S. Department
of Agriculture, has brought a new chestnut from southern China for
experimental purposes. Notwithstanding newspaper reports to the contrary
the possibilities of this chestnut in this country apparently are
unknown at the present time. Nobody seems to know if it will stand our
climate, resist the blight, produce worthwhile timber or fruit; nor is
its name known, according to late advices that have reached me.

Some years ago the late Dr. Van Fleet made numerous crosses between the
Japanese and the American chestnuts, the Chinquapin, and other species
and varieties. Personally, I have not been in very close touch with Dr.
Van Fleet's experiments. Doubtless some of you know more about them than
I do. Regarding these I will only say at this time that the work begun
by Dr. Van Fleet is being continued by the Federal Bureau of Plant
Industry, with Mr. G. F. Gravatt in direct charge of the work so far as
the Office of Investigations in Forest Pathology is concerned. Mr.
Gravatt is also testing out the value of scions taken from seemingly
resistant native trees when grafted on resistant stocks.

Some years after the blight had destroyed most of the chestnut trees in
the northeastern states we kept getting reports from various localities
to the effect that the blight was apparently dying out. Many of these
reports came from sources that made us doubt their value, but others
came from more reliable sources. We have had opportunity to investigate
a number of these reports and have usually found that the statement that
the blight was dying out was, in a sense, strictly true, the reason
being that the chestnut trees were entirely dead, except for sprouts.
This fact naturally prevented the disease from showing us as much as in
former years.

Some twelve years ago I noticed in Pennsylvania a sprout of an Amer