st advantage along with many of the exotic ones.
I might end by saying that I would much rather work in the shade of
trees than in the open sun and benefit by their long life and varied
uses than to depend so heavily on short lived crops which often require
such intensive care.
* * * * *
President Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Jones. A very interesting paper with
details that are worth listening to.
Professor J. C. Moore of the Department of Horticulture, Alabama
Polytechnic Institute, will give us a talk on Processed Chestnuts on the
Market throughout the Year.
Processed Chestnuts on the Market throughout the Year
J. C. MOORE, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Ala.
Professor Moore: Mr. President, members of the Association: I have a few
packages here that I just wanted to pass around after we get through
with a short discourse on processed chestnuts. It might be somewhat of
an inspiration to look while I talk a few minutes about it.
These nuts, of course, have been put up from the 1947 crop, but I have
nuts put up in 1945 that are still in fair shape. The quality on the
1945 product is not too good. The quality on the 1947 product is
excellent when the nut is hot. For instance, a toasted chestnut, I
think, has a quality that no other nut has. When the nut sits in a bag
sealed for several weeks and gets cold it still is good, but it doesn't
have quite the crispness that it has when it is really fresh and hot.
We were very much disappointed with Chinese chestnuts when they first
began to bear at Auburn. We got some plants from Mr. Gravatt and the
Bureau of Plant Industry in Beltsville in 1938. They were planted; some
of them started bearing in 1941. The nuts were large in size; the trees
seemed to be perfectly healthy. The early bearing habit gave us a great
deal of encouragement. Then we sampled these nuts, and the quality was
not good. While the nuts were green and in storage the nuts decomposed
in just a few days' time.
The first nuts that we harvested in 1941 were picked, placed in paper
bags, set in the office, and we forgot about them, because they were not
good when we put them in the bags, and we just put them back for our
record purposes. A few days afterwards they were moldy and ruined. In
1942 we had a little better crop, but again the nuts rotted. In 1943 we
had a still larger crop, and the nuts rotted again. We did not know how
to take care of those
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