etter. In the Seattle
market we try to send in large nuts.

We also grade out all "cracks" by hand. They mold easily, and we have a
lot of cracked nuts in our climate there, but we have been able to
dispose of all of these through the Seattle market where they move off
very fast and are lower priced.

+California Supplies Distant Markets+

Last winter we went to California and looked into the chestnut market
there. We found them in the Sierras and found them growing in the Coast
Range without irrigation, but the largest growers were in the San
Joaquin Valley near Stockton. The largest grove was 30 acres at Linden
owned by Caesar De Martini. He gave us our best insight into California
chestnut growing. He used to grade and package his own, and he still has
his cylinder grader. It has three different size holes, one inch, one
and a quarter and one and a half. Anything that goes through the
one-inch hole is discarded as a cull. That leaves three sizes, the size
that goes through the one and a quarter, the one and a half, and the
size that goes out the end, which is, of course, a class of jumbos.

All the chestnuts in California, I think, now go to buyers to do the
grading and packing much as De Martini worked out. All of the California
nuts have to be soaked in water just as Mr. Jones does, as they come to
the packer dried out. The largest buyer that we found in California
shipped about seven carloads, and he shipped them all over the world,
the Philippines, Honolulu, Alaska, and other places where the chestnut
hasn't been growing.

+Early Autumn Best Marketing Season+

Now, I am going to sum up what our experience has been and what we
recommend as general from our experience. Your experience may be
different. We clean the nuts, wash them, if necessary, grade them; large
and small nuts do not sell well together. We would pack in baskets, half
bushel for sweets. We are trying to make that half bushel basket the
mark of the sweet nut in the markets where we sell, so that when a buyer
comes in there and sees a half bushel basket he knows that's sweets.
Then we ship as wet as possible, and they dry out on the way. And just
as fast as we can get those nuts off the ground we pack them and ship
them. Our greatest trouble now is, of course, the imported chestnut.
They are beginning to come in in great quantities, and they hit the
market in Chicago last year at about the 20th of October, and we tried
to beat that line if