.

Mr. Chase: Gentlemen, in the last hour and a half we have heard perhaps
more about chestnuts from qualified specialists than we will ever hear
in any meeting of ours, and we requested each one to withhold questions
until this point. So now we will have some questions from the floor,
please.

Mr. Slate: What is the present status of breeding chestnut species for
timber purposes?

Mr. Gravatt: The prospects are coming along. We have one cross between a
none-too-promising Chinese chestnut and an American chestnut, with a
good bunch of hybrids and they are different from other hybrids. It
looks like they will stand up against blight. They will have blight
canker growth from 10 feet down to the ground but it doesn't go into the
cambium region. It is too early to evaluate the hybrids, but they do
have the upright form and rapid growth of the American chestnut.

Now when we take these first-generation hybrids, cross them back with
the Chinese and get more resistance, as we have done so many times in
the past, we lose that rapid and more upright growth habit of the
American chestnut. But we have a lot more work to do before we are ready
to say anything final on this question.

Dr. Arthur H. Graves, formerly at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is now
consulting pathologist at the New Haven, (Conn.) Experiment Station. We
have been working with him and partially supporting his chestnut
breeding for a good many years. He has a lot of hybrids up there. We
expect to have something later, but have nothing to release yet.

A Member: Do you have any sprays to control diseases and insect pests in
the tree that when they go into the soil won't destroy our ground
friends?

Mr. Chase: Mr. Gravatt?

Mr. Gravatt: I don't know what insects you are after, in the first
place. We have a lot of trouble with Japanese beetles. Around
Washington, Dr. Crane's and my plantings there would be defoliated if
they weren't sprayed for Japanese beetle control, and it is the same way
with filberts.

A Member: The same sprays have a tendency to work against most of the
pests, do they not? Of course, DDT will take one, the arsenate of lead
takes another, Black Leaf 40 another, but if we had a spray that we can
use around on--well, not limited to the chestnut--that would be
neutralized in the earth. Now, we have a good deal of friendly bacteria
and insects in the soil that we want to keep.

Mr. Gravatt: I would say that I am a pathologist, and insect