wed the center to go up.

DR. McKAY: It may have different effects. We actually removed wood from
the tree.

MEMBER: Is that 7916 a pretty good sized nut?

DR. McKAY: It is a smaller nut. The 7916 is a potentially high bearer.
It bears quickly after it is planted and that is one of the things a lot
of us are interested in.

MEMBER: How about eating quality?

DR. McKAY: It is just as good.

Our preliminary conclusion is that early pruning in this species causes
severe dwarfing and delay in the fruiting of Chinese chestnuts. Just let
them alone. Plant them and forget about pruning them until they come
into bearing. Let them alone and you will get nuts two or three years
sooner than if you start taking those lower limbs off. Once you get it
into bearing then start in and take off a few limbs on the bottom. You
could still over-do the thing. The point is to wait at least three or
four years. We will have some recommendations in another year when we
shall know more ourselves.

MEMBER: What do you disinfect those cuts with?

DR. McKAY: We don't figure it is necessary to be too particular about
painting the wounds. Those wounds heal over very quickly. Use an asphalt
tree wound compound.

MR. SILVIS: Personally it appears to me that Walter Sherman's method of
rubbing off the buds or very young shoots just as they start growth is
to be preferred. Your method of cutting off limbs is destructive
pruning. Though you say pruning dwarfs the tree, actually the root is
still there and given enough time will not the tree recover?

DR. CRANE: I carried on pruning experiments for many, many years, with
apples, peaches, pears and cherries. Since then I have been working on
nut trees. As for this debudding, the reason he doesn't know he was
injuring, was that he didn't have checks and experiments. When you have,
you will see that debudding or even pinching the terminals will actually
dwarf the tree, although not as badly if it is not done in the summer
time. If you do it in the springtime, and if you keep on debudding along
in June and July, you are dwarfing your trees.

MR. McDANIEL: In the University orchard you will see some Chinese
chestnuts which have been pruned heavily, and the results aren't good.

MR. CORSAN: I visited a sweet chestnut orchard in Michigan, and the
grower told me that there were two types of Chinese chestnut trees, one
that grew tall and the other squatty. The one that grew shorter was much
later than