ear to any extent. We would have to mark that particular
endeavor down as very close to a failure.

Perhaps if we had given the grafting endeavor more attention we might
have had different results but we are in the manufacturing business in
Erie, Pennsylvania, and really look upon the Westfield, New York, farm
as a type of relaxation. In those years 1933 to 1935 industry was
experiencing a major distress and I am afraid most of our attention was
given to our factory rather than our farm. In fact, that situation
applies very largely to all of our nut endeavors. There is an old Scotch
saying "The eye of the master fattens the kine," and during the last 15
or 20 years when we in industry have experienced a tremendous depression
followed by a war it has meant that those interested have had to watch
their manufacturing plants to the detriment of their other interests
regardless of how much they regretted it.

In 1934, 16 years ago, we became interested in chestnuts as a possible
commercial crop. We purchased a quantity from J. Russell Smith,
interplanting them in a vineyard we expected to pull out as it was
getting too old. Two years later, through the cooperation of Clarence
Reed, Dr. Gravatt, also others at Beltsville, Maryland, we got some
2,000 seedlings of various types, some being hybrids. As some of these
bore we planted what we thought were the best nuts in a nursery and at
present have about 3000 chestnut trees ranging from three years old up
to 16 years. There is some blight occasionally showing which appears to
be on the hybrids. About 35 acres of the chestnuts were interplanted in
vineyards which we were planning to pull out. During the war, however,
the price of grapes was quite high and we left the grapes, pulling the
last of them out this Spring. Due to cultivation of the grapes an
appreciable number of the nut trees were cut out accidentally, and have
later been filled in with seedlings, with the result that the orchard
has a rather peculiar appearance. The mature trees, this year, have been
doing, we think, very well, and a great majority of them are bearing
from a light crop to a rather heavy crop.

Up to date we have had no trouble with worm in our chestnuts. In fact we
have not found a single wormy chestnut. This interests us appreciably,
as when the old American chestnuts were common on our farm it would seem
as if hardly a chestnut escaped a worm hole if you kept them long
enough. If you ate the chest