The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1916-03-16
Breeding Chestnuts
For Disease Control

How to checkmate the new chest
nut blight or bark disease that is
| causing such vast destruction is a
problem of no small Importance. From
its obscure beginnings in Eastern New
York about twelve years ago, it has
! swept into nineteen States, and now
| affects about all of the northern half
of our native chestnut stands, doing
damage estimated at close upon $780,
00o,O It attacks the trees in twig,
branch and trunk, causing death in a
year or two, and soon recurs in the
sprouts or suckers sent up from the
still living roots. No native chest
nut appears to be spared in the long
run, but the little Eastern bush chin
quapin, with it's smoother bark and
comparative freedom from insect en-
emies, appears less readily attacked.
The European chestnut in it's favorite
varieties, is also subject to the disease,
but when we come to the chestnuts
of Japan and China we find very great
resistance, amounting in some varie-
ties to almost practical immunity.
There appears to be now no method
of controlling this disease, which is
caused by a fungus whose spores are
carried about by birds and insects,
creating new infections wherever they
reach the sap wood or inner bark of
the chestnut tree. There is no ap-
parent diIninution of it's virulence
since it came under observation.
The most obvious means of replace
ing the great losses of chestnut tim
Der and nuts would seem to lie in
the substitution for our native forms
the Asiatic species that best resist the
disease, having evidently for ages been
accustomed to its spresehce, and also
to breed the chestnut valuable
genus of forest trees, by hybridiza-
ton and selection for the avowed pro-
duction of varieties better adapted for
our purposes.
Some chestnut breeding has already
been accomplished in various parts of
our country, and generally with good
results. A promising experiment of
this character has been under the dt
rection of the Office of Forest Patho1-
ogy of the y. S. Department Of Agri- |
culture for several years.
Hybrids between the highly resist |
ant Japan chestnut and our native |
chinquapin have been raised in con- |
numbers, quickly forming |
handsome dwarf trees, bearing at an |
early age profuse crops of nuts of ex-
ce1lent quality, five or six times the |
size of those of the wild chinqua pin |
parent, and ripening weeks before any
other chestnuts. So far these trees
show a very high degree of disease re-
sistance. The second generation of
grown from self or chance
po1linated nuts appear quite good
as their parents, which is an important
feature when the cost of propagation
of nut trees by budding and grating
is considered. Another line of breed
ing lies in the inter-crossing of disease
resisting Japan and Chinese varieties
that are rapidly being imported into
this Country by the Office of Foreign
Seed and Plant Introduction, and Sc
lection of the best resulting forms
Four generations of cross-bred Japan
chestnuts of a very early-bearing type
producing nuts when two or three
years old, have already been grown,
and the varieta1 characters appear to
be we'll fixed. Some of the Chinese
chestnuts are said to grow nearly 100
feet high in their home forests, and it
may be possible by their to re-
place in some measure, our vanishing
native cehstnut stands, and perhaps
develop very superior varieties during
the process of acclimatization.
The hybrid chinquapins and cross
bred chestnuts referred to in this ar
.icIe are not yet available for distribu-
ton to the public for testing, since
hey are being held for further OBJ
as to their varieta1 charac-
.ers and the degree of disease resist
ance.