Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting: Washington, D. C. September 8 and 9, 1916.
Science
Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting: Washington, D. C. September 8 and 9, 1916.
Northern Nut Growers Association -- Periodicals; Nut trees -- Periodicals; Nuts -- Periodicals
Look at this branch from a tree chinquapin. It is not remarkable in any
way, but the leaves seem to be a little larger than those of the bush
chinquapin. My tree chinquapins came from Stark's nursery in Missouri.
The first two which came into bearing had nuts quite as large as those
of the common chestnut and I imagined that a discovery of value had been
made, but other trees of this variety later bore very small nuts, and
all of the tree chinquapin nuts, large and small, were much duller in
color than those of the bush chinquapin. My final conclusion is that so
far as nuts alone are concerned we may plant and cultivate either the
tree variety or the bush variety of the species and then bud or graft
any number of stocks from some one plant which bears the best product.
DR. AUGUSTUS STABLER: Is it a somewhat finer grained wood than the
ordinary chestnut?
DR. MORRIS: I think it is. All the chestnuts have rather coarse wood. It
is strong, hard, durable, and valuable. This chinquapin wood is somewhat
coarse grained, but, for comparison with the American chestnut, I don't
know. I imagine it is finer grained.
DR. AUGUSTUS STABLER: I know that the chinquapin wood is very much
tougher than the American chestnut.
DR. MORRIS: Oh, yes. You cannot break the branches so easily.
Here is a branch from a hybrid between a chinquapin and a common
American chestnut (_Castanea dentata_). The leaves and bark, you will
observe, are very much like those of the larger parent. The burs are
borne singly or in small groups like those of the common chestnut,
instead of being crowded in dense clusters like chinquapin burs. There
are two or three nuts to the bur, while the chinquapin has normally, but
one nut to the bur. This particular hybrid tree showed an interesting
peculiarity. During the first two seasons of bearing it had but one nut
to the bur, and this was of chinquapin character. In the third year its
nuts were still borne singly, but they were lighter in color than before
and oddly corrugated at the base. As the tree became older its chestnut
parentage influence pre-dominated, and the tree began to bear two or
three nuts to the bur, and more like chestnuts in character, becoming
smooth again at the base.
I have a number of hybrids between chinquapins and various species and
varieties of other chestnuts, but none of these as yet has produced nuts
of marked value. There seems to be a tendency for the coarseness of the
larger nuts to prevail in the hybrids, a certain loss of gentility
beneath a showy exterior.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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