The chinquapin is practically immune to the blight (_Endothia parasitica_.) Easily blighting varieties of choice American chestnuts may be grafted upon these blight resistant stocks in orchard form if my experiment proves to be a success. It will not lessen the vulnerability of the American chestnut, but dwarf trees will be within reach of the horticulturist's pruning knife and spray outfit. Orchards of fine varieties of the common chestnut may perhaps be maintained in this way until the present epidemic of Endothia has expended its protoplasmic energy, or until it has succumbed to microbic parasites of its own.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any questions to put to Dr. Morris?
THE SECRETARY: I venture to say that a good many people have tried, in the north, to raise the chinquapin, and I would like to have Dr. Morris tell us what to do to get it to grow best, whether to buy the trees from the nurserymen, or to plant the nuts, and just how to do it.
PROF. C. P. CLOSE: I would like to ask Dr. Morris about those chinquapins that set without the application of pollen, whether they fill well and whether they sprout at planting?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: With us out in Maryland it isn't a question of producing the chinquapin; we cut the bushes down every year by the thousands; we have nothing at all against it, but we have found that the weevil has been absolutely unsurmountable with us. It is the only discouraging thing about it in this part of the country. Around Washington the chinquapin is a weed tree, and if you gather a peck of chinquapins you will find that the whole peck, in two weeks, have turned to weevils. Perhaps Dr. Morris can tell us what to do about that, and put us on the road to success.
THE PRESIDENT: I should like to ask Dr. Morris two questions, first, as to the possibility of utilizing the western tree chinquapins as stocks for the larger eastern chinquapins with nuts of chestnut size. Is there a possibility thus of getting a larger tree?
The second question is akin to that--utilization of the western tree as a stock for a hybrid chinquapin which might have arboreal possibilities and enough chinquapin qualities to be blight-resistant.
DR. STABLER: I am very much interested in Dr. Morris' proposition to produce dwarf chestnut trees by grafting on chinquapin stocks. Now, the difficulty I would expect to encounter is the same as when pecans are grafted on hickory, and when sweet cherries are grafted on Mahaleb, namely, that the root is not sufficiently vigorous to support the top. The fact that his grafts grew so tremendously when put on the chinquapin roots would look as though that might occur.