Mr. Rush: We don't know; it's a native tree; it's a hybrid.
Mr. Reed: Yes, the chestnut and chinkapin grow close together.
The Chairman: What is the form of the nuts?
Mr. Rush: Round like a chinkapin. I think it was a chestnut on a chinkapin.
Mr. Lake: If it is a chinkapin, what is there to indicate that there is any chestnut blood in it?
Mr. Rush: The size of the tree and the fact that the nut matures with the chestnut. The chinkapin is about three weeks earlier than this variety of chinkapin.
Mr. Reed: That photograph is typical of the Rush hybrid chinkapin. We take up the butternut now. So far as we know, there are no named varieties of the butternut; there cannot be until some good individual tree is found which is of sufficient merit to entitle it to propagation by budding and grafting. It is one of the best known nuts in our field, especially in New England; it is more common there than it is further south.
This slide shows the native butternut in the forests of southern Indiana near the Ohio River. Of course, those trees in forests like that don't mature many nuts. It is not in the forests, ordinarily, that you will find individual trees of sufficient merit to entitle them to propagation. It is the tree in the open that has had greater opportunities than are afforded in the forest.
Mr. Lake: Are there any coniferous trees in that forest?
Mr. Littlepage: No, that's an alluvial bottom, Mr. Lake. There is quite a long bottom by the creek where the butternut grows profusely. We have the same tree on the farm that Senator Bourne and I own. Hundreds of those trees grow in the woods there. It's rich alluvial soil.
Mr. Lake: The fact that it is rich alluvial soil does not usually bar coniferous trees; it may in your section.
Mr. Reed: The slide before us shows typical black walnuts that are almost as common, perhaps more so, in many parts of the area under discussion, than the butternut. This photograph was taken in Michigan where the trees are growing along fence rows without cultivation or special attention. No one knows whether the nuts of those trees are of special value or not. It merely shows the starting point for improvement in the walnut. We come now to the Persian walnut, which Mr. Lake will discuss more fully in a few minutes. This is one of the trees we will probably have an opportunity to see this afternoon. It is between Mr. Rush's nursery and the station, on the right hand side as you are going out. Just above the top of the fence you will notice a dark line which indicates the point of union. The Persian walnut was grafted on the black stock. The Persian is of slightly greater diameter. Now we have Mr. Rush in his walnut nursery. These are seedling walnuts in their third year.