A Member: Was that the old Furness Grove?
Mr. Reed: Yes, sir. That slide shows the congeniality, ordinarily, between the stock of the native chestnut and the paragon. The next slide shows a typical instance of malformation between the Japanese and native chestnut. I understand that this is not unusual at all. The Japanese, ordinarily, does not make a good union with the American sweet chestnut. That slide was taken in Indiana. It is a twenty-five acre paragon orchard owned by Mr. Littlepage and Senator Bourne of Oregon, planted in the spring of 1910. The next slide shows one of the trees in the orchard during its first season. Mr. Littlepage had to have them all gone over and the burs removed. They were so inclined to fruit during the first season that they would have exhausted themselves if the burs had not been removed. They made a very promising start, but I understand from Mr. Littlepage that a number of the trees have since died. Is there anything you'd like to add to that, Mr. Littlepage?
Mr. Littlepage: I haven't yet quite determined the cause of the trouble. Last winter I lost perhaps one-third of the trees with a peculiar condition. The wood under the bark was darkened. I sent some of them to Washington the year before to see if there was any blight or fungus and they reported there was none on any of the trees, but this winter perhaps one-third of the trees died down to the graft. A few, however, would sprout from the scion, giving me, of course, the grafted top again. It seemed to indicate, perhaps, a winter killing and yet I would not undertake to assert that that was the cause, but it was very serious.
Mr. Littlepage: High land along a hillside, very excellent land for chestnuts.
Mr. Littlepage: No, it's a hilly clay with a considerable humus and set in clover.
Mr. Littlepage: I don't know. I have some over on the other side of the hill and I don't know whether the killing was greater on the other side or not.
Mr. Reed: We have before us a view of the original Rochester and its originator, Mr. E. A. Reihl, of Alton, Ill. Over in the Court House we have on exhibition nuts of that variety which most of you have seen. You are aware, probably, that it is a native chestnut. It is one of the largest and best of the native chestnuts and originated in southern Illinois, where so far the blight has not spread. It gives considerable promise for the future. We come back now to Lancaster county to a chinkapin tree, a hybrid chinkapin. The original tree stands in a forest in this county, and as you notice there, it is a very good sized tree. You might think from the looks of the photograph that that is a chestnut, but the nuts are small and borne in racemes, so they are typical chinkapins.