ago the great blight, starting irom « New York

ago the great blight, starting irom « New York City park, swept northward and southward along the Appalachians. Within a decade only ghost forests remained. The mountainsides werte covered with dead white trunks.

The blight came'from Asia. The only countermove possible was to introduce Chinese and Japanese varieties resistant to the disease With the hope that one or more of them would fit into soil and climatic conditions of North America and would yield nuts and lumber of a quality as good as the native variety. v : v '

Several score Varieties have been introduced. None, up to now, has proved very satisfactory.

The new chestnut was in a lot brought in from China about 60 years ago. It seemed to have no par t ie u la|^ .premia e. Lately, however, it has proved by far the most adaptable of all. It grows rapidly, advancing from the seed to the nut-bearing stage in about ten years. The nuts have a flavor very nearly equal to that of the native chestnuts. The timber is of excellent quality. The yield of tannin for the leather industry is quite high._*An

experimental plot is being maintained in the George Washington National Forest near Roanoke. There on a sunlit hillside, the new chestnut is planted among a wide variety of other chestnuts —and easily has out-stripped all.

Everywhere it has proved to be blight-resistant. It is vigorous, a hea\y nut bearer, and entirely able to fend for itself in competion with other trees.

It is, however, by no means a duplicate of the dead American chestnut. It does best in sheltered mountain hollows, rather than on mountainsides and crests.

Hope has by no means been given up for an even better variety that may turn up among the imports. There still are probably scores of unknown species in the wyest China mountains, but that region now is closed tos^.merican plant explorers.