Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1891 — Cultivating the Chestnut. [ARTICLE]

Cultivating the Chestnut.

How much cun be accomplished by introducing foreign strains of chestnuts no one can toll ns yet, but there nre native varieties which afford promises sufficiently certain and fluttering. Some of these, found in Tennessee, Pennsylvania und the mountains of Virginia, tire nearly us big its horse chestnuts and have a most-delicious flavor. Grafts from the trees bearing them produce admirable results. It must be understood that grafts do not improve vurictfes, merely maintaining them, so that the planter is able to gradually bettor his stock by selecting those trees which bring fort h the best fruit. Perhaps the time may arrive when chestnuts will contribute importantly to the food supply of the United States as they do now in Europe. There are many ways of using them in cookery and a number of receipt i will be included in the government report above referred to. They uro made into soup, prepared ns a pudding, employed us u stuffing for birds, boiled and dipped in sirup fora conserve and utilized in several other fashions. Now und then a chestnut twig is found which has a succession of burrs all along it instead of the usual two or throe that dangle together. The Department of Agriculture would bo very much obliged to any one who will send to it such a freak. It means simply that all of the female blossoms along the “spike” that boars the blurrs have been fertilized by the pollen. Ordinarily only two or three of them are so fertilized. If some grafts of the unusual growth described can be secured, possibly the producing power of chestnut trees may bo multiplied.