The nut of this species is usually of good size, roundish in form, not
pointed at the apex, and with the basal scar smaller than the lower end
of the nut. A certain amount of gray down is on the surface. This down
may be confined to a small area about the apex or it may cover much of
the upper end of the nut, and it may be thick, thin, or scant. The nut
may have good cleaning quality, meaning that the kernel and its pellicle
are easily separated. Cleaning quality may be good from the time the nut
falls from the tree or it may become so only after curing for a time.
Once it develops it may remain good as long as the kernel is usable or
it may last for a short while only. In texture and in palatability, the
kernel of the Chinese chestnut is not excelled by any other true
chestnut. Individual nuts are sometimes sweet from the first but the
great majority become so only after being cured for a week or 10 days.
Very few nuts of the pure species fail to be sweet when fully cured.
In the open the Chinese chestnut tree attains much the same size and
general proportions as does the apple but it may become somewhat larger,
more upright and considerably taller. Young seedlings vary greatly in
form and are often ungainly and unsymmetrical; but others are all that
could be desired with respect to symmetry. Early lack of symmetry tends
to become less objectionable as the tree grows older and is seldom
conspicuous after the first decade or so.
In fruitfulness, many of the seedling trees of bearing age are
definitely disappointing. Also in many cases the nuts are small. To
judge the species by the past fruiting performance of a majority of its
representatives in this country would leave little justification for
commercial hope. However, there are a good many individual trees about
the country whose performance record is excellent and a large number of
these are under careful observation as potential varieties.
The species has gained rapidly in popularity since the middle 'thirties
when enough good-performing trees began bearing for a fair appraisal of
the species to be possible. It was also at about that time that trees
for planting began to be available from the nurseries. Before then trees
could only be had in limited numbers from the Department of Agriculture.
Today, they are listed in nursery catalogues of one or more firms in
each of a half dozen or more states. The total number of trees yet
planted is comparatively small and both nurserymen and planters up to
this time have proceeded cautiously because of the newness of the
industry and its uncertainties.