At first the selection of the planting sites was left entirely to the
judgment of the cooperators, and most of them assumed that the Asiatic
chestnuts have site requirements similar to those of the native American
chestnut. Because the American chestnut often occurs on dry ridges and
upper slopes, especially where soil is thin and rock outcrops are
frequent, the cooperators proceeded to plant the Asiatic chestnuts on
similar "tough" sites. They believed that the planting of forest-tree
species is justified only on defrosted areas that have reverted to
grassland, or worn-out, unproductive agricultural land, or on
wastelands--sites that we now know are better suited to the growing of
conifers rather than hardwoods. As a result of this unfortunate choice
of site selection, together with the several severe drought periods
recurring in the early thirties, the cooperators lost most of their
trees during the first and second years after planting.
Inspections of some of these planted areas after a lapse of from 10 to
15 years indicated that the sites still support only a scant herbaceous
cover, with broomsedge and povertygrass predominating, and with no
evidence of native woody species encroaching on the areas. The few
surviving Asiatic chestnut seedlings were sickly looking, multi-stemmed,
misshapen trees, heavily infected with twig blight and chestnut blight,
and severely damaged by winter injury. But despite these heavy losses, a
few plantations succeeded at least in part, and from these limited
areas, together with an appraisal of the situations where some of the
earlier planted chestnuts grew well, valuable information as to the site
requirements of the Asiatic chestnut species was obtained.