As an honorary citizen of The Northern Province here in Machu Picchu, I thought I should post at least one small piece of information before my citizenship was revoked! *g* So, here's a subject near and dear to my heart: forests.

When the European settlers arrived on America's eastern shores, they discovered a vast forest of chestnut trees stretching from Maine to Florida and from the Piedmont all the way west to the Ohio Valley. So extensive was this forest, that 'a count of trees would have turned up one chestnut for every four oaks, birches, maples and other hardwoods'. In fact, their numbers were so vast that when the chestnuts bloomed in the spring, their flowers turned the canopies of the trees creamy-white and made many of the ridge tops in the central Appalachians appear to be capped with snow.

Many of these American chestnut trees were giants, too. In the deep forest, the trees might reach over one-hundred feet tall. It was not uncommon to find trunks that exceeded five feet in diameter. There are recorded examples of trees eight and ten feet in diameter and rumors of those even larger. The trunks grew straight and virtually branchless for up to fifty feet. Because of this, the American Chestnut was considered one of the best trees available for timber production. Lighter than oak, as rot-resistant as redwood, with a beautiful straight grain, the chestnut was used in just about any capacity man could imagine. Telegraph poles were made from them, railroad ties, shingles, paneling, fine furniture, musical instruments, even pulp and plywood.

Not only did the native population (as well as the wildlife) depend upon the chestnut for sustenance during the winter, but the settlers soon came to depend upon it as well. Many an autumn found farm attics stacked with bags of chestnuts, stashed away for winter use. Livestock was fattened on them. And what wasn't eaten by man or beast was sold. The American chestnut is larger and sweeter than its European or Asian cousins and was soon in great demand as an export.

So what happened to the American Chestnut?

Simple. Blight. In 1904 a fungus was discovered in New York, a lethal Asian organism to which the native American trees had little to no resistance. It spread with amazing speed, leaving behind only dead trees and dying stems. By 1950, 'the keystone species on some nine million acres of eastern forests had disappeared.' That's 3.5 billion trees gone within half a century!

Now, groups like The American Chestnut Foundation, among others, are working to bring back this legendary tree. Early tests on cross breeding the American and Chinese chestnut proved unsatisfactory in producing a more blight resistant variety. However, now that genetics are better understood, efforts to produce an all-American, blight-resistant strain of seedlings have been more successful. As of April 2003, cooperating growers working with The American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation have succeeded in planting 88,643 seedlings and 41,480 seednuts.

You can find out more information, including how to purchase chestnut seedlings yourself, by visiting the home page of The American Chestnut Foundation or The American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation.