Article from The Rutland Herald regarding the reintroduction of the American Chestnut. This strain is supposed to be more disease resistant than the strain that nearly got wiped out by Dutch Elm disease and other malignancies. The US Dept. of Agriculture is supposed to be planting 15, 000 new Chestnut trees in America’s forests in the next year. Hopefully, a lot more than that each year in the years to come. After all the fuss in Washington lately, I hope they get their priorities straight to fund this project with enough $ to get it done – and it should be a bipartisan effort. There’s nothing political about a tree – no matter which way it leans!
Link: http://www.acf.org/white_house.htm
We won’t be able to handle this fine wood, but it’s comforting to know that it might be here for our children or, more likely, our grandchildren and for generations to come.
Kudos to the scientists who have been working on this problem for many, many years in their labs. Those guys/gals deserve our thanks.
Griff
Replies
Griff. I have to agree. I had the opportunity to use some which had been salvaged about 20 years ago. It was truly Americas' premier hardwood.
I took a vacation to the Smokies a little over a month ago. While hiking along one of the trails, I came across several large logs which were obviously quite old. I said to my companions, "I'll bet these are chestnut" and took a sample with my pocket knife. They were indeed chestnut. I guess they would have been dead for over 80 years, yet some of the wood was still quite sound.
Incredible. 80 years on the ground and still had parts usable.
I envy you that you had the chance to work some of it. I'd love to try my hand at some. Think I'd only use hand tools on it - no machine to despoil such a majestic wood.
15, 000 new Chestnut trees .. GREAT.. Should be 100,000.. Nice wood if you have it...
EDIT:
I hope they try the old American ELM too!
Edited 5/25/2005 4:21 pm ET by Will George
Although I have already post in this thread, I had not followed the link. Now I have. I never did see a tree. Are you sure they didn't just dig a hole that they charged $15.000 for in celebration for Earth-day.I think they should have dug a bigger hole.
If Congress funds it, no reason why it will not be 500,000 trees, or a million trees. I mean, think how many oak trees there are in the country - couple of million? tens of millions? Or, how many pine trees?
Of course, the government didn't have to plant those. But private industry (I mean the biggies - Weyerhouser, Boise Cascade, etc.) does re-plant when they harvest, don't they?
But, if you have the time and the inclination, dropping an email to your congressman/woman might not be a bad idea. Get the address out of Yahoo pretty easily.
Griff
Can locate members of Congress email at
http://www.house.gov/writerep/1 - measure the board twice, 2 - cut it once, 3 - measure the space where it is supposed to go 4 - get a new board and go back to step 1
Thanks for the link Rick.
I heard the blight killed 15 BILLION chestnut trees.
When they get up to planting 500k a year, then it might be important.
George. The reintroduction of a species [not that it is the exact species] is as important as the planting of 500,000 of that same species [think chicken or the egg] Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. We don't mind correcting them. Peter
Nah, I'm all with George. Think of 15 Billion trees! What a dream.
Of course, we'd never get near that many because it would be so common, industry would have no incentive to harvest it. In fact, were they to allow 15 billion of anything they'd probably all go bankrupt because the price for wood would plummet. Over supply and all that.
But, it's still nice to think about.
Perhaps, a better idea would be to plant 15 billion total of several different kinds - 1 billion red oaks, a billion white oaks, a billion chestnuts, a billion cherry, etc...
Griff
I read once that in the 18th century, when the great eastern North American chestnut forests existed, a squirrel could go from near the Gulf of Mexico all the way up into Canada and never touch the ground. And he'd be travelling mostly via chestnut. I read that in either Barbara Kingsolver's novel "Prodigal Summer" or one of my Appalachian Trail hiking books. Incredible to think of,...
Edited 5/26/2005 5:33 pm ET by Ed from Mississippi
Probably why I have so many of the little b*st*rd's grandchildren living around me!
I guess I can correct you also ...The blight kiils tress only after they reach nut bearing age.It is likely that the Chestnuts will never live long enough to reproduce. In which case there will also be no lumber from them.
Seems to me that these trees that are being reintroduced have been specifically bred to be resistant to the blight.
Same with the newer strains of American Elm.
Jason
correction foiled.
There are still a few isolated pockets of Chestnuts around. Isolated enough to not have caught the blight when the rest did. I had one on my place in eastern OKLA. I verified it was a Chestnut through leaf and nut comparison to a forestry book. That was about 20 years ago. Unfortunately it set on the bank of a creek and about 5 years after I Identified it, a flood took it down the creek. I don't know if they are self pollinating or not, but this one had nuts. I haven't seen anymore in the area but haven't really looked. That one was about 2' diameter.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)
PlaneWood
Ah, the things we should have done. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Last year I bought a couple of chestnut boards from a guy who cut some chestnut trees from his property in the Adirondacks. I haven't used it yet, but it should be about ready.....:-)
My neighbor has a OLD chestnut tree in his front yard just on my property line..
I keep tellin' him it's mine! He just gets out his chalk line and snaps a line on the pipes in the ground and shrugs his shoulders and tells me the tree has not moved a bit....
His tree use to get nuts but for some reason has not in a few years.. I know of no other chestnuts in the area.. I HAVE looked! So not sure where the 'mate' was before..
Bees? There was a bee keeper a few blocks away that was forced out by the village about the time the tree stopped producing nuts so maybe the bees??
Edited 5/27/2005 12:12 pm ET by Will George
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