The Chestnut in America: History and Future
A hundred years ago American Chestnuts were the titan of the eastern forest. Trees so big nothing short of the Redwood compares. Trees that made grown men look like toddlers standing in front of.
Each fall Chestnuts would cover the forest floor making it difficult to walk without tripping over them. Yields so massive farmers brought their livestock to the woods to fatten them up under before going to slaughter. Train cars were filled with nuts and sent into the cities from the Appalachian hillsides. A truly natural resource unmatched by anything we have today.
Today more than a hundred years later most of these mighty trees are gone. A fungus came in from overseas and started to afflict the great Chestnut. Within years a great die off was upon them. Loggers, seeing dollar signs came in and started clear cutting the highly valuable trees for timber and furniture.
The chestnut survives today thanks to forward thinking ‘citizen scientists’ and plant breeders who have been working to find blight resistance trees for the past several decades. Thanks to the work of so many chestnut enthusiasts, today’s chestnut tree, (mostly Asian/American cross) is again starting to dot the landscape of eastern and midwest forests and farms.
If you are lucky enough to have a few nearby chestnut trees then you know, fall is chestnut season!
The Nuts
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire was part of Americana well before it was a catchy Christmas song. Native Americans along the eastern US used chestnuts as a staple crop. As Europeans arrived in North America they continued to utilize the chestnut.
Most of the US population in the 19th and early 20th century lived along the eastern seaboard, east of the Appalachian Mountains. Rural country folk would load wagons and train cars full of chestnuts each fall. Make their way to the cities to unload their valuable cargo. Chestnuts were truly nature’s bounty, supplementing one’s income each fall in a major way!
Chestnuts Today
Sadly, chestnuts aren’t as plentiful as they once were. If you can find a stand of chestnuts today chances are they were planted there intentionally. Except for a small few, native wild growing American Chestnuts no longer exist. Most of the chestnuts along the east and Midwest come from breeding a mix of blight resistant Chinese, Japanese, and American genetics. These trees will never match the size and scope of chestnut filled forests they are a start.
Every year I go to the same few trees to pick dropped nuts each fall. Sure the yields don’t fill a train car, they don’t even fill the back of my mini van. But they do bring us a connection to nature, a connection to where our food really comes from. They bring an appreciation of our past and maybe even a sign of what’s to come.
Will the great chestnut ever regain its spot in the eastern forest? Each fall as I pick chestnuts from trees one tenth of the size of the great American Chestnuts I get a glimpse into future. With ever expanding development will the chestnut ever find a foothold in the native forest? It’s too early to tell but here’s hoping it does!
Are you engaging with nature this fall? Have you harvested some of falls abundant nut crops? From chestnuts, to hickories, to walnuts, tell us about your experience! Are you looking to plant your own chestnuts? Visit our store for easy to grow, blight resistance chestnut trees.
