UTILIZATION AND REFORESTING OF CHESTNUT- 

 BLIGHTED LANDS 



By Leonard C. Barnes 

 Forester, Nittany Forest, State of Pennsylvania 



It is now a clearly established fact that the chestnut-tree bark disease 

 has obtained a firm hold in the chestnut stands in the eastern part of the 

 United States, and that its progress is an uninterrupted advance 

 throughout these stands. No successful method of combating the dis- 

 ease has been discovered, and it appears that ultimately it will exter- 

 minate the chestnut trees. The only practical method of arresting its 

 advance has been to cut and utilize the chestnut in affected areas. The 

 following proposes to show this method in actual operation. 



In the spring of 1912 the chestnut-tree bark disease was discovered 

 upon the Nittany State Forest. At that time the blight was restricted 

 to a few trees on an area of less than five acres. The usual methods 

 then in vogue were put into practice — that is, infected trees were imme- 

 diately cut and barked, the stumps peeled, and the bark of the entire 

 tree, together with the limbs and small branches, piled over the stump, 

 and the whole mass burned. It was thought that the disease in the 

 Forest would thus be checked ; but in the spring of 1914 the disease had 

 spread to such an extent that it covered an area of more than 25 acres, 

 and in 191 5 the entire stand was more or less attacked. An examina- 

 tion of the stumps of trees cut four years ago showed that nearly every 

 chestnut sprout was blighted, and of the remaining standing trees 3 per 

 cent were killed and 75 per cent diseased. Such a condition made it 

 necessary to cut over the entire stand. The trees that were not already 

 killed would soon die, and prompt measures were required in order to 

 utilize the already dead material before insects attacked it and decay set 

 in. A plan was accordingly devised calling for a clear cutting of the 

 area, piling and burning the brush, and reforesting with coniferous spe- 

 cies. This plan fitted in nicely with a lumbering operation that was 

 then being conducted upon the Forest. 



The blighted area is located at the extreme western end of the Nit- 

 tany State Forest, in Center County, Pennsylvania, two miles distant 

 from the town of Pleasant Gap, is 120 acres in size and situated on the 

 south slope of a gap in the Nittany Mountain at an elevation of 1,200 

 854 



