145 

 The Blight Threatens a National Loss. Who Loses? 



If anybody thinks lie is not a loser because lie has not a chest- 

 nut forest all his own, he has another think coming. 



(a) Do you wear shoes? If so, the chestnut interests you, 

 because we are just beginning to make tannin for leather from 

 the wood of the chestnut. 



(b) Do you read? The pulp that remains after the tannin 

 is gone makes paper ; also a new industry just starting. 



(c) Do you rent a house? Chestnut wood is one of the most 

 satisfactory woods for finishing the plain man's house. 



(<1) Do you use the telephone or telegraph? Chestnut makes 

 oiK 1 of the best telegraph and telephone poles. 



(e) Do you go a-trolleying? The chestnut is the tie-produc- 

 ing tree of the future, if we do not let the blight kill the species. 



(f ) Do you own a farm or a town lot? Chestnut is one of the 

 great fence post trees of America. 



Lastly in its list of virtues we should not forget its value, and 

 especially its possibility as a producer of food for man, and sheep, 

 goats, hogs, and possibly other livestock. Already the chestnut 

 orchards of Europe make rough mountain sides worth one hun- 

 dred and fifty dollars per acre. Compare that to American farm 

 lands. The chestnut forests of Italy are reported to make more 

 bushels of nuts year after year than the continuously cropped 

 lands of Dakota and Minnesota yield in wheat. Fully one- 

 fourth of the State of Pennsylvania, which is worthless for wheat 

 or corn, is better fitted for chestnut culture than any other use 

 now in sight. If we make them yield no better than the Italians 

 do, that would give us ninety million bushels of nuts, an amount 

 50 per cent, greater than our wheat and corn crops combined. 

 It would make this one of the greatest sheep and pig fattening 

 states of the country. 



The stake in maintaining the chestnut species from destruc- 

 tion is large. The estimate of three hundred million dollars is 

 probably under, rather than over, the proper figure. In the ab- 

 sence of definite knowledge of the cure, how much are we justified 

 in spending in uncertain efforts? The problem is one of insur- 

 ance. Forty billion dollars' worth of property in the 



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