CHESTNUT IN THE FUTURE 



967 



favored situations, and thinned 

 out the trees so as to develop 

 specimens with large crowns, 

 which results in increased nut 

 productioM. These places are 

 locally called chestnut orchards. 

 There have been in various parts 

 of the country, notably Pennsyl- 

 vania, from time to time regular 

 chestnut orchards established for 

 growing chestnuts, but most of 

 them have made use of horticul- 

 tural varieties of the various 

 European or other exotic chest- 

 nuts, since their nuts are larger 

 than those of our native tree. In 

 some cases, however, this exotic 

 stock has been grafted onto our 

 native trees. The coming of the 

 chestnut blight put a summary 

 end to the productivity of most 

 of these orchards. Experiments 



in spraying and hybridizing different species of chestnuts 

 valuable for nut production to produce a blight-resistant 



Courtesy Penna. Chestnut Blight Commission. 



CUTTING SLACK STAVES FROM CHESTNUT STAVE BOLTS 

 Chestnut is one of the five leading woods used in the slack stave industry. 



form may, if successful, allow these orchards to be re- 

 established. 



Chestnut in the Future 



ASIDE from its value for all sorts of uses, chestnut 

 / \ was long regarded as a valuable woodlot tree, be- 

 -* "cause of many of its other qualities. A tree to 

 succeed in the average farm woodlot must be quick 

 growing, and chestnut is easily that ; there are few hard- 

 woods in its range which grow faster. In the South 

 chestnut sprouts frequently attain fence-post size in 10 

 or 13 years, and tie size in 25 years. In the North 

 farmers used to be able to depend on obtaining ties 

 from chestnut trees 35 or 40 years old. Another fact 

 which gave the tree such a value in the woodlot was 

 the prolificness with which it sprouted. If you cut 

 down a chestnut tree, you get many chestnut trees in its 

 place, for, unless the tree is very old, a large number of 

 sprouts spring up from the stump and grow like weeds, 

 in a few years forming a group of thrifty young trees. 

 In Neyr England and the Middle States farmers took 

 advantage of this sprouting capacity, which is possessed 

 to a lesser degree by the other hardwoods of the region, 

 and cleared off their woodlots every 30 or 40 years, 

 trusting to the sprouts to grow up and form a new stand. 

 It was a rough application of the well-known forestry 

 system known as the simple coppice system. 



The combination of desirability for many uses, par- 

 ticularly those not requiring extensive manufacture, to- 

 gether with its rapid growth, have made chestnut the 

 leading woodlot tree of the Northeast. When foresters 

 began to study woodlot conditions, they discovered much 

 about the chestnut which the farmers already knew, and 



they advocated not only favoring the tree in the woodlot, 

 but its extension, and many chestnut plantations were 

 made as a result of their advice. 



But its popularity was short lived, for today, notwith- 

 standing all its good points, it is no longer upon the for- 

 ester's list of desirable trees, and, far from encouraging 

 it, he is advocating its removal from the woodlot as 

 speedily as possible. Enemies now attack this tree on 

 every side, and it is very poor forestry to favor a tree 

 against which nature has so definitely set her hand. The 

 chestnut has been practically exterminated over whole 

 sections where formerly it was common, and in many 

 others it is now being destroyed by the wholesale. Its 

 enemies bid fair to destroy it ,as a commercial tree, per- 

 haps to push it to the border^ of extinction. 



One of these enemies hjis risen with almost drastic 

 suddenness. Less than fifteen years ago the chestnut 

 blight was unknown to the scientist or the woodsman. 

 Seven years after the discovery, in 1904, near New York 

 City, of this undesirable alien from northern China it 

 was conservatively estimated to have done $35,000,000 

 worth of damage. At present it is found from Maine to 

 North Carolina, and it is thought that it will all but ex- 

 terminate the chestnut in the Northern States, where 

 already it has destroyed its commercial value in many 

 places, and may invade the South with like disastrous 

 results. At a recent meeting of the lumbermen of south- 

 ern New England it was the concensus of opinion that 

 ten years or less will see the end of chestnut as a com- 



