ON THE CHESTNUT 
our native chestnuts is indeed a calamity, but it is 
a calamity that is not irreparable: We may have 
full assurance that new chestnut groves will spring 
up in the wake of the pest. 
It is obvious that the quick growing chestnut 
offers great advantages for such reforestration. 
The probability that these will prove immune to 
the pest gives them added attractiveness. If, how- 
ever, the existing varieties should prove not to be 
immune, it will be necessary to develop resistant 
varieties. For it is obvious that the cultivation of 
the chestnut will not be abandoned merely because 
it has met with an unexpected setback. 
It has already been pointed out that the chest- 
nut has exceptional food value on account of its 
high percentage of starchy matter. It therefore 
occupies a place in the dietary that is not held by 
any other nut. So there is an exceptional incentive 
to reintroduce the trees in devastated regions. 
THE CHESTNUT ORCHARD 
Possibly the coming of the chestnut plague, 
even though it has resulted directly in the destruc- 
tion of the entire chestnut groves throughout wide 
regions, may be a blessing in disguise, as it may 
make it necessary to bring the chestnut under 
cultivation in order to preserve the nut at all, 
whereas in the past it has grown so abundantly in 
the wild that little attention has been paid to it. 
[115] 
