in our part of the country, the biggest hill is called “Chestnut Ridge”, for generations it was the primary building material, we have the old hand hewn “wormy chestnut” beams out of our old barn we had torn down stored still, and they are quite valuable... It would be a wondrous thing to see the American Chestnut re-established on a large scale. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was pretty much impressed with them, too.
*** “wormy chestnut” beams out of our old barn we had torn down stored still, and they are quite valuable ***
I bought the house I’m in about 15 years ago. I had some work done a few years ago, and the contractor told me the paneling in my family room is wormy chestnut. I’m glad that I know, so I don’t do something stupid, like paint it, or replace it.
Why not bring back the chestnut tree? They hybridize vegetables for all kinds of conditions and adaptations.
The ubiquity of the chestnut was a product of indigenous people’s agricultural techniques. The Indians in both Americas farmed the trees in the forest, planting fruit and nut bearing trees everywhere and burning off the underbrush often. There are areas in Amazonia where it would be impossible to starve due to the number and variety of fruit bearing trees selected millennia ago and tended up until the advent of the Europeans.