The blight...

Before telephones became common, before rural America saw electric service, before automobiles were available to the wage earner. At the turn of the new century, it came in from abroad.

No one noticed at first as the infection spread silently and swiftly. The most devasting part was that by the time the the first alarms were heard- it was already too late.

In 1901, as the American age began, the mighty American Chestnut tree was king of the eastern forests. One out of every four hardwood trees in the United States was a chestnut, and formed a part of the traditions of our expanding young country. Over 4 billion of the trees- many so immense in diameter that they rivaled the California Redwoods- filled our forests, and our front yards, providing food for the animals, prized wood for furniture and a thousand other uses. Their nuts were so prized and appreciated that they even became part of our Christmas tradition, immortalized in song.

What we didn't know then, and simply couldn't envision, was that a blight would arrive within a few years, carried in by accident from China. An unseen airborne organism, too small for the eye to see, would utterly destroy an unshakeable part of Americana. The Chestnut trees began dying by the dozens, then the thousands, and within a few more years by the millions. The authorities, increasingly frantic under pressure from an alarmed and stunned citizenry, were powerless to stop the blight no matter what was tried, and by the late 1930's it was all over but the shock. The mighty American Chestnut tree, that so many hearts and initials had been carved in, was doomed.

Loggers frantically harvested as much undamaged wood as possible, before the rot rendered it, too, unusable. Though well intentioned, they may have worsened the problem. When many decades later a few fluke semi-resistant trees were discovered, scientists looked back and wondered how many, (perhaps dozens or hundreds out of the 4 billion), might also have survived and developed partial, and then even primary immunity. At the time though, their actions were understandable, as genetics was a technology reserved for the end of the millenium.

It was America's first wakeup call, that any rot left to spread for too long, would could cause the unthinkable.

What the baby boomer Americans, born after World War 2, from the 1950's to the present, don't know was that the chestnuts they were and are eating... were imported from Europe and from China. The Chinese chestnut trees were immune from the virus that they had sent to our shores, and the Europeans, at first terrified that the blight would spread to them, as it inevitably did, were saved by a strange quirk of nature (which makes fascinating reading). A previously unknown virus attacked the blight organism which inevitably arrived from America, and reduced it's lethality! The Euros hadn't planned it- they just lucked out.

What most of today's Americans also don't know, is that a small group of dedicated researchers have been systematically attacking the problem from the point of view of genetics. As the science has improved, shoots from American chestnuts, (which periodically still spring up from the old root systems of destroyed trees, and can survive for a number of years before always falling to the blight), have been crossed with the Chinese chestnut, producing a 50% American/50% Chinese Chestnut. Backcrossing with other American trees, showing the most stubborn resistance to the virus, then produced 75% American/ 25% Chinese trees.

Each such backcrossing requires the new trees to grow for five to seven years before they produce seeds of their own. The timing is becoming desparate because the shoots still coming up from the roots of destroyed trees are becoming less vigorous, and soon will stop- destroying forever the DNA of the American giants.

Trees which had reached a back-mix to 7/8ths American, and still strongly blight-resistant, have been backcrossed yet again to produce a final chestnut tree which is 15/16ths American, and 1/16th Chinese. Further backcrosses have proven to lose the immunity injected by the Chinese DNA. But a chestnut which is 15/16ths American is virtually undistinguishable from a pure American chestnut.

These unsung volunteers, knowing that no matter how successful their work- (many will not live to see an America re-forested with a treasure that had been lost) - have pressed on with determination, thinking of their grandchildren.

"It is enough that they will see them. I smile when I think of that- and the work goes easier!" remarked one unnamed member of the American Chestnut Society, the group which stands on the brink of giving back to the country a forgotten national treasure. As a result of their patient work, spanning decades now, selected and secret small tracts of protected and monitored forest range in several states have recently been planted with thousands of what will be the opening waves of the returning American chestnut tree. It is long, hard, tedious work. But it has been estimated that by 2050, if all goes well, and contributions to the group (The American Chestnut Society) continue, huge numbers of these trees will someday return in their grandeur to American forests. The consensus seems to be that government needs to stay out of this project, and private contributions need to carry the day, for obvious reasons.

This will have been accomplished by a society which operates on private contributions from members and well-wishers. Think of how much more quickly work could progress, if a few good Freepers would Google the American Chestnut Society, and contribute to a magnificent though little-known cause.

Yet our own generation's blight is being fought. After watching the devastation being wrought by an Administration clearly unable to understand the dangers of the "blight of entitlement" which has swept through the country, many of us can only agonize as yet another precious national treasure faces extinction - that of the self-sufficient family, and the endangered American worker.

By the time the media finally understands the tragedy they have recklessly spread so widely, in exactly the same manner as the winds of the early 1900's sent the chestnut blight across the nation, it will have been far too late to avoid devastation.

Perhaps some tragedies must happen. Perhaps it is in the character of nature and nations, that unfamiliar pathogens must wreak their devastation periodically. Like a forest fire which consumes those who refuse to study the past, it may be that the inferno is the grim reaper of the blithely ignorant.

Perhaps later, small selected groups of retired Americans, innoculated with the resistance of experience, to the allure of free government money, can gather together, and explain to those youngsters who will listen, that their inherited hardships, (despite what a desperate media will saturate the airwaves with), were entirely avoidable, and unnecessary.

That the honest undertaking of working hard to earn a family's living, the caution used in spending that pay, and the strengthening discipline of putting off many of their wants, to instead save a portion of their earnings against those days where losses and tragedies happen... slowly gave way under the relentless blandishments of the national media into a national lottery fever mindset.

That a majority of voters came to believe that the government could pay for the problems in their lives. That their health and their happiness was something that their fellow citizens owed them, and through some tax money that surely wouldn't be missed by those who had so much, "fairness" would return to their lives.

And when the tax money slowed, the national credit card came out with an irresponsibility never before seen.

Only when the young can see, and understand, the results of the pawning of their future, will they with steely eyes understand. When they realize that the zealots of a twisted political agenda reached ascendency in this country, and, unlike anything previous generations could have even dreamed of permitting, decided not only to spend their birthrights of the accumulated capital of twenty generations of Americans before them, but further, to pawn the future incomes of succeeding generations, they will be enraged.

Well they should be. But eventually, with the help of those few who prepared themselves to be counter-propagandists against the defensive re-writing of history by the leftist media, perhaps they can turn that rage into a cold determination to prevent such a thing from ever happening again.

Whenever I think of the most romantic and beautiful of all trees, I think of the chestnut. I have many historical books with photographs of chestnuts or drawings of them. I just think they were truly majestic and it is devastating that we lost so many due to this blight. However, I know that a lot were destroyed even before that.

Thanks for the good post.

What a great parable to shed light on the cancer of leftism which has infected our nation. I also believe that this pathogen will ultimately be defeated by our people’s innate immune response to tyranny.

"blight of entitlement" which has swept through the country, many of us can only agonize as yet another precious national treasure faces extinction - that of the self-sufficient family, and the endangered American worker.

You know if the freakin government did not take so much in taxes along with the state county and city taxes to boot there would be more self sufficient people. I have paid into the government for over 40 years so I do not see anything I get as an entitlement but just a return on my 40 plus year investment.

Nice post.

I can only imagine what the Eastern hardwood equivalent of the mighty redwood tree must have looked like. All we have now are the photos.

http://www.acf.org/

Nice piece. I was already familiar with the American Chestnut Society, and planning to get a couple of their backcrossed seedlings to plant on one of my properties. But I’ve long been puzzled by why they haven’t taken a genetic engineering approach to this problem. The blight resistance of the Chinese chestnut is almost certainly the result of one or a few very short gene sequences, and it should be possible to get a chestnut strain that is at least 99% “American” that has the blight resistance gene. The notion that more than 15/16ths “American” means no blight resistance just doesn’t make sense. It’s sort of mind-boggling to me that they don’t seem to have sequenced the respective genomes yet, and isolated the blight resistance gene(s).

Write a grant proposal -- with all the ecofreaks in power now, it's *SURE* to get funded.

NO sarcasm, for once.

Cheers!

There were still some around when I was a little kid ~ not the really big ones, but still large chestnut trees. I remember when they were last cut down in Indianapolis.

The trick was these trees were so large you could shade a neighborhood with just a few dozen of them. The blight spread rapidly because the roots of all the trees were entangled. Future plantings will have to be a bit more sparse.

Before air conditioning these trees made summertime in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic bearable.

Several very large chestnut trees are on some old family property, and the place where I grew up. They are Chinese chestnut, and maybe some of the early crosses that were planted by grandparents who were alive when the blight wiped out the American chestnut trees, and who planted whatever was available to begin the restoration of the chestnut tree. Mosts of the trees are 70+ years old now.

You remembered when they were cut down? You own a piece of history!

The trick was these trees were so large you could shade a neighborhood with just a few dozen of them.

That's a big tree.

The ones I saw being cut down had been barely alive, but someone had just left them alone during WWII + a few years.

One of them I watched (with my grandmother I believe) was at the corner of a property where Riley Towers was later built.

There are a lot of people around who saw some of these trees but they may have not recognized them.

Few decades ago we bought a bed headboard at an auction that was made from chestnut. It needed "fixed" so I used a small piece of chestnut to do the job. We still have it.

Most excellent!

Tieing our heritage to our future. The power of a few dedicated toilers ( a remnant ) who persevere to save something of value cannot be underestimated; particularly if they are operating in the will of God.

Psalm 127:1

Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

Thanks for the lesson.

Thanks for the post. I just found a person I graduated 8th grade in 1950 is on the Board of Directors. Small world.

I saw a tv special on this. Apparently, there was big money in the nuts, and some of the Appalachain poverty is traced back to the collapse of the Chestnut Tree.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.