Really makes one ponder our future!
Great job.
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.
bookmark.
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.
OUTSTANDING Ron Pickrell! Thanks very much. WOW!
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.
Good one!
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).
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.
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.
My grandfather lost his eye when a chestnut burr fell into it . . . kinda painful.
Excellent post!
Great post! I was just on the foundation’s website this morning, coincidentally. They really are doing the Lord’s work saving this little piece of His creation.
I didn’t know though that the backcrosses had run into a snag at greater than 15/16. I was wondering if it could just go on indefinitely. But like you said, 15/16 is for all intents and purposes an American tree.