Thank you for bringing this subject to light. I would love to see the American chestnut come back to its former glory. I will check out the book.

Sent by Kyle | 6:46 PM ET | 10-31-2007

Oh wow, the memories.

When I was growing up, my parents owned a house in the southern part of our state (Indiana). The property had lots of chestnut trees on it, and I can't tell you how many times over the years we had to have burrs dug out of our feet. Those things *HURT* a great deal. We'd go out and collect the chestnuts, pierce them and roast them. Good eats.

We could fill several grocery bags each season and always had an overabundance of them.

Fast forward to a few years ago. My (now-late) partner and I were at Disney World with some friends. It was around Christmas, and we were entering the Grand Floridian resort. Outside was a man roasting chestnuts and handing out small cups of them. My partner tried them and instantly fell in love. I wondered how ANYONE could reach adulthood without having had them. I also commented on how we used to take bags of them to the trash because they sat so long that they spoiled. My partner, on returning home, went on line and ordered a couple of pounds. I was shocked at how expensive they are.

That same trip to Disney, another friend tried a chestnut. She got the shell off, popped the nut in her mouth and said "Not bad, but they're kind of...furry."

I informed her she was supposed to remove the brown inner skin before eating. Once she had that figured out, she loved them.

Sadly, although mom still owns the house (dad's been gone a couple of years), the trees are no more. I don't know if they just died, or if they were removed for safety reasons, as they towered over the roof of the house. I haven't visited the place since the trees were removed.

Sent by Bruce | 8:48 PM ET | 10-31-2007

A few years ago I worked as a development officer for a conservation organization and one of the projects for which I helped raise funding was the American Chestnut Society???s efforts to restore the American Chestnut through selective cross-breeding.

On the first page of my proposal to potential funders I quoted, ???Under the spreading chestnut tree, a village smithy stands?????? and pointed out that at the time Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned those words it very likely would have been a chestnut tree towering above the village blacksmith. It was truly a part of our heritage that we have lost.

The poem was inspired by a real blacksmith forge shaded by a large chestnut tree on Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts where Longfellow lived. Years later, when Brattle Street was widened the chestnut tree that Longfellow had made famous was cut down. His friends made an armchair for Longfellow from the tree???s wood. Longfellow was so pleased that he wrote another poem ???From My Arm-chair??? in thanks.

That poem???s closing verses are particularly appropriate now.

???Only your love and your remembrance could Give life to this dead wood,
And make these branches, leafless now so long,
Blossom again in song.???

Sent by Dan Cooke | 9:55 AM ET | 11-02-2007

I love to learn anything about trees, but this article was choppy and did not flow. I would have liked to learn more about the picture of the fallen chestnut burrs - is that how that tree reproduces? I have no clue. The article left me wanting for more info.

Sent by Paula | 11:10 AM ET | 11-02-2007

The burrs grow closed on the tree, somewhere between golf ball and tennis ball-size. When the nuts are ripe, the burrs fall from the trees and open up, exposing (usually) 2-3 nuts inside. The nuts are the seeds.

The nuts can be peeled and eaten raw or roasted. When roasted properly, good nuts are somewhat buttery-tasting. They resemble and are often mistaken for buckeyes. Mature chestnuts are somewhat smaller than mature buckeyes.

"Elderly" trees, at least in my experience, tend towards being fragile in storms and dropping old branches easily. That's why I'm not sure if our trees died and were removed, or were removed because they were old and presented a danger to the house.

Sent by Bruce | 12:17 PM ET | 11-02-2007

Keeping our chestnuts in the fire. . .
For over a year, we at Resources First Foundation have been building an interactive website for The American Chestnut Foundation for a simple, utilitarian purpose: to provide an on-line data-base that tracks every single chestnut tree and all volunteer nurseries to facilitate the propagation and conservation of chestunut trees by TACF's extensive volunteer network. Our website should be completed by years' end and will be online with TACF. We gotta grow 'em tall again.

Sent by Amos | 4:23 PM ET | 11-02-2007

About 30+ years ago a neighborhood friend and I were sitting on the edge of our driveway eating raw chestnuts that we had gathered from breaking limbs out of my fathers tree. Everything was going fine till my father walked up with a strange look on his face. He looked me in the eye and asked me where I got the chestnuts from. I knew from his tone he was not happy with what he had seen, so as any nine year old boy might do, in a similar situation, I lied. I remember saying "No dad, I got these from a tree near J Carters store." Well I guess my lying skills and chestnut picking skills were equally poor. I vividly recall Dad saying he didn't care where I got them but that I broke his heart for lying about it. What came next he said would hurt him more than me, so it really must have hurt him a lot. On a lighter note, my sister and I used to wear gloves and have rather painful wars with the burs.

Sent by Mike Arnold | 8:40 PM ET | 11-02-2007

The spirit of the fallen chestnuts lives on through the efforts of those like my grandfather who sawed their giant trunks into boards, exposing the ironic beauty of still hard, elegant wood tunneled through by canker worms. Today, as I sit at my corner desk, open the office cabinet, or glance at the old clock perched on its wormy chestnut shelf, I see the forest of a hundred years ago, not quite gone.

Sent by Mark P. Garratt | 10:24 PM ET | 11-02-2007

I will have to look closer, but I am pretty dern sure that two Chestnut trees are growing in a garden I just started working in. They are young and were planted as part of the overall landscape design. They have dropped burrs though I did not check for nuts. My guess is that they are a bred for disease resistance variety of Chestnut that the owner had the good fortune to buy and plant in his garden.

Sent by Christopher C NC | 11:13 PM ET | 11-02-2007

We are the proud owners of a mature (150+ year-old) American chestnut in Southeast Portland, Oregon. The burrs are truly evil and prodigious. We havesent about 750 pounds to city compost this year alone. To answer the question of propogation, the burrs stick to almost anything, like velcro except that they leave tiny spplinters. Our dogs are proof to their sticking power. The seedlings readily sprout from the fallen chestnuts. Ketzel, you are invited to enjoy our tree.

Sent by Ben Brody | 11:07 AM ET | 11-03-2007

Actually Ben, you might have a potentially disease/canker resistant variety. I'm sure you could sell them on line very easily, rather than sending them to the town composting facility. I like to look for old barns (19th Century esp.), that are falling in, since those beams and side boards are frequently chestnut.

Sent by Steve Fowler | 11:51 AM ET | 11-04-2007

As a child growing up in east central Alabama, I recall a neighbor who had a young American chestnut growing near her long country driveway. My sister and I would beg our parents to drive up to Mrs. Ruth's house and drive over the prickly burred nuts; once the burrs were off, we could crack the nuts with old bricks or large rocks and eat to our heart's content. I can still taste the smooth, buttery flavor of the nuts 30 years later. My childhood neighbors passed away many years ago and left their place to their never-married daughter, who didn't much like change...I imagine that tree is either long gone, or one of the last of its kind, still struggling up to sunlight under the cover of mature oaks and hickories.

Sent by Rachael Williams | 5:36 PM ET | 11-04-2007

Hey Ben,
I think you should contact the American Chestnut Foundation about your tree and the copious amount of nuts it produces. They may want them more than the city compost. Check out their site to learn more.

Sent by willard | 11:45 AM ET | 11-05-2007

Ben Brody,
I'm looking for a source in Oregon for Chestnuts/seedlings. In WA State we can only legally bring in seeds from blight-free areas such as Oregon. I would like to grow some in a new park being developed in Seattle. Please email me at scurvylad@yahoo.com.

Sent by Ryan McFarland | 9:21 PM ET | 12-15-2007