Once upon a time a special tree dotted the southern woodlands, some were transplanted onto farms and some were even grown commercially. Although known widely as the Southern Chestnut, it has been called also, the American Chestnut. In the U.S. it grew east of the Mississippi River, primarily in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains and found most abundantly in Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania with smaller amounts all the way to southern New Hampshire and Vermont. Even a few up to the Canadian border.
This chestnut tree bore large nuts encased in a protective, very prickly, burr-like shell. Some were nearly as large as baseballs when still in the burr casing with the actual nut approximately the size of a small black walnut or English walnut.. For those readers who are familiar with the current Chinese Chestnut, their appearance is very similar to those of yesteryear but there is no resemblance in the tastes of the two. The subject chestnut had a taste of it’s very own and extremely delicious. It was equally tasty fresh out of the shell or roasted. The spines on the burr shell made walking through the wood with young hillbilly bare feet somewhat hazardous but we often sought out those trees none the less. (Me and brother Ted. I'm the runt with hand in pocket.) Circa 1934.
Our farm in east central Alabama consisted of 105 acres of mostly rolling land with a distinct even though small mountain in the southeastern quadrant of it. Two chestnut trees were on the northwestern slope of that mountain. Their annual crop was only minimal and the squirrels and other wild nut eaters claimed the majority of the harvest, but we treated ourselves with those that we were fortunate enough to find at the right time. We, who grew up there, were very fortunate in that we had a wide variety of fruit trees and nut trees. Black walnuts, pecans, hickory nuts, peaches, apples, plums and a quince tree. Concord grapes and also two or three types of wild grapes.
The chestnut tree also had a close relative, the chinquapin (chink' ah pin) tree which bore a small nut very similar in appearance to that of the present day filbert but even more delicious than the chestnut. We also had a couple of those on our mountainside. But in the early years of the 20th century, a blight first discovered in New York, hit those chestnut trees in their Botanical Gardens. An article in the New York Times dated July 30, 1911 stated that only 2 of their previous 1500 specimen chestnuts were still alive. And even though it took perhaps 30 or more years to completely wipe out the U.S. woodlands of their chestnut, chinquapin, and dwarf Japanese chestnuts, there was no stopping it. Those on our mountain survived until approximately 1940. Such a sad calamity. I, and many others truly missed those wonderful trees.
A really strange thing happened sometime around 1970. My oldest brother purchased a home in a sloping area of Decatur, Georgia. It was obvious that it had, until very recently, been a wooded area and had been mostly cleared to build the residential development there. After he had lived there a few months, he was walking around on the backside of his lot where a small brook crossed the property and found on the ground, a chinquapin! As he looked about, he found the tree with a few more nuts on it. He was ecstatic. He cleared away any underbrush or other growth that might consume nutrients needed by the tree and trimmed any dead or useless branches from the tree. But about three years later, that tree also died. I have heard rumors that there have been isolated cases of all three of those nut trees being found, especially in some of the northern most areas of it’s habitat. It is apparent that the clean sweep of the blight was most successful where growth of the trees were most prevalent. This is presumed that the spread was made either by air or by animals such as squirrels who frequented nut trees in a given area. And in areas where they were more isolated, they survived longer. It seems very strange that the disease would continue to survive after such trees became so widely separated.
I wish everyone could have tasted the chestnuts from those trees as well as the chinquapins. It has been over sixty-five years since I tasted one but the memories of them are vivid. With our great knowledge of chemicals and other technology, perhaps we could have stopped the blight if it had occurred now.
