Tree Talk | The Iconic American Chestnut - Field Trip and Workshop

The iconic American chestnut tree was historically called 'The Cradle to Grave Tree', because a newborn's first days were spent in a homemade cradle made of chestnut and the departed were laid to rest in a coffin made from the same tree. This once majestic hardwood tree was decimated in the early 1900's by an imported fungal blight. 

Our workshop will be an 'eyes and hands-on' event at 6 Rogers St where we have a wide selection of both live chestnut trees and an assortment of tools and furniture. We have scheduled the gathering so as to hopefully be able to harvest ripe burs from a large American chestnut and then shuck and roast the nuts for a tasty snack. We will discuss how all pure American chestnuts will eventually succumb to and die from  chestnut blight, and how backcrossing with Chinese trees and genetic engineering are being studied to find a cure so the once dominant 'redwood of the East' may once again grace our fields and forests. We will have 20 or more American chestnut seedlings to hand out to participants along with a demonstration as to how to prepare your soil and successfully transplant your new seedling into a spot of your own choosing. 

For this event, we will meet at the Museum of the White Mountains and then we will walk to the site together as a group. 

This workshop will be facilitated by Douglas McLane. Here's a note from Doug regarding his interest in Chestnut Trees: 

My fascination with trees started years ago when I worked as an aid to a forester in Littleton, NH. We spent days in woodlots girdling 'weed' trees to encourage the growth of desirable timber logs. We had to identify tree species from looking at only their trunks and bark. It gradually became apparent to me that all trees have their own charm, sawlog or not.  

Later, while teaching biology at Plymouth High School, a local woodsman and trapper showed me a mature American chestnut tree growing deep in the woods in Rumney. One thing led to another and over a decade ago I became involved with the 'American Chestnut Foundation', a non-profit whose mission is to find a cure for the imported Asian chestnut blight that had killed most of the estimated three billion native chestnut trees that once graced eastern North America. As President of the 'Vermont/New Hampshire Chapter of TACF', I oversaw the  planting thousands of nuts gathered from isolated surviving chestnut trees growing throughout New England. One of these 'gene conservation orchards' is located on South Main Street here in Plymouth. The one hundred and thirty specimens, representing about twenty five different parentages, has now grown into a dense stand of American chestnut trees. 

One hundred and twenty five years after the arrival of the blight in North America, scientists and volunteers are still trying to develop a hybrid or genetically engineered American chestnut tree variety to allow the return of the 'Mighty Giant' that once fed, heated, and housed Native Americans and our ancestors.