"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire/ Jack Frost nipping at
your nose."
As a child, when I heard these warm words emanating from my
parents' stereo on Christmas Eve, I found myself wondering if anybody actually
ate chestnuts as a part of their holiday celebration. It was puzzling to me
that an American Christmas carol would mention a food that seemed so foreign.
What I did not know in my naive boyhood days was the American
celebration of Christmas had not always been as chestnut-poor as it appeared to
me. In fact, the Eastern
States
trees. Families in
in these trees, enjoying their nuts both fresh and roasted and using their wood
to shingle roofs, side houses and build furniture. These Americans prized their
chestnut trees, which were larger and produced sweeter, more tender nuts than
Chinese chestnut trees. So useful were the trees they served as a sort of
low-maintenance cash crop for many
However, if you look beyond the roomy chestnut-wood armoires
and tasty wintertime chestnuts of old, there is a dark side to the history of
the tree. In 1904 a number of Chinese chestnut trees were imported into the United
States to stand alongside their American counterparts in the Bronx Zoo in
Unfortunately, in addition to botanical variety and natural
beauty, these trees brought with them an awful blight. Though Chinese trees were
naturally resistant to chestnut blight, American trees were very susceptible to
the disease. The blight spread like wildfire, and the American chestnut nearly
went extinct by the 1950s. Today, it is impossible to buy an American chestnut
in a grocery store, much less to frolic in the idyllic chestnut groves that
existed in
few trees, some old furniture and a couple of written accounts of happy,
chestnut-filled days of 19th century childhoods are all that remain of the
American chestnut tree.
The small number of specimens left in the country live a
dire existence. They are mostly unable to propagate themselves, and when their
seeds fall to the ground, almost all of the seedlings are stricken with blight
and die before they become viable chestnut trees.
Two groups are attempting to reverse this sad state of
affairs and bring the American chestnut tree back to the national landscape. One
of these, The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF), is attempting to use Chinese
chestnuts, the very species that led to the American chestnut's demise, to
revive the old species. The group employs a technique called "back breeding,"
creating a hybrid tree that is part-American, part-Chinese. The organization
hopes to develop blight-resistant trees that are fifteen-sixteenths American
and one-sixteenth Chinese. While the tree would have a mixed heritage, project researchers
predict the nuts produced by the trees would have the same taste and texture as
those that once covered the forest floor of the Eastern U.S. TACF expects to
produce blight-resistant American chestnut trees within the next five years.
The other group of scientists and farmers attempting to
bring the old trees back is the American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation
(ACCF). This group aims to produce a viable, blight-resistant, 100 percent
American chestnut tree through selective breeding. About one in 10 American
chestnut seedlings has blight resistance, and the ACCF hopes by breeding these
blight-resistant trees with one another, they can produce a large,
self-perpetuating population of the trees. Unlike TACF, the ACCF is vague about
their timeline in producing a large number of blight-resistant American
chestnut trees, but its members are optimistic about the prospects of their
project.
Regardless of which one of these groups first brings the
American chestnut tree back to life, we will all benefit from the return of
their sweet, tender nuts. Now there is a chance my children will not grow up
with the same confusion over Christmas carols as I felt, provided global
warming does not keep Jack Frost from nipping at their little noses.
Jason Engelhart is a
senior majoring in economics and history. If you know of a rare chestnut tree
specimen in Wisconsin, contact TACF or the ACCF. If, for some reason, you want
to e-mail Jason, his address is [email protected].
