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Nut Trees Almost what coconuts are to the tropics, Chestnuts used to be to the United States east of the Mississippi—an abundant, never-failing sweetmeat growing wild throughout the land. Their verdant, prickly burrs in clusters of three would ripen to gold in autumn, and the first frosts would split them open to spill out plump brown kernels, two and four to a burr. Chestnut timber, close-grained and durable, was valued highly in building and for fencepost. About fifty years ago a virulent, fungoid bark disease called Endothia parasitica swept through the chestnut stands. Remaining today of this once great species are only isolated survivors and, here and there, stubborn offshoots of the old rootstocks which struggle into bearing and then die off again, blighted by endothia, for which no control has been found. Preserving the American chestnut by nursing along its few blight-resistant remnants and creating hardy hybrids on exotic rootstocks is a continuing crusade among U.S. arborists. The introduction of European and Oriental substitutes has also been undertaken, with more success. New home owners hankering for a nut crop in their grounds will not go wrong in planting young Chinese chestnuts, of which most varieties will yield in their sixth or seventh year. The nuts are slightly larger and less flavorful than our old Americans were, but they improve on the huge, mealy, somewhat cloying Italian and Spanish types that people use for turkey stuffing |
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