The American Chestnut — A Reflection of America and its Post Modern Self
The story of the American Chestnut is a sobering one — from a tree venerated and beloved to one only left on the fringes.
The American chestnut was once a tree that made up over 25% of the lush green forests of the American northeast. At its peak there were somewhere between two and three billion American Chestnut trees. You would once be able to find these trees lining the streets of many of the American cities in the Northeast:
The tree itself was one that supported not just its surrounding environment but also the human communities and industries that relied so much on this tree.
The trees once would produce hundreds upon hundreds of nuts, that simply by throwing rocks at one, it would shower down many of these delicious natural snacks. Upon being roasted — a common snack outside the United States, these nuts produced a sweet yet earthy flavor unlike other nuts. They were rich in not just taste but in nutrients. Imagine spending a cold winter day roasting these nuts around a fire; enjoying their natural delicious taste much like we do with s’mores these days.
The tree as well was known for its hardy wood like that of Oak, but light weight and multipurpose. Many industries relied on this tree ranging from building the first log cabins of settlers to helping lay down railroad tracks as part of westward expansion. It thrived and was beloved as an American heritage tree for many years — at least till the early 1900s.
Around 1904 the chief forester of the now Bronx Zoo, Hermann Merkel identified what would be the start the great calamity ahead. Just a few years prior, Asian Chestnut trees were imported to the States, and had casually brought along with it a fungus that would later cause the great American Chestnut blight.
The Asian Chestnuts were resistant to the fungus — but the American ones were completely unprepared for the disease. It began to decimate the trees spreading across the coast and The States at a rapid pace. The fungus killed the trees after they reached around 20ft — but left the root systems alive and in tact. This meant even though the tree would try again from its roots to produce new stumps and trees, they would eventually die off again.
Various attempts to save the tree failed and probably exacerbated the problem. Removing trees without proper assessments and aggressively logging (to make use of what was left) likely took out the subset of trees that may have had some natural resistance to the blight. The fungal spores nearly traveling 50 miles a day spread rapidly across the country. Within 40 years most of the billions of trees were long gone — a part of America’s Natural Heritage effectively reduced to a fragment of its former glory.
The tree is considered for the most part functionally extinct while its roots try to claw out a new sprouts every few years only to die out once they reach a certain height. There are however some pockets in the western states of American Chestnuts that remain, surviving in areas that was habitable for the trees but not to the fungus — as the blight thrived in the humid climates of the east.
The story of the tree reflects in some ways how our own actions have changed the course of human and natural history — especially so as Americans. A tree that thrived for 40 million years only to be brought down in 40 years because someone sought out a newer, more exotic variant of Chestnut. That’s not to say the poor decision making after the fungal infection’s identification was not to blame either; as it only sped up the tree’s rapid decline.
Like the history of ourselves, the American Chestnut represents what was one beloved in the American dream as a whole — the possibilities, the impact on the whole, and the important of common social goods. Just as the tree disappeared from our common diets and spaces, there was a shift in the American mindset by the 50s. New themes and changes filled the void that long dominated the decades prior.
Wars were won twice overseas, and the American mind shifted inwards — family farms across the country were being gobbled up by larger monolithic agricultural companies, reducing the diversity of the industry just as our forests had lost their own. Similarly the decline of social goods and public services; the shared common sense as Americans decayed in the coming decades. Larger more massive corporations began to drive simple American ideals to new extremes thru aggressive advertising and marketing. Increasing internal partisanship and divisions continue to grow — the result being the tumultuous 2020 election cycle.
Though that’s not to say hope is lost for the tree: Various attempts are underway to try and create hybrid variations of the plant combining the blight resistance of the Asian Chestnut with that of the American Chestnut and to repopulate the great American tree. More recently these hybrid nuts can be more regularly found in stores across the country.
As with the hybridization of the tree to reintroduce its revival — perhaps it is the American sense of freedom and the American Dream that need new concepts and re-imagination. Only then can we find a way out of the current state of partisanship, to find the positive values in our culture and our shared common goals as people. Change will always come whether by nature or by man; it is what we do in response to the change that determines our character and our future course.
