About
Chestnuts in the America were an important food and timber source in the Eastern hardwood forests. Around 1904 American Chestnut trees were almost completely destroyed by a blight introduced into America from the Orient. Within 40 years, around the Great Depression, billions of chestnut trees were lost from Maine to Georgia and west to the Mississippi River. This was a devastating loss not only to people, but to wildlife. Chestnuts provided beauty to the country side, food, lumber for furniture to fence posts and tannin used in the tanning industry. In 1950’s Dr. Dunstan, a fruit breeder, in Greensboro, NC and Alachua, Florida, cross pollinated the American Chestnut tree with the Chinese Chestnut tree. The Dunstan Chestnut trees can grow up to 100 feet tall and 16 feet in diameter, producing healthy, large and sweet tasting chestnuts.
