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2	What We Lost The American chestnut was a fine timber tree. Its wood had multiple uses. The nuts were sweeter than those of Asian chestnuts. Wildlife depended on chestnuts for food.
3	The Redwood of the East
4	A large American chestnut in Wisconsin
5	Former Range of the American Chestnut
6	Abundance of American Chestnut in Tennessee According to Ashe (Chestnut in Tennessee, 1911)
7	The Redwood of the East
8	A Fast-Growing Tree This photo is of a chestnut tree cross section; it was 6 inches in diameter and 12 years old when it died from the blight
9	chestnut Wood Chestnut rail fences were a common sight in Middle Tennessee during the 1800s and early 1900s. The chestnut fence posts and utility poles were as durable as cedar. Chestnut was used heavily for railroad ties.
10	Chestnut Wood Chestnut split easily because of its straight grain. In the 1800s, chestnut shingles were often used for roofing and unpainted chestnut planks made durable siding.
11	chestnut Wood Chestnut, oak, and tulip poplar logs were often used to build log houses in the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s in Tennessee.
12	Chestnut Wood This house in the Mount Vernon Community of Sumner County was built in the 1800s; the siding (chestnut?) conceals chestnut and oak logs.
13	Chestnut Wood Wormy chestnut is now highly prized for paneling and furniture. The worm holes were caused by the chestnut timber worm.
14	Sweet Flavorful Nuts
15	Dependable Food for Wildlife
16	A Devastating Disease The chestnut blight was brought to this country on Asian chestnuts probably in the late 1800s. It was first noticed at the New York Zoo in 1904. The American chestnut was defenseless. The blight quickly spread southward and ripped through Middle Tennessee in the 1930s; only a few large trees were still alive in the early 1940s By 1950, practically all standing American chestnut trees in the eastern U. S. had died. This monarch of the eastern hardwood forests was reduced to small persistent sprouts which are now rare in Tennessee and most areas of the eastern U. S.
17	Chestnut blight
18	A Battle-Scarred chestnut
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25	Site Preferences of Surviving Chestnut Sprouts We have found sprouts on very dry gravelly sites and we have found them on moist north-facing slopes and in ravines. The American chestnut is adapted to a wide range of soil moisture, but tends to be found on well-drained, gravelly, acidic, upland soils. It has not been found on the thin, calcium rich soils of the Nashville Basin.
26	Associated Canopy Species in Mesic North-facing Slope and Ravine Forests in Middle Tennessee The tree species we find with the American chestnut on mesic (moist) sites are mostly tulip poplar, red maple, sugar maple, white oak, northern red oak, sourwood, mockernut hickory, pignut hickory, red hickory, and wild cherry; these have replaced the chestnut in the overstory—the once towering chestnut has been reduced to a rare shrub in most places. On the xeric sites in Trigg Co., Ky., we have found chestnuts growing primarily with sourwood, black oak, chestnut oak, and post oak.
27	Twig and Bud Comparisons, American Chestnut (left) and Chinese Chestnut (right)
28	Fruit Comparison, American Chestnut (left) and Chinese Chestnut (right)
29	What You Can Do to Help Bring Back the American Chestnut Join the American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation (ACCF) or The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF). The ACCF is intercrossing pure American chestnuts with some blight resistance to develop a more resistant pure American chestnut while TACF is developing a hybrid that will be mostly American but with the Chinese genes that confer blight resistance. Both organizations are making progress; TACF claims it will have a blight resistant strain ready for planting in the forests in a few years. To join one or both organizations, search for ACCF or TACF on the internet and read about how you can play a role in this effort to restore the American chestnut to the forests of the eastern U. S.
30	Science Will Prevail—Towering, Flowering, Chestnuts Will Again Flourish in our Forests!
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