CHESTNUT
(Castanea Dentata)

Five species of chestnut are known, three of them in the United States. One of these, Castanea alnifolia, is a shrub and has no place in a list of trees. Chestnut and chinquapin are the two others. They are in the beech family to which oaks belong also. The ancient Greeks designated these as food trees (FagaceÆ), not an inappropriate name for chestnut which probably furnishes more human food than any other wild tree. Its range extends from Maine to Michigan and southward to North Carolina and Tennessee. It attains its greatest size in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. It is one of the few well-known woods of the United States that does not bear a half dozen or more local names in the various localities of its growth, but the wood is invariably known as chestnut.

Trees vary in size from sixty to 100 feet in height, and from two to four in diameter. Trunks six feet through occur where trees have grown in the open, but such are not tall, and are not valuable for lumber. Chestnut trees are sometimes heard of in this country with trunks ten and twelve feet through, but such must be very scarce, because no one seems to know just where they are located. It is not improbable that in rare cases such sizes have existed. In France and Italy trees much larger are well authenticated, but that chestnut is of a species different from ours.

Chestnut is a very long-lived tree where it is fortunate enough to escape the attacks of worms and disease; but as age comes on, it is almost certain to be attacked. Insects bore the wood, and fungus induces decay. Frequently the heartwood of large trunks is all gone, and the trees stand mere shells with scarcely enough sound wood left to support the diseased tops.

Few species sprout with more vigor than chestnut. In the mountains of eastern Tennessee, W. W. Ashe found that ninety-nine per cent of stumps sprout. This applies as well to veterans of three hundred years as to young growth. Sprouts which rise from the top of a high stump are liable to meet misfortune, because, under their disadvantage they cannot develop adequate root systems; but sprouts which spring from the root collar, or near it, may grow to large trees. It is claimed by some that a chestnut which grows from a sprout has straighter grain than one springing from seed. The latter’s trunk is liable to develop a spiral twist, not only of the wood, but also of the bark; but the sprout-grown tree lacks the twist.

Chestnut blooms in midsummer, and the profusion of pale golden catkins makes the isolated tree a conspicuous object at that time. Bloom is nearly always abundant, but the nut crop fails frequently. Several accidents may happen, but the most frequent cause of scarcity in the chestnut crop is a spell of rainy weather while the trees are in bloom. The rain hinders proper pollenization.

Many thousands of bushels of chestnuts are sent to market yearly in the United States. The nuts are smaller but sweeter than those of European chestnut. The largest part of the crop is collected from trees in open ground. Those in dense forests bear only a few nuts at the top. Open-grown trees develop enormous and shapely crowns; and it is not unusual for farmers who value their nut bearing trees to pollard them. This puts the tree out of consideration as a source of lumber. Its branches multiply, but the trunk remains short. It is claimed that a chestnut orchard of good form and in a region where large crops are frequent, is more profitable than an apple orchard. The tree does not demand rich land, but must have well-drained soil. It grows on rocky slopes and ridges, and will prosper where most other valuable trees will barely exist.

It grows rapidly in its early life, but does not maintain the rate many decades. Large trees are old. In the southern Appalachians the ages of telegraph poles forty feet long and six inches in diameter at the top range from forty-five to sixty-five years. Trees of round fence-post size may grow in fifteen years. Few trees will produce posts more quickly or in larger numbers per acre. In some instances nearly a thousand saplings large enough for posts stand on a single acre. Sprout-growth chestnut often forms nearly pure stands of considerable extent.

The value of this tree is in its wood as well as its nuts. More than 500,000,000 feet of lumber are cut from it yearly. Long before it was much thought of as a sawmill proposition, it was manufactured in large amounts into rails and posts by farmers, particularly in New England and in the Appalachian region. Axes, crosscut saws, mauls, and wedges were the means of manufacture. Untold millions of fence rails were split before wire fences were thought of. It is a durable wood, made so by the tannic acid it contains. As fence rails, it was more durable than the best oak, and where both were equally convenient, farmers nearly always chose chestnut. On high and dry ridges a chestnut rail fence would last from twenty-five to fifty years, and in extreme cases very much longer, even a full century it is claimed.

Dry chestnut wood weighs 28.07 pounds per cubic foot, which makes it a light wood. Its annual rings are as clearly marked as those of any tree in this country. The springwood is filled with large open pores, the summerwood with small ones. The medullary rays are minute, and of no value in giving figure to the wood. Nevertheless, chestnut has strong figure, but it is due solely to the arrangement of the spring and summerwood of the annual rings. It is commonly classed as a coarse-grained wood. The finisher can greatly alter its appearance by rubbing the pores full of coloring matter. The wood is likewise susceptible to change in tone in the fumes of ammonia, and by similar treatment with other chemicals. The light colors of mission furniture are generally the result of treatment of that kind.

The largest cut of chestnut lumber comes from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Connecticut. The largest use by any single industry is probably by the manufacturers of musical instruments, though the honor may be divided with furniture, interior house finish, and coffins and caskets. It is much employed as core or backing on which to glue veneers. The lumber of old, mature trees is best liked for this purpose, because it is not apt to shrink and swell, and it holds glue. It is no detriment that it is riddled with worm holes the size of pins. That kind of chestnut is known in the trade as “sound wormy.” Some persons claim that such lumber is better as backing for veneer than sound pieces, because it is lighter, is sufficiently strong, and the small holes seem to help the glue to stick. Wormy chestnut is frequently not objected to for outside work because the small holes are not hard to fill and cover up. The uses of chestnut are many. Between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 crossties go into railroad construction yearly. From 16,000 to 20,000 tons of wood are demanded annually for tanning extract. Every part of the tree is available.

In recent years a disease due to fungus has attacked chestnut forests of Pennsylvania and neighboring regions. It has destroyed the timber on large areas, and the loss threatens to increase. A tree usually dies in one or two years after it is attacked. The fungus works beneath the bark and completely girdles the tree. The spores of the fungus are believed to be carried from tree to tree on the feet of birds, on the bodies of insects, and by the wind.