By Kimberly Button
© Photos by Ron & Diane Salmon
Delmarvelous chestnut tree are think to be some of the best in the country .
Most of us recognise that chestnut can be rib on an open fire , thanks to the hatchway lyric poem of the Greco-Roman holiday tune , “ The Christmas Song . ”
But after the holiday , chestnuts seem to be forget along with the fruitcake , eggnog and fuzzy air sock from Aunt Ida .
One farm in Townsend , Del. , is hoping to change the chestnut tree ’s stigma and instruct America that chestnuts are not only adelectable treat , but they can be savour throughout the year . Gary and Nancy Petitt probably thought they would be drop their retirement years moving at a easygoing pace with little focus and a light-colored piece of work incumbrance .
Instead of slowing down , though , this advanced match has get on an entirely new vocation track with the hopes of restore a plant metal money that has nigh been leave in the United States .
As proprietor of Delmarvelous Chestnuts , the Petitts have made it their mission to commute the American consumer ’s misconceptions of chestnuts as well as to repopulate the body politic with this fascinating , junkie - bearing tree .
To appreciate the implication of the Petitt ’s body of work in the chestnut industriousness , one must first understand the monumental ecological event that assume place in the other 1900s that change the way chestnut tree were perceive .
History of the Chestnut TreePrior to the twentieth century , American chestnut tree were among the magniloquent and most plenteous trees in the forests of the eastern United States .
The harvester / sweeper has a special burr - removal mechanism .
When the Europeans first arrived in North America , one - after part of the trees were American chestnuts .
These massive specimen were commonly over 100 feet tall , with proboscis up to seven feet in diameter ; they were a necessaryfood sourcenot only for human race , but also for the wildlife that populated the wood .
Chestnut tree were also used to construct houses , furniture and fence . At the turn of the twentieth century , a annihilating ecological event occurred . Around 1900 , a fungus was introduced to America on import Asian greenhouse stock that resulted in a chestnut blight .
From 1904 to the forties , the blight destroyed 3.5 billion American chestnut tree Tree .
“ It was the big ecological disaster of that century , at least from a tree point of scene , ” Nancy Petitt says . “ Before the blight , it was say that a squirrel could get on a chestnut tree tree diagram in Maine and not get down again until Florida . ”
consort to the American Chestnut Cooperators ’ Foundation , “ no comparable desolation of a species exists in commemorate chronicle . ”
With an dumfounding number of trees suddenly killed in the forests , wildlife diminished because of the lack of food . Farmers and house physician of the areas also suffered , with no salable crops or readily useable food source during winter . chestnut were quickly forgotten as other intellectual nourishment staples were introduced .
The Petitt ’s Family TraditionNot everyone was willing to give up on the hope of chestnut repopulating the forests , though .
“ My husband ’s forefather had a theory that the rationality there was n’t any small secret plan in the woods was because there was n’t any food for them , ” Petitt says .
Since Gary was a kid , his male parent had worked diligently to reintroduce chestnuts to the forest . He worked with the U.S. Forest Service and the Boy Scouts to figure out how to develop the chestnut tree population . His father ’s solution was to introduce Chinese chestnuts , which are repellent to the chestnut blight now found throughout the East , into the woods around his home in northwest Pennsylvania , creating a feasible food for thought source for the wildlife .
Gary ’s Fatherhood ’s award - win work started to repopulate the forests and made an indelible shock on Gary .
When the couple retire from their incorporated jobs , Gary ’s family unit backdrop in chestnut tree shortly jump to influence their future design . Looking for something to do , they think of buy a small piece of property in Delaware with an eye toward working with chestnuts as Gary ’s founding father had .
In a eddy of fate , the Petitts were vacationing in Florida a class later when they register a magazine article about Chestnut Hill Nursery ( now named Chestnut Hill Tree Farm ) in Alachua , Fla. , and its work to flux American and Chinese chestnut trees .
Chestnut OrganizationsAmerican Chestnut Foundation(802 ) 447 - 0110American Chestnut Cooperator ’s FoundationChestnut Growers of America(360 ) 887 - 3669Northern Nut Growers Association , Inc. Pennsylvania Nut Growers Association(717 ) 244 - 1834
American Chestnut Cooperator ’s Foundation
Chestnut Growers of America
Northern Nut Growers Association , Inc.
Pennsylvania Nut Growers Association
The Petitts were close to the farm and stopped by , where they were munificently introduced to much of the research that was taking place in Chestnut Hill Nursery ’s seek to re - instal the chestnut industry .
The blend of the American chestnut , value for its sweet taste though no longer easy found in the Eastern United States , and the blight - resistant Chinese chestnut , with its wanton - to - peel skin , was just what the Petitts were look for for .
“ We were really looking for a nut that was commercially feasible , while Gary ’s dad was just look for Tree that would grow in the forest for the wildlife , ” says Petitt .
They buy 500 trees from Chestnut Hill Nursery in 1993 and carry on to tot up more than 1,000 trees over the next two eld to their 16 acres of land in Delaware .
This unique compounding of two distinct types of chestnuts would prove to be the Petitt ’s claim to celebrity . MORE > >
pageboy 1 |2
This article first appeared in the September / October consequence of
