American Chestnut

The reintroduction of the American chestnut to North American forests is currently facing a “critical step,” according to the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF). The US Department of Agriculture is reviewing an application from SUNY's School of Environmental Science and Forestry to deregulate a genetically engineered chestnut tree, nicknamed Darling 58, that shows promise in resisting the Cryphonectria parasitica fungus, known as chestnut blight. Supporters believe that clearing this bureaucratic hurdle could pave the way for the restoration of the “king of the canopy” and reverse the decline that began 118 years ago when the blight first appeared at the Bronx Zoo.Such is the latest chapter in a long-running saga that stretches back hundreds, if not millions, of years. In his timely and much-needed book, The American Chestnut, Donald Davis provides anyone interested in the chestnut's restoration with the historical context to understand the stakes involved. Rather than focus on supporting a thesis, Davis “surveys the ecological history of the tree over the past twenty thousand years and provides an informed discussion about human-chestnut relationships for half that period” (6). Davis, an independent scholar whose Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians remains a significant contribution to the environmental history of the mountain region, was also a founding member of the Georgia Chapter of TACF.On one level, Davis tells a story familiar to anyone with passing knowledge of American forest history, but The American Chestnut is the most thoroughly researched and comprehensive account to date. Davis guides the lay reader through scientific studies in order to piece together evolutionary history and prehistoric human-chestnut relationships. Using more anecdotal historical sources through most of part 2, he argues that because of its strength, resistance to rot, and straight grain, Americans used chestnut lumber to construct a wide variety of buildings, make charcoal, fuel iron forges, support iron rails, and build worm fences. They used the nuts as sustenance, as livestock feed, and as a tool to barter. Davis documents all of this in rather meticulous detail across six chapters, concluding that “it was the totality of its uses that made it so important to humans” (219). He provides insights into lesser-known episodes, including the role of chestnuts in the Civil War, the business of urban chestnut roasters, and the trade in nuts. He also includes some chestnut recipes found in early American cookbooks.Davis reminds us that the decline of chestnut trees began well before the arrival of the blight, the subject of part 3. Readers will find it interesting that Cryphonectria parasitica was not the first pathogen to wreak havoc on the chestnut and stir fears of its disappearance. In the mid-nineteenth century, Phytophthora cinnamomi, also known as ink disease, destroyed chestnut populations in the coastal plain, restricting their range in much of the South. Highlighting the ways in which humans contributed to the blight crisis, he contends that because nineteenth-century nut growers “continued to embrace 18th-century prejudices against untamed wild nature,” they began importing European and Japanese varieties, which “doomed” the chestnut as a “vital, self-reproducing species” (132). Industrial timber removal, repeated fires, and consequent insect damage accelerated the blight's spread, and by the time politicians finally banned the importation of nonnative chestnuts in 1912, it was too little, too late. Perhaps most egregiously, once Americans accepted the reality of inevitable chestnut loss, timber removal accelerated as an effort to both slow the spread and to profit from its timber before it disappeared.In part 4, Davis delves into the debates swirling around the American chestnut's restoration to eastern forests. He weighs the promises and pitfalls of the three most advanced restoration programs: the backcrossing of American and Chinese chestnuts to produce a blight-resistant hybrid; the breeding of the few American chestnuts that seem to possess blight resistance; and the genetic engineering of Darling 58. Indeed, as the USDA considers deregulating Darling 58, Davis warns against it, citing “the law of unintended consequences” as reason enough for researchers involved in the “chestnut restoration arms race” to take more time to study the potential side effects of “prematurely releasing GE trees into the wild” (212).I have a few quibbles. At times, the writing gets repetitive, especially in the six chapters detailing human uses of chestnuts, and his extensive discussion of sources sometimes detracts from the narrative flow. This reviewer would have liked to see more engagement with scholarship on the commons, specifically regarding nut harvesting and selling. Nevertheless, Davis has written the definitive environmental history of the chestnut, and I suspect it will remain definitive for some time to come

American history · Ancient history · Archaeology · Biology · Chestnut blight · Context (archaeology · Cryphonectria · Economic history · Environmental history · Geography · History · Horticultural and Viticultural Research · Plant and Fungal Interactions Research

• Archive and library special collections as proxy data

  Open Access•Nicole Wood•Archival Science•2024

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