Saving the American Chestnut tree

For more than a century, a relentless blight has decimated the American chestnut tree, driving the nation’s once grandest hardwood to the edge of extinction. 

First identified in 1904 in chestnut trees near the Brooklyn Zoo, the blight is thought to have arrived on imported Japanese chestnuts. It spread by airborne spores across the Eastern seaboard, eventually killing an estimated four billion trees, said Paul Franklin, communications director of The American Chestnut Foundation. 

“The American chestnut has gone from being a dominant tree to a shrub. If we do not intercede, it will eventually become extinct,” he said from the Foundation’s headquarters in Asheville, N.C.

Read more: http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/x1266595025/Saving-the-American-chestnut-tree#ixzz1uAydZqOl

The American Chestnut Foundation website can be found here  http://www.acf.org/

While we are talking about trees, I have noticed that the maple tree is suffering from blight here in Franklin.



More about maple blight  http://www.savatree.com/maple-tree.html