I think the greatest tragedy that ever befell American horticulture was
the chestnut blight. Not so long ago every hill and mountain-side east
of the Mississippi River, from near the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian
border was covered with native chestnut trees producing millions of
pounds of food for man and beast. Today all has been devastated by this
terrible blight and nothing remains save leafless trunks, like
tombstones, in memory of a grand food tree.
In 1889, Tom and Mary Jones left their Kentucky mountain home to
establish a new one in Oklahoma. As with all pioneers they brought seeds
of many species with them, including chestnuts. I now own the farm they
homesteaded. On it today there is an American chestnut tree 4 feet in
diameter with a limb-spread of 50 feet. This grand tree has been an
inspiration to me, surviving our hot dry summers and outliving two
generations of fruit trees by its side. This beautiful tree, now nearly
60 years of age, was proof-sufficient that chestnuts would grow in
Oklahoma. I began to plant chestnuts. I planted all the Riehl
varieties--Progress, Dan Patch, Van Fleet and others. I also had Boone,
an American and Japanese hybrid, brought about by Endicott, also of
Illinois. These have borne well. Being isolated and outside of the
native chestnut range, they have not blighted.
Since 1906, the Government has imported many thousand seed chestnuts
from China. Later, it distributed little trees among the nut growers in
an effort to re-establish chestnut growing in this country. This Chinese
chestnut is blight-resistant. The best Chinese seedlings have been
selected for propagation and have been named; of these I have Stoke (a
hybrid), Hobson, Carr and several others. They are very prolific and
often set burs the same year set out. Mr. Stoke sent me scions of the
newer varieties this spring--Colby's hybrid, and Stoke seedling's Nos. 1
and 2. I grafted these on Chinese stocks; they set burs and matured nuts
the same year grafted. The named varieties of Chinese Chestnut are the
most precocious bearers of all the nut trees, are adapted and worthy of
planting over a wide area. It should be the duty of every man who is
interested in food trees to lend a hand to help re-establish chestnut
growing in this country, now that we have blight-resistant varieties.
Almost within the shadow of our State Capitol, on a main highway leading
from our fair city, I have planted 2-1/2 acres of blight-resistant
Chinese chestnut trees, as a living memorial to our only child, Harold,
who gave his life to our country in a Jap prison camp in the
Philippines. We shall devote the rest of our days to this Living
Memorial, and leave means for its continuance, so that passers-by in
generations to come may be reminded of the world's greatest tree
tragedy, and to demonstrate that chestnuts which once grew native over
half the nation, and were laid low by a terrible disease, may again be
grown.
In conclusion, let me warn you to improve your soil continually. NO TREE
CAN BE BETTER THAN THE SOIL IN WHICH IT GROWS. No man is a greater
exponent of soil improvement than one of Ohio's most illustrious sons,
Louis Bromfield. In his book, "IN PLEASANT VALLEY," he says, "What we
need is a new kind of pioneer, not the sort which cut down the forest,
and burned off the prairies, and raped the land, but the kind which
creates new forests and heals and restores the richness of the country
God has given us."