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The American Chestnut: Is There Hope?
From September/October 2005 Issue
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The Southern Appalachians’ Double Whammy |
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Logging. The chestnut’s strong, straight trunks made it a major cash crop in the Appalachian region until the blight struck.
photo courtesy the american chestnut foundation
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Dr. Ralph Lutts, an author, environmental historian and faculty member at Plainfield, Vt.’s Goddard College, has made a study of what the epic chestnut disaster has done to the fabric of the Appalachian region. In a July, 2004 article in the journal Environmental History, Lutts examined both the social and the economic upheaval resulting from the loss of more than nine million acres of trees.
He explains: Just as chestnuts had been a cash crop to keep the local families supplied with necessities, their absence helped drive many agrarian bread-winners to become industrial wage-earners.
As the devastation of the blight coincided with the beginning of the Great Depression, Lutts notes that the the mountain economy suffered a “double whammy.”
Coincidentally, Lutts resides in rural Patrick County, Va., whose rugged inaccessibility was breeched by the railroad in 1884 to serve the demands of the chestnut market. By 1910, 160,000 pounds of nuts had been shipped from the Stuart depot. Regional furniture manufacturing and tannin extraction plants were icing on the economic cake whose name was chestnut.
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