Planting project seeks resurgence of once-mighty American chestnut

Apr. 9—Once upon a time, to hear Chuck Selden tell it, the American chestnut tree virtually ruled the forests of Maryland and the rest of the Mid-Atlantic region.

Chestnut trees were "a dominant force in the Appalachian forest," making up 25% of the trees and providing food for a wide variety of people and animals, said Selden, a member of the American Chestnut Foundation.

A mature American chestnut tree could be 100 feet tall and 15 feet in diameter, he said.

But in the early 1900s, a fungus was brought in to the United States on trees from China, and within 50 years the blight spread from New York to South Carolina.

On Sunday, Selden and others gathered at the Catoctin Quaker Camp near Thurmont to help with a project to plant 100 chestnut trees in the area around the camp.

But these are hybrids, about 95% American chestnut, but mixed with blight-resistant Chinese chestnut trees, Selden said.

Sunday's event was organized by the Baltimore Yearly Meeting, the local organization for Quakers in the Mid-Atlantic, said David Hunter, who oversees the camp property set on 385 acres in the Catoctin Mountains.

The property, which hosts summer camps for about 75 children during the summer, is mostly forested, Hunter said.

Jerry Coates, who was a camper in the 1970s and then a counselor and now serves on the camp's programming committee, helped with Sunday's planting as well as a clean-up project on Saturday.

The camp "made me who I am," he said.

Spending time at the camp in the mountains lets kids get away from "the whole hustle and bustle of the world," he said.

Linda Garrettson has been coming to the camp since 1973.

Her father was the camp's doctor for 14 years, she said, and Garrettson brought her own children there, as well.

Like Coates, she said her experiences were formative in who she became, and her decision to be a teacher.

Garrettson said her group planted about 10 trees Sunday morning.

American chestnuts were a critical tree species for the local ecosystem and for Frederick County until the blight hit, Hunter said.

Chestnut wood was good for building, and the nuts were used at local tanneries.

Farmers would also drive their hogs into the mountains to fatten them on chestnuts before taking them to market, he said.

The American chestnut's method for reproducing before the blight was very simple, said Bruce Levine, of the American Chestnut Foundation.

The nuts would drop and be carried away by squirrels and other animals, he said.

"Ecologically, the tree expects 99% of its nuts to be eaten," Levine said.

But those that weren't eaten were buried or dropped, and brought a new generation of trees.

It's hard to describe the American chestnut's importance before so many died off, said Robin Page, a master naturalist who participated Sunday.

Running up and down the East Coast and as far west as Missouri and eastern Kansas, it was said that a squirrel could run from Maine to Georgia using only the tops of chestnut trees, she said.

But their natural habitat seems to be in forests like the ones around the Quaker camp.

"They like to be in the hills. They like this rocky, elevated soil," Page said.

Follow Ryan Marshall on Twitter: @RMarshallFNP