Chestnut Fans on the Trail

The American Chestnut tree (and its long-hoped-for recovery) is is subject of Joanne Kittle's article "Where there be mountains, there be chestnuts" in the 3 May 2007 issue of the Union Sentinel from Blairsville, GA.

The Appalachian Trail connection comes at two spots: at the beginning she writes that

"One Appalachian through-hiker counted more than 40,100 growing [chestnut] trees on his hike in 1999."

And the second spot is this:

"Next year, 2008, will be the 25th anniversary of the American Chestnut Foundation with celebrations planned. One of the events will be at Neel's gap and another event will be a walk of the entire Appalachian trail with volunteers carrying chestnut "batons" which will be passed on from one to another and counting of the number of saplings and trees on the trail. It is moving to see the sprouts as one walks the trail but also sad in that most of the saplings succumb to the blight after they grow about 12 feet tall."

Of course, more chestnut trees would be a good thing. But would it mean more white tail deer, too? Or would they go back to eating chestnuts and not stripping the forest understory?