An Historical Reference for Chestnut Introductions Into North America | Article

Home > Woodworking Times > An Historical Reference for Chestnut Introductions Into North America

An Historical Reference for Chestnut Introductions Into North America

When people find chestnut trees of any size growing in the New England woods they frequently call The Experiment Station, sure that they have found an American chestnut tree resistant to chestnut blight. It usually turns out that this tree is Asian or an Asian hybrid. In previous centuries, chestnut trees were very important to the people on this continent. They took advantage of "new and different" material much more than is generally realized, and were planting Asian species long before chestnut blight was discovered in New York City in 1904 (see Table 1). The species of chestnut are listed in Table 2. Since I am often faced with the problem of telling an enthusiast that some nice tree is not Castanea dentata, I have started compiling some information about the history of chestnut importations into North America.

European Chestnut Trees

The first recorded importations were those of Thomas Jefferson, who brought cuttings to his home, Monticello, and grafted them on native American chestnut trees. Eleuthere Irenee DuPont de Nemours, who in 1799 moved from France to Bergen Point, New Jersey, and then to Brandywine, Delaware, brought many European chestnuts (Castanea sativa) with him, imported more later, hybridized lots, and planted them all over the area. By 1889 some of the popular varieties of C. sativa and sativa X dentata hybrids were: `Anderson' `Bartram' `Comfort' `Cooper' `Corson' `Dager' `Darlington' `duPont' `Miller' `Moncur' `Numbo' `Paragon' `Ridgely' `Scott' `Spanish' and `Styer'.

Japanese Chestnut Trees

In 1876, S. B. Parsons of Flushing, New York, imported a few trees of Castanea crenata and sold them as `Parson's Japan'. Two of these are still growing very well in Connecticut; one in Old Lyme on the grounds of the Bee and Thistle Inn, and one in Cheshire behind the Congregational Church. Major importation of Asian chestnut trees began in 1882 when William Parry, of Parry, New Jersey, imported 1,000 grafted C. crenata trees. Parry selected `Parry' as his best, but sold several other varieties as well.

In 1886 Luther Burbank imported 10,000 nuts from Japan for selecting and hybridizing. In 1893 his "New Creations" catalog advertised his 'New Japan Mammoth' chestnut and he sold three seedlings to Judge Andrew J. Coe of Connecticut. These were sold in 1897 to J. H. Hale of South Glastonbury, Connecticut, who named them `Coe', `Hale', and `McFarland' and sold them from his nursery and through catalogs starting in 1898.

There were 21 varieties of Japanese chestnuts listed in T. H. Powell's 1898 Bulletin (#42, Delaware Agricultural Experiment Station). These were discussed in gardening magazines such as The Rural New Yorker, and advertised in plant and seed catalogs. Mail order spread these Asian trees all over the country. By the turn of the century Asian and European chestnut trees were available by mail from many nurseries such as Burbank (California), Parry Bros. (New Jersey), Hale (Connecticut), Kerr (Maryland), Biltmore (North Carolina), Boehmer (Japan), and the Yokohama Co. of New York and Tokyo (Table 1).

Chestnuts were being grown as a crop in many places, and some of the eastern U.S. companies in business by 1900 were:

The Albion Chestnut Company, Clementon, NJ
150 acres of stump land grafted with sativa (`Numbo') and crenata

J. W. Beecher, Pottsville, PA
80 acres with 18,800 grafted trees

Arthur J. Collins, Moorestown, NJ
30 acres, mostly with grafted `Alpha' crenata, and `Paragon' sativa

Henry W. Comfort, Fallsington, PA
56 trees on one acre, mostly `Numbo'

J. T. Lovett, Emilie, PA (near Trenton, NJ)
about 22 acres with 1,200 grafted `Paragon' and 25,000 seedlings

The Mammoth Chestnut Company, Clementon, NJ
about 150 acres, mostly grafted `Numbo'

Samuel C. Moon, Morrisville, PA
originator of `Numbo' = Magnum Bonum sativa

Parry Brothers Nursery, Cinnaminson, NJ
many crenata seedlings and selections

Coleman K. Sober, Lewisburg, PA
300 acres, sprouts grafted with `Paragon'

Joseph Williams, Riverton, NJ
7,500 dentata seedlings planted, many grafted with crenata and sativa scions

Chinese Chestnut Trees

Chinese chestnuts are not mentioned in the early catalogs that I have seen, but plant explorers were sending seed to the U.S. In 1903, Dr. Charles Sprague Sargent sent C. mollissima seed to The Arnold Arboretum near Boston, Massachusetts, for their collection. No trees from this seed lot have survived. In 1908, E. H. Wilson sent them seeds of his collection #551, Castanea henryi from Western Hupeh, China. This was planted in their collection as tree #6849, which survived better than most imports of this species, but finally died in 1934. Cuttings were sent to the U.S. Plant Introduction Department in the Bureau of Plant Industry.

Around the turn of the century several plant explorers were traveling around the world collecting things not found in North America. These people were often careful observers of plant ecology and their notes make fascinating reading. When the Boxer Rebellion opened up China to exploration, several expeditions were made. The most famous explorers are probably Ernest H. "Chinese" Wilson who collected for an English Nursery and later for The Arnold Arboretum, and Frank N. Meyer who was hired by David Fairchild to explore for the U.S. Plant Introduction Division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The two had very different personal styles, and their travels resulted in vast numbers of importations. I have found only two certain survivors of Frank Meyer's chestnut imports. The Rochester (New York) Parks Department has a specimen of PI 36666 growing in their Durand-Eastman Park as #G 25, and there is one at the Bartlett Arboretum in Stamford, Connecticut, that was named as the cultivar 'Bartlett.'

Chestnut Blight

Chestnut Blight, or Chestnut Bark Disease is caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica, formerly called Endothia parasitica. Cankers were found on American chestnut trees lining the avenues of the Bronx Zoo in New York City in 1904. In 1907 and 1908 the fungus attacked other species of chestnut in the New York Botanical Garden. Rapid spread of the disease followed, and within 50 years the fungus was found throughout the native range of C. dentata; from Maine to Georgia, and west to the edge of Michigan.

In 1913, David Fairchild asked Frank Meyer to look for the disease in Asia, and Meyer reported that he had found it in early June. He wrote:

This blight does not by far do as much damage to the Chinese chestnut trees as to the American ones. Not a single tree could be found which had been killed entirely by this disease, although there might have been such trees which had been removed by the ever active and economic Chinese farmers.

Shear and Stevens grew cultures from Meyer's samples, and in July they inoculated the Chinese fungus into American trees near Washington, D.C. Rapid death of the sprouts confirmed that this similar-appearing fungus caused chestnut blight.

Meyer went to Japan in 1915 and was again first in finding chestnut blight. He wrote that the Japanese chestnut trees were generally more resistant to the blight disease than the Chinese chestnut trees that he had seen, and suggested:

This Japanese chestnut, Castanea japonica might be used as a factor in hybridization experiments together with American, European, and Chinese species to create immune or nearly immune strains of chestnuts.

Hybridization

Many people took up Meyer's suggestion, and hybrids made earlier to improve the orchard qualities of chestnut trees were examined for their resistance to chestnut blight.
Arthur H. Graves, of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, started planting chestnut trees and making hybrids in the early 1930's. Trees were planted on his property in Hamden, Connecticut, and on land owned by The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. His work was aided by Hans Nienstaedt and Richard Jaynes, who both did their doctoral research on chestnut at Yale University and The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. Now that we can keep American chestnut trees alive with biological control by hypovirulence, breeding can continue.

Species and hybrids of chestnut were distributed by The Experiment Station to home owners all over the northeastern U.S. Often records of origin are lost, tags are unreadable, or row lines are confused by the planting efforts of squirrels. I try to identify the trees found by citizens, using leaf and twig characteristics. The pure species are easy, but the complicated hybrids must sometimes be a case of "best guess."

My file on chestnut history gets larger every year, as I find yet another catalog or letter from the early days of this century. Many fine Asian trees have withstood 50 to 120 years of New England winters, bugs, and blight. We can use these in present and future breeding programs, as long as we remember to write it down for the people trying to puzzle this out 100 years from now.

Useful References

Trees:: Buckhout, W. A. 1896. Chestnut culture for fruit. Bulletin #36, The Pennsylvania State College Agricultural Experiment Station, State College, PA.; Frothingham, E. H. 1912. Second-growth hardwoods in Connecticut. U.S. Dept. Agric., Forest Service Bulletin #96, Washington, D.C.; Fuller, A. S. 1896. The Nut Culturist: A treatise on the Propagation, Planting and Cultivation of Nut-bearing Trees and Shrubs Adapted to the Climate of the United States. Orange Judd Co., New York.; Meyer, F. N. 1911. Agricultural explorations in the fruit and nut orchards of China. U.S. Dept. Agric., Bureau of Plant Industry Bulletin #204, Washington, D.C.; Powell, G. H. 1898. The European and Japanese chestnuts in the Eastern United States. Delaware College Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin #42, Newark, DE.; Zon, R. 1904. Chestnut in Southern Maryland. U.S. Dept. Agric., Bureau of Forestry Bulletin #53, Washington, D.C.
Blight:: Anderson, P. J. and Rankin, W. H. 1914. Endothia canker of chestnut. Cornell Univ. Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin #347, Ithaca, NY.; Fairchild, D. 1913. The discovery of the chestnut bark disease in China. Science 38:279-299.; Merkel, H. W. 1905. A deadly fungus on the American chestnut. NY Zool. Soc., 10th Ann. Rep., NY.; Murrill, W.A. 1908. The spread of the chestnut disease. J. NY Botanical Garden 9:23- 30.; Shear, C. L. and Stevens, N. E. 1913. The chestnut-blight parasite (Endothia parasitica) from China. Science 38:295-297.; Shear, C. L. and Stevens, N. E. 1916. The discovery of the chestnut-blight parasite (Endothia parasitica) and other chestnut fungi in Japan. Science 43:173-176.
People:: Cunningham, I. S. 1984. Frank N. Meyer: Plant Hunter in Asia. Iowa State Univ. Press; Ames, IA.; Fairchild, D. 1938. The World Was My Garden. C. Scribner's Sons, NY.; Sutton, S. B. 1970. Charles S. Sargent and the Arnold Arboretum. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA.; Sutton, S. B. 1974. In China's Border Provinces: The Turbulent Career of Joseph Rock, Botanist-Explorer. Hastings Co., NY.

**Table 1. Chestnut Trees By Mail-Order**
catalog	date	species	cost each, $
Reading Nursery Jacob W. Manning, MA	1900	American	0.50 to $1.00
J. T. Lovett Co. Little Silver, NJ	1888	'Japan Giant' Spanish American 'Numbo'	0.75 0.30 0.10 - 0.25 0.75
Storrs and Harrison Painesville, OH	1888	American 'Japan Giant' Spanish	0.50 0.50 - 0.75 0.50
Shady Hill Nursery F. L. Temple, Cambridge (Somerville), MA	1888/1889	American	0.10 - 0.35
Highlands Nursery H. P. Kelsey, Boston, MA	1899/1900	American	0.25
Biltmore Nursery Biltmore, NC	1900/1901	American	0.15 - 0.50
Mt. Hope Nursery Ellwanger and Barry, Rochester, NY	1897	C. Americana C. Japonica C. vesca	0.50 1.00 0.50
Elm City Nursery New Haven, CT	1901	American Spanish 'Numbo' Japanese	0.50 - 1.00 0.25 - 1.00 1.50 0.50 - 1.00
Fruitland Nurseries P. J. Berckmans, Augusta, GA	1900	American Spanish	0.25 - 1.00 0.25
Hale's Fruits J. H. Hale, South Glastonbury, CT	1903	Japanese hybrids (from Luther Burbank) 'Coe', 'Hale', 'McFarland'
C. B. Hornor and Son Mt. Holly, NJ	1897	American 'Numbo' 'Paragon'	0.25 - 0.35 0.75 1.00 - 2.50

**Table 2. Chestnut Species**
SECTION Castanea [three nuts per bur]
Castanea dentata (Marshall)	American chestnut
Castanea sativa Miller	European chestnut
Castanea crenata Siebold and Zuccarini	Japanese chestnut
Castanea mollissima Blume	Chinese chestnut
Castanea seguinii Dode	Chinese dwarf chestnut
SECTION Balanocastanon [one nut per bur]
Castanea pumila (Linnaeus) Miller variety pumila	Chinquapin, Bush Chestnut
variety ozarkensis (Ashe) Tucker	Ozark Chinquapin
SECTION Hypocastanon [one nut per bur]
Castanea henryi (Skan) Rehder & Wilson	Chinese Timber Chinquapin, or Henry Chinquapin

Return to "The Chestnut Story" Introduction

Chestnuts

An Historical Reference for Chestnut Introductions Into North America

Chestnuts And The Introduction Of Chestnut Blight

Oriental Chestnut Gall Wasp Found On American Chestnut Trees

Valuable Chestnut Germplasm In Connecticut

Chestnut Breeding In The United States

Sources Of Chestnut Trees 1998

For more information contact Sandra L. Anagnostakis, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Box 1106, New Haven, CT 06504, phone 203-974-8498, fax 203-974-8502