The American Chestnut Foundation

Imagine a tree that served the people of eastern North America for centuries, a tree that made up a quarter of the hardwood population from Maine to Mississippi. Imagine a tree that provided food that was virtually fat free, high in good proteins, cholesterol free and nutritionally similar to brown rice; a nut that was the single most important food source for a wide variety of wildlife from bears to birds. Imagine a wood that was highly rot-resistant and straight-grained, good for homes and furniture that was strong like oak but grew quickly, like pine. Imagine a tree that served our forefathers from cradle to grave.
This was and is the American chestnut, castanea dentata.

It has been written about by Thoreau and Henry Ward Beecher; painted by Wyeth, studied by Pinchot; tended by Theodore Roosevelt.

And in 1904, it was changed forever.
A devastating blight was unwittingly brought from China and within 50 years, 4 billion American chestnuts were dead or dying. It was stricken from the landscape of America.

This could be the end of the story. Another species lost to human interference, like countless others before it.
But it isn’t the end.
It is the beginning.

TACF: changing the possibilities, restoring the promise.

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Imagine a tree that served the people of eastern North America for centuries, a tree that made up a quarter of the hardwood population from Maine to Mississippi. Imagine a tree that provided food that was virtually fat free, high in good proteins, cholesterol free and nutritionally similar to brown rice; a nut that was the single most important food source for a wide variety of wildlife from bears to birds. Imagine a wood that was highly rot-resistant and straight-grained, good for homes and... (read more)