Show college hides hideso chestnut trees from north carolina plague RALEIGH N C like modern noahs fleeing before the deluge of a deadly blight botanists at north carolina state college are rearing young chestnut trees here tremulously hopeful ul that uie ibe asiatic blight will not find them out this far from the chestnuts natural habitat when the scourge has killed the last tree in the highlands and has no further victims to teed feed upon the young trees thriving on the campus here will be available tor for the eons bons long task of replenishing the ear earth th they adu not have long to wait two decades ago the chestnut was one of north carolinas most lordly trees highly prized as lumber it also was valuable for chemical extracts and tor for pulp but chiefly it was beloved because of its fruit the succulent chestnut twenty five years ago mountain m wagons drawn by oxen brought full loads of he chestnuts down into the foothill towns making trips which lasted a week or two once furnished dread bread large easily cracked and alas oftentimes wormy the chestnut was almost the official nut of 0 north carolina to the cherokees of the kles the chestnut was a bradl dional food and the meat of the I 1 out was dried ground into a meal and made into bread destruction Destruct iori of f the chestnut ivas was a calamitous vent event to the indians about 1804 an oriental fungus known as End othla appeared on the trees and with appalling speed swept through new E england and entered the south it attacked attack edthe the bark of the american chist chestnut nut girdled the trunk and killed the tree with amazing dispatch the fungus was very prolific and its seed feed so light that every breeze wafred wafted it on its lethal journey now in 1939 great splotches of gray trunks in the live forests of the blue ride mountains bear witness to the arboreal tragedy more than da per cent of north carolinas chestnut trees are dead or dying A few survive but rather by chance than resistance and they too are doomed every effort to halt the scourge failing ailing forestry men at the state college several years ago transplanted healthy trees here miles from the chestnut belt after four years the young trees are healthy and thriving and their guardians speculate that when the blight ha has s run its course their thin little line of sprouts will be the progenitors ot of another mighty chestnut forest in north carolina |