Northern Woodlands

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American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree

Somewhere in a marsh in northern Ohio stands an 85-foot-tall American chestnut tree. The existence of this tree, one of only a handful of its kind to survive chestnut blight, remained a secret until just this spring, and officials in Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources still won’t reveal its exact location.

The discovery of an American chestnut would not have made news at the turn of the twentieth century. These tall, leafy trees, members of the beech family, once dominated forests all along the eastern seaboard. But in 1904, a forester in New York City’s Zoological Park noticed that a previously healthy chestnut tree seemed to be dying. With the help of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, park staff soon concluded that the culprit was a fungus. At first, there didn’t appear to be great cause for concern. By the next spring, however, the fungus had spread to almost every chestnut tree in the park. Over the next few decades, the blight killed billions of trees from Maine to Georgia.

In American Chestnut, science writer Susan Freinkel recounts the discovery of chestnut blight and the ongoing attempts to save the species. Botany did not come naturally to Freinkel – “I’m not someone who hugs trees or talks to them,” she writes – but over the course of her research, she came to understand the importance of the chestnut to both the country’s landscape and its history.

Efforts to save the chestnut, she says, require “a marriage of science and passion.” So, Freinkel provides both a clear discussion of the science itself and compelling descriptions of the people doing the research, from the gruff forester who runs a breeding program on a farm in Connecticut to the enthusiastic scientists engaged in cutting-edge biotechnology work.

Some of the earliest attempts to tackle chestnut blight involved cross-breeding American trees with Japanese and Chinese chestnuts. Asian species of the tree had developed resistance to the blight over centuries of coexistence, so these efforts seemed promising, but the resulting trees rarely topped 50 or 60 feet, only half the height of some American chestnuts.

Similar efforts continue today, and other strategies have also emerged. In the mid-twentieth century, researchers found that European chestnuts seemed to resist the fungus better than American chestnuts, despite not having the natural immunity of Asian species. The explanation turned out to be a pathogen that attacks the fungus. Since that discovery, scientists have worked to use this fungal flu against the blight in the U.S.

More recently, some scientists have experimented with implanting genes that might offer resistance to the blight into chestnut DNA. Although the technology behind bioengineering seems likely to continue to improve, Freinkel worries that a transgenic tree would have unintended environmental consequences. She also fears that a successfully engineered chestnut tree would be used as propaganda by industry groups in support of their work to create trees with specific traits, such as low lignin content. “Intrigued as I am by the possibilities offered by biotechnology,” she writes, “I can’t help but wonder whether the real question is not if it can work, but whether I want it to.”

None of these or the other attempts Freinkel discusses has yet resulted in complete success. But regardless of whether an antidote is ultimately found, Freinkel thinks we can learn from the fate of what she calls a “perfect tree.” Perhaps, she says, “the chestnut can instruct us about the terrible fragility of even the mightiest species, including our own.”

Amos Esty

© 2008 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author’s consent.

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Build a Classic Timber-Framed House

The Timber-Frame Home

By Tedd Benson
Taunton Press, 1997

Timber framing has become very popular the Northeast in the past 35 years as people have rediscovered the beauty and history of this traditional craft. Here are two books that have been touchstones of this movement.

Timber framing involves constructing a building skeleton of large posts and beams connected with wooden pegged joints. This style of construction was the standard for most of the 1800s; trees were hewn or pit-sawn on site, the joinery then cut, and then all hands gathered for a raising. The method, though artful, is also relatively slow and labor intensive. The advent of mass-produced 2x4 and 2x6 lumber and cheap nails in the late 1800s meant that “stick framing” became cheaper than timber framing. Timber framing fell out of favor and the craft was largely forgotten.

Then came the back-to-the-land movement of the early ’70s, which found both romance and practicality in the old way. Exposed timbers made a building’s structure palpable and the sense of shelter more real. Some people wanted to find builders who could bring this old style into modern homes, and builders responded. Others came to see that the method offered them the possibility of building their own houses entirely by hand.

Jack Sobon’s book, Build a Classic Timber-Framed House, is for the do-it-yourselfer. He starts with a classic “hall and parlor” house design and walks you step-by-step through the building process. His explanations and pictures cover just about every detail.

My recommendation for someone considering their own timber-frame project would be to read this book first and then take a weeklong, basic timber-framing workshop at such a place as the Yestermorrow School. Those classes take a stack of timbers and turn them into a completed timber frame that will become some lucky person’s guest cabin, pavilion, or other structure. Such classes form the heart of Sobon’s book, covering timber layout and cutting, tools, and safe raising practices.

His book will then serve as the perfect way to solidify and expand upon the lessons of the week. At the same time, these classes give the opportunity to touch on some of the new materials, techniques, and tools that have emerged since Sobon wrote. These classes also will help someone find the further resources that are needed to take on a project and bring it to completion.

Tedd Benson’s book, The Timber-Frame Home, takes a broader, more client-oriented view. The first part of the book talks about the evolution of frames and reflects at length on what it is about timber frames that gives them their appeal. Gorgeous pictures drive these points home. He then describes the different types of frames and roof systems and discusses their various advantages. With those pieces in mind, Benson writes about the challenge of residential design in general and of timber-frame houses in particular. The art of designing a frame to accommodate someone’s needs, and of letting the frame’s requirements and subtle magic cycle back to new insight about how the frame will shape the perception of the whole, is elegantly presented.

Beyond that, there is a very good discussion about enclosure systems (what actually makes the walls of the house, if the frame is to be exposed), plumbing and wiring, foundations, finishing details, and more. A lot has changed since this book was published in 1997, but it still covers the fundamentals that are important today. If you are considering hiring someone to build for you, this book will give you the questions to ask and a method to follow in achieving the best possible result. You won’t get details of how to cut joinery from his book, but you will definitely get an appreciation for the joiner’s craft.

As fuel prices rise, there will be an ever-greater desire to build from materials immediately at hand. Timber framing elegantly meets that need, and these two books will continue to spread this good news.

David Hooke

© 2008 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author’s consent.

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The Northeast Passage

It’s a positive spin on the long canoe trip. No signs of the hypothermia that can result from an early spring downpour or dunking. No welts from the blackfly or mosquito attacks of summer. No images of canoeists doggedly, and awkwardly, pulling their crafts through shallows during an autumn dry spell.

Clyde H. Smith’s latest book, Northeast Passage: A Photographer’s Journey Along the Historic Northern Forest Canoe Trail, ignores all the minor irritants and celebrates the joy and wonder of it all. And why shouldn’t it? There is much to please the eye on this new river trail, which was conceived just a few years ago and runs 740 miles along rivers and lakes from northern Maine to eastern New York.

Smith, who died this past summer, was a devoted canoeist and one of the region’s renowned photographers. This, his last book, one of 21 that he has produced over decades, rejoices in his watery adventures along this unusual trail. His book offers beautiful scenes of the plants and animals of the region, the icy waters of winter, meandering stretches of flat water, roiling rapids, billowing clouds, and distant mountains. His color photographs would encourage any paddler to gather up his gear.

Northeast Passage is published by Thistle Hill of North Pomfret, Vermont, with help from the Avenir Foundation, which was established by the descendants of the late Homer Dodge, former president of Norwich University in Vermont. Smith describes Dodge as the “dean” of whitewater canoeing. Smith dedicated the book to Dodge, whom he met in Burlington, Vermont, in the early 1960s, just as whitewater canoeing was taking off as a sport.

Northeast Passage was produced in partnership with the Northern Forest Canoe Trail organization, of Waitsfield, Vermont, a nonprofit group that organized in 2000 to map out and promote the route that now runs from Fort Kent, Maine, to Old Forge, New York. The modern world intrudes on stretches of the trail, but Smith’s photographs show that much remains wild. There are sights any seventeenth-century fur trader would have recognized. Scenes are inviting even where civilization intrudes.

In addition to the photographs, the author has written four short essays with seasonal themes, and he offers a helpful double-page map of the complete route.

The introduction to Northeast Passage is written by Tom Slayton, editor emeritus of Vermont Life magazine, a devoted canoeist who traces Smith’s interest in the outdoors – his father was a fire warden on Cardigan Mountain in New Hampshire – from youth to late adulthood.

In Smith’s Northeast Passage, you’ll also see families setting up camp, paddlers gliding around rocks, sunrises and sunsets, moose staring at the camera, migrating snow geese, a happy young fisherman with trout. There are close-ups of daisies, a barred owl, and golden maple seedlings in the fall of the year. Just no mosquitoes, and that may be all for the good.

Dirk Van Susteren

© 2008 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author’s consent.