Nothing but Love for Chestnuts

Why am I writing about chestnuts on Thanksgiving, you ask? Because I'm all about the chestnut. It requires none of the pecan's high maintenance and it thrives in the Georgia climate.

It's a marvel of nature too; one tree produces 55 to 110 pounds of nuts per season, and the nuts are delicious! Also, trees start bearing in only four to five years, compared to about ten years for a pecan tree. I myself have grown them from seed and had excellent results.

I'm not the only one in love with chestnuts though. Here's Carroll D. Bush, from the Nut Grower's Handbook (1946): The greatest tree food crop of the world - the chestnut - is not grown within the United States, except very little. We can grow it. We will some day. It is a crop that would pay on our eastern hill farms. It would change much of our so-called "marginal land" from unprofitable to profitable farming land. Just now a few people, regarded as cranks, are trying to grow it.

I proudly consider myself a chestnut crank, and I hope you'll join me.

The noble chestnut, here in Connecticut.