BECAUSE THEY AREN'T JUST GREAT TREES...:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0807/p02s01-sten.html>Chestnut tree poised for comeback: A hybrid, 25 years in the making, is designed to resist a devastating blight. (Mark Clayton, 8/07/07, The Christian Science Monitor)

Hidden on a country road that winds through rural Meadowview, Va., is a 93-acre plot of ground that holds the future of the American chestnut: about 120 hybrid saplings. The trees – going on two years old and four feet tall – are considered "fully blight resistant" and are thriving.

At this rate, by 2010 there should be enough "holy grail" nuts to begin planting in selected test sites in national forests. By 2015, production from such plots is expected to grow exponentially – yielding enough nuts to allow for full-blown replanting – if everything goes well.

...but sources of one of the exquisite playthings of childhood.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 6, 2007 10:17 PM