Chestnut Hill Outdoors: The Dunstan Chestnut Story

By Justin Stakes

Columbus, GA -(AmmoLand.com)- This is the story of one of the worst ecological disasters ever to hit North America.

And it’s the story of how hunters have a chance to mitigate that disaster – and greatly improve the mast production of their own hunting land – thanks to Chestnut Hill Nursery & Orchards.

It is said that in the 1700s a squirrel could have run through treetops from Illinois to Delaware without ever having to touch the ground – that’s how extensive and dense the primeval forest was in the eastern third of North America. Today, if you stop at a lookout over the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, you might think that you are catching a glimpse of what the forest must have been like.

But you’d be wrong: what you see is a very different, and much less productive, kind of forest. That’s because in the 1700s, 25 percent of all trees – and a higher percentage of the biggest trees – were American Chestnuts.

Today, American Chestnuts are almost extinct. Once the source of the highest quality mast for game animals and birds – and one that was much preferred …Read the Rest

Source:: AmmoLand