Restoring America’s chestnut tree

Walhalla is a city with a Chestnut Street. But, like other parts of the eastern U-S, Walhalla has no chestnut trees. Until a blight wiped out the trees by the 1950s, the American chestnut populated eastern U-S forests and served as a food source for both animals and people. The U-S Forest Service believes it is a step closer to restoring the tree to the mountains of western North Carolina. There, researchers and partners planted close to 1,000 potentially-blight resistant American chestnut trees starting in 2009. Today most have survived, most are healthy and growing steadily.