My parents have three (living) chestnuts on their property (I guess the blight missed them because the trees have been there for a very long time). Those chestnut burs are a real headache. If you ever make the mistake of stepping on one, you'll be pulling needles out of your foot for a while (imagine stepping on a sea urchin). Cleaning them up is also a pain (make a mistake and they'll go straight through leather gloves). I can't imagine if 4 out of 5 trees I saw dropped those things.

I loved playing chestnut/oak nuts as a kid. You can make all kinds of human/animal figures from the nuts! It's was a treasure trove of endless play for kids who didn't have access to ready made toys.

Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcyJOIQ8q_4

I remember reading somewhere that the high percentage of chestnut was likely due cultivation / encouragement of growth by Native Americans. I think it was in the book 1491. A plausible theory but hard to prove, I guess.

I think I read that, too. Makes some sense since among the trees in the northeast it is the only one that produces an edible mast crop. Definitely better than acorns.

The northeast has quite a variety of mast crops: Shagbark hickory, black walnut, butternut, beech (my favorite roasted but very small) and to a lesser extent hazelnut. But in its time the chestnut was by far the most consistent and prolific producer.

And an honorable mention to black cherry, a tree of the region with edible fruit.

Funny, in CT we had a bunch of these in our yard, but they never bore any fruit in our yard. We had some in Walla Walla where I went to college that would make so many you eat cherries for every meal for weeks.

Wow! Not every day that Walla Walla makes HN. Yes we have lovely trees here. There are several chestnut trees in the public parks, and I've long been curious to know if being in the west whether these trees avoided the blight, or are a different variety of chestnut.

Whitman? Or local?